Introduction
Since the telegraph ushered in the age of electronic media in the nineteenth century, writing has changed radically. Its position as the most important form of discourse, and the most influential technology, has been continually challenged by electronic forms. Early computers were patterned after familiar writing tools—consider the files and folders of the desktop interface. But today many of the media we use most often have no analogous form “off the wire”—email discussion lists, weblogs, and video games simply wouldn’t exist without computers.
How are computers and writing related? This incredibly complex question can be broken down into a number of smaller questions:
- How do computers, and new and older forms created with them, affect writing? How do long-established beliefs about writing influence these forms?
- Are computers a completely new form of technology, or just the latest advancement in the writing tools humans have produced for hundreds of years?
- In what ways do different technologies affect different people when they communicate?
- Why are there large differences between practical and theoretical or artistic applications of technology? Is this related to technology’s role in communication?
We will engage these and other questions by producing texts using computers, reading and discussing theoretical works about computers and writing, and by viewing a wide variety of computer-based media.
Required texts
- Lev Manovich, The Language of New Media
- Several essays, printed off the web; I will give these to you
- A course packet you have to buy (from Quickprinters on West Jackson)
Also, we will select a few computer games to play in class (if we can get them to run on the machines in Simpkins) or perhaps at a LAN party off-campus.