TY - JOUR
T1 - Hacking the cool
T2 - The shape of writing culture in the space of New Media
AU - Stroupe, Craig
PY - 2007/11/26
Y1 - 2007/11/26
N2 - Beginning with a problematic assignment in a "New Media Writing" class, this article demonstrates, first, the significant, perhaps irreconcilable differences in the writing/reading environments of print as opposed to New Media: the interiority, on one hand, of the individual text implied in the "shape" of narratives and other elaborated verbal performances and, on the other hand, the mythic exteriority of networked, information space and the market logic of its "attention economy." These differences pose a challenge not only to the traditional practices of academic, literary, and professional discourse communities, but to what this article terms "writing culture"-that is, popular cultural practices and assumptions conditioned by the procedures and experience of textual elaboration. Examining student hypertexts, key critical works on New Media, web sites, and literary theory and history, this article suggests a solution to this challenge, arguing that the future development of online writing genres ultimately cannot depend on imposing written shapes on network space. Instead, a close analysis of a hoax from the auction site, eBay, suggests how parody can constitute a lens through which the Web's own generic conventions filter the critical/creative consciousness that has long epitomized writing culture.
AB - Beginning with a problematic assignment in a "New Media Writing" class, this article demonstrates, first, the significant, perhaps irreconcilable differences in the writing/reading environments of print as opposed to New Media: the interiority, on one hand, of the individual text implied in the "shape" of narratives and other elaborated verbal performances and, on the other hand, the mythic exteriority of networked, information space and the market logic of its "attention economy." These differences pose a challenge not only to the traditional practices of academic, literary, and professional discourse communities, but to what this article terms "writing culture"-that is, popular cultural practices and assumptions conditioned by the procedures and experience of textual elaboration. Examining student hypertexts, key critical works on New Media, web sites, and literary theory and history, this article suggests a solution to this challenge, arguing that the future development of online writing genres ultimately cannot depend on imposing written shapes on network space. Instead, a close analysis of a hoax from the auction site, eBay, suggests how parody can constitute a lens through which the Web's own generic conventions filter the critical/creative consciousness that has long epitomized writing culture.
KW - Cool
KW - Elaborationism
KW - Filtering
KW - Hypertext
KW - Narrative
KW - New Media
KW - Parody
KW - Shape
KW - Space
KW - Writing culture
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UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=36248941280&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.compcom.2007.08.004
DO - 10.1016/j.compcom.2007.08.004
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:36248941280
SN - 8755-4615
VL - 24
SP - 421
EP - 442
JO - Computers and Composition
JF - Computers and Composition
IS - 4
ER -