Writing and New Media, the Academy and Popular Discourse
Casey Rountree

Facilitator: Doug Hesse
Panelists: Kathleen Blake Yancey, Florida State University; Eric Fretz, Director, Center for Community Engagement & Service Learning, University of Denver; Erin Meyer, Outreach Librarian, Research Center Coordinator, University of Denver

The session began with Doug Hesse introducing each of the panel members. Each panelist then spoke briefly about the ways they see new media relating to their work.

Erin Meyer said her background as a research librarian leads her to think of writing as something that begins with research. These days the definition of what constitutes a source is much more challenging to discern, and the staff members at Penrose Library dont feel as if they know entirely what various departments on DUs campus want from their students or the library staff when the term research is used. In part, this is because of the rapid evolution of new media and the tools available to access them. The librarians also feel a push to integrate new forms of media and technology into student research and classroom instruction.

Eric Fretz commented that the distinction between what we might call essayistic writing and new media writing is meaningful to him in his position, with most community-based writing tied more closely to new media writing. He sees writing about community-based experiences as different and oftentimes more compelling than traditional academic writing. When its at its best, such writing assignments are more than just reflections on those community-based experiences; the best assignments push students to think about situations relating to their own experiences and challenge them to identify the best methods of communicating their ideas.

Hesse said he sees a growing value placed on the visual elements of writing, which relates specifically to new media. Community-based writing often serves as evidence of this.

Kathleen Yancey said her university is currently expanding its media production facilities on campus to fit with the trend Hesse mentioned. She said she strives to connect the research her students do more directly to their writing, integrating it into writing, instead of just having the research support the writing. Despite what their instructors might assume, students today often dont have a lot of experience with brick-and-mortar libraries and not many skills relating to academic research. Then, when we add new media and things such as community engagement activities, we are dramatically widening the curriculum, which creates greater challenges for students and instructors.

Ann Dobyns, a chair of the DU's English Department, was in the audience member for this panel. She brought up the fact that students often dont know why they are doing research, other than the fact that their instructor requires it. Instructors will get better results from students if they provide the context for research, as well as helping students evaluate sources and ask and answer questions about what research does and does not provide in various situations.

Yancey noted that we are seeing a rapid growth in the number of sources available, including a large number of sources created by citizens (i.e. non-professional researchers). As an example, she brought up a website she had visited recently that was created by an individual who has a specific medical condition where he posts his own experiences with the disease and his medical treatments. He is certainly an expert on what it is like to have the condition, but he is not a medical doctor. Such sources are challenging for students to evaluate.

An audience member then asked Yancey, If we are encouraging students to be researchers, and some of these new communication mediums allow their work to be placed alongside professional work, how can we help students move beyond the stage of 'relativism' you spoke of in your keynote address (where information is no longer thought of a being just 'right' or 'wrong' but where all information is given equal weight), and into a more complex, evaluative understanding of information, which you saw as the goal of reasoned thought?

Yancey said that making that distinction is important and noted that the situation itself provides instructors with an opportunity to discuss the reasons some sources are preferred over others, how we make those choices, and why we reach those conclusions.

An audience member noted the way young people are using new media in powerful ways today. For instance, Facebook, YouTube, text messaging, and other media have become very effective ways to organize individuals and share information, and it would seem that these media have the potential to be far more powerful in the future.

Another audience member replied that he is well aware of the fact that students know how to use new media, but he isnt sure they really understand them. There is a worry that we are missing an opportunity to study new media and have students critique them as well.

Yancey said she often uses new media to put students into newer, unfamiliar situations, in an effort to force students to think about something familiar from a different perspective. As an example, she had students write a short poem, and then record themselves performing it on digital video, which the class then watched. She said the assignment really had nothing to do with the medium of digital video, but having students perform these tasks made it easy to illustrate just how challenging it is to write a good poem.

Meyer mentioned that not all students have a lot of knowledge about how to create work in these new forms of media, such as designing a wiki or creating and posting a blog, etc. This results in instructors encountering difficulties if and when they require students to use these skills.

An audience member posed the question of whether or not a writing program like the one at DU should include new media in its curriculum.

Yancey replied that maybe the best way to do this would be to ask students to ponder when and where they could/should/shouldnt include new media components (like hyperlinks in a document, a Google Maps image, a video clip, etc), which would force them to confront the issues relating to their choices.

Hesse posed another key question: should a university really should get involved with new media? Since students typically already have an attraction to new media, perhaps it is less necessary for the academy to teach. Plus, the academy has a tendency to handle such innovations badly. For instance, teachers are more likely to teach the design process behind a Facebook page instead of a more meaningful integration or critique of it.

As a final comment, Fretz noted that technology can help with civic engagement by making civic projects much easier to bring to the publics attention and exposing these projects to a much wider audience. He also thinks civic engagement should be an important component of university assessment.

The Symposium Main Page