The Future of Writing in a Digital Age

Writing Development: Multiple Perspectives; Institute of Education, University of London, July 2-3, 2009

Doreen Starke-Meyerring, McGill University, Montréal, Canada

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Where Do Students Write?

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Contestation

Discipline, dismissal, or arrest of citizens/ students for their blogs, social networking sites, etc.

Lawsuits against students/ citizens by content industries over their use of digital files

Banning of social networking sites or Wikipedia from writing assignments in entire departments or universities (Cohen, 2007)

Student protests against privacy invading features of corporate-sponsored digital writing spaces, e.g. Facebook (Story and Stone, 2007; Calore, 2006)

Student protests against plagiarism detection software to police their writing and to generate corporate profits (CBC News, 2004; Glod, 2006).

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The materialities of writing

Writing as a technology:

“Whether it is the stylus of the ancients, the pen and ink of the medieval scribe, a toddler’s fat crayons, or a new Powerbook, technology makes writing possible” … “writing is technology” (Haas, 1996, p. xi).

Writing as material because of its existence through and as material artifacts

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…The materialities of writing

Digital writing spaces exist in and through technologiesNeed for integration of technology theory

Not neutral tools Highly political and therefore contested dynamic material

artifacts or systems of artifacts, whose design, use, and regulation are deeply implicated in reproducing, challenging, or reshaping existing social practices and orders (Benkler, 2006; Feenberg, 2002; Longford, 2005; Winner, 1986)

“Unacknowledged/ silent legislators” (Longford, 2005; Winner, 1986)

“Scenes of struggle” (Feenberg, 2002) Digital technologies as highly malleable contested:

constantly coded, recoded, regulated, re-regulated.; constantly in flux; subject to incessant contestation

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… The materialities of writing Socio-economic materialities of writing

The ways in which writing works to assemble, orchestrate, and organize human activity in communities, institutions, organizations, and societies (e.g., Artemeva and Freedman, 2006; Bazerman and Prior, 2004, 2005; Coe et al, 2002; Devitt, 2004; DeVoss and Porter, 2006; Horner, 2001; Wysocki et al., 2004; Paré, 2002, 2005; Schryer,

1993; Smart, 2007)

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… Materialities as highly contested Central question from a critical perspective:

In whose interest will emerging materialities of writing in digital environments be shaped and regulated, and who can participate in making decisions about the design, regulation, and use of digital writing spaces?

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Specific questions

How do the materialities of writing change in digital environments?

How are divergent interests in these changes negotiated?

What consequences do these changes have for the socioeconomic materialities of writing—for how writing organizes and regulates human activity?

What are the implications of these changes for writing development?

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Three key areas of contestation The struggle over equal access as a

precondition to writing in digital environments The struggle over the ownership and sharing

of written work The struggle over privacy and surveillance

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Contestation: Equal access

Key QuestionWho owns and controls access to publishing/writing technologies?

Who can say what to whom, under what conditions, and who decides (Benkler, 2006)?

Competing interestsCorporate/ government control of public sphere & profits versus robust public sphere and access to diverse perspectives

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… Contestation: Equal access

Print/ pre-digital materialities

Digital materialities

CentralizedCorporate/ government controlled media

Distributed"corrective effect" on corporate mass communication; "opportunities to monitor and disrupt centralized corporate/government media (Benkler, 2006)"writable culture" (Benkler, 2006)Examples

Question of net neutralityProject Censored

Access as coded into digital writing spaces/ technologies

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… Contestation: Equal access

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… Contestation: Equal access

Consequences for writers:

What kinds of voices and resources will writers be able to access, draw on, and engage with in their writing?

What kind of reach will writers have in these environments?

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Contestation: Ownership and sharing Key Question

Who owns written work? When and with whom can written work be shared and under what

conditions (e.g., free or for a fee?) What existing written work can writers access, build on, critique,

or otherwise draw on to create new knowledge, cultural products, innovation, etc.?

Competing interests Writers depend on their ability to draw on, critique, build on, or

"re-mix" existing work to create new knowledge, cultural products, and innovation

Incumbent industries with business models invested in print materialities depend on exclusive rights to distribution of work

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…Contestation: Ownership and sharingPrint/ pre-digital materialities Digital materialities

Exclusive rights of content producers/ distributors to written work

Ease of sharing and distributing files

ExamplesDRM (e.g., Adobe e-book)Corporate "education campaigns"Lawsuits (MPAA, RIAA, etc.)

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…Contestation: Ownership and sharing Corporate "education

campaigns" (e.g., MPAA—Motion Picture Association of America)

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…Contestation: Ownership and sharing

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…Contestation: Ownership and sharing Consequences for writers

What opportunities will writers have to research existing work, access files, compare and engage diverse perspectives, consider and build and build on more work than ever before?

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Contestation: Privacy & surveillance Key question

Under what conditions do writers write (e.g., to what extent are they subjected to censorship or surveillance/ self-censorship?)

Competing interestsPersonal data protection, robust public sphere without self-censorship versus government/ corporate control and monitoring and corporate profits from data collection

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… Contestation: Privacy & surveillancePrint/ pre-digital materialities

Digital materialities

Mass surveillance cumbersome

Ease of mass surveillanceDigital technologies have been designed to enable …

Massive access to messages and instantaneous surveillance.

Proliferation and transferability of personal data The stickiness of digital data Inconspicuous, unnoticeable data collection. Higher stakes (e.g., data collection for more

purposes, e.g., financial, insurance, employment, legal, business decisions about individuals)

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... Contestation: Privacy & surveillance

Illustration (ACLU)

Examples: Phorm European Data Retention Directive

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… Contestation: Privacy & surveillance Consequences for writers

To what extent will writers be able to participate in cultural production, in social activism, under what conditions, and with what consequences to themselves and society?

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Consequences of contestation Economic interests of incumbent industries

invested in print materialities have attempted to reshape or regulate digital technologies in ways that maintain and expand established print-based business models (e.g., data collection, surveillance, exclusive rights to written work, corporate control of public sphere)

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Implications for writing development Need for critical understanding of technologies

Not simply as a new neutral medium into which writing practices simply travel

But as highly political “scenes of struggle” (Feenberg, 2002), with competing interests vying over their shape

Need for the active engagement of writing teachers and researchers in the design, use, and regulation of digital writing environments

Need for reconsidering writing pedagogies and policies in educational institutions

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… Implications for writing development Pedagogies for critical engagement

Making highly contested nature of digital writing spaces visible—technologies as hidden in plain sight ("what is ubiquitous becomes transparent" (Haas, 1996, p. xi).

Supporting students in developing the technological-rhetorical sophistication needed to engage productively in robust deliberation in order to participate in shaping the design, use, and regulation of digital writing spaces

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… Implications: Questions for students, teachers, and researchers of writing What consequences do particular designs, pedagogies, and

policies for writing in digital environments (e.g., plagiarism policies, access or surveillance encoded in technologies) have for writers, the work they do, their ability to learn and develop as writers, and their participation in democratic deliberation and decision making?

What kinds of graduates do we envision from our programs and courses? Students "skilled in the use of technologies" or …?

To what extent do established pedagogies and institutional policies regulating writing reproduce the values, practices, assumptions, or notions of authorship rooted in print materialities?

What kinds of resources are available to support students and teachers of writing in examining the complex ways in which writing, along with the social orders it assembles, is enabled or constrained in different materialities?

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Debate

What questions arise from multiple perspectives for teachers and researchers of writing in digital environments?

How can they best be addressed from multiple perspectives?