These two questions are the heart of what it means to do research in Rhet/Comp in the age of the internet. Instead of offering answers to these questions (answers I don't really have), I think it might be more useful to look at the intersections of digital technology, writing, and research through a few illuminating quotes from my reading for my qualitative methods class:
The problem of invisible technology: "But [other research methods] have an inherent weakness in that they tend to include only those events that stand out as significant for writers after some time has elapsed. For those of us interested in the way composing processes are mediated by multiple technologies, this can be an especially vexing problem. Writers working fluently do not usually notice the role that technology plays in their moment-by-moment practices unless these technologies cause breakdowns.” (Hart-Davidson “Studying the Mediated Action of Composing”)
We live in an age in which people no longer pay too much attention to the technology that allows them to connect to the internet, make a cellphone call or do one of the other thousand activities actively mediated by digital technology. Thus, one of the struggles of understanding how technology affects composing processes is that those processes must first be made opaque in order to be studied. If researchers were to rely only on what users/composers identify as important, we might miss important insights into the relationship between technology and writing.
On how the internet acts simultaneously as a chora for culture and as an artifact of the cultural practices it mediates: “As ethnographies of mediated practices emerged, scholars began struggling with the relationship between online and offline contexts, both theoretically and methodologically. Some viewed the Internet as a new kind of “third place” with its own cultural dynamics (Bruckman and Resnick 1995; Soukup 2006), while others saw the Internet as a tool that inflected everyday life in interesting ways (Haythornthwaite and Wellman 2002). Christine Hine (1998: 14-40) articulated this best when she explained that the Internet can be understood as both a culture and a cultural artifact. As a culture, the Internet possesses a set of norms and practices that are unique and that should be studied separately from unmediated life. As a cultural artifact, the Internet exists within the broader cultural context in which people live. Which approach ethnographers take fundamentally shapes their fieldwork and analyses. This divide is one of the core concerns underlying Internet ethnography and raises all sorts of methodological questions about boundaries, privacy, and ethics (Buchanan 2004; Markham and Baym 2008).” (Dana Boyd “Taken Out of Context”)
Composing on the internet is different than composing on paper or in a word processing program because of the responsive nature of networked communication. The internet itself has different rules and values than other contexts, so it is important for researchers to develop ways of seeing and understanding online activity that make allowances for its unique cultural practices. One of the ways that the internet is unique as a site of composition is that it acts (sometimes simultaneously) as a culture and as an artifact of that culture.
Graduate students experience a conflict between professional activities and online activities even as an online professional presence become increasingly necessary to participate in scholarly conversations: “Even in the moments when digital writing seems the most powerful, the shame or general lack of comfort that Phillip and Alyssa associate with doing something like checking email or Facebook while doing “real writing” is worth our attention. The inability to separate personal and professional writing in the digital age is a struggle many of us experience on a daily basis. Our pre-established ideas about what writing—and writing toward the end of professionalization—should look and feel like often clash with the experience of writing with computers.” (Leon and Pigg “Graduate Students Professionalizing in Digital Time/Space”)
Graduate students in Rhet/Comp learn early on that without an online presence it’s difficult to participate in disciplinary conversations. There is still conflict, however, over whether that participation is public or private, professional or social, and because of this conflict, many of experience guilt and confusion over the amount of time we spend in networked and mediated environments.
On how digital environments complicate the way writers understand their audience as well as their own subject position: “These differing perceptions of sender and receiver—educational plea versus potentially angry attack—points to the complicated nature of flaming and raises a number of questions. How should we define and understand flaming? By the intent of the sender? The reaction of the receiver? The effect of the ‘flame’ on the discussion? By some other criterion altogether?” (McKee “Your Views Showed True Ignorance”)
While the internet has its own set of cultural practices (see above), these practices and values are sometimes in conflict with one another. Cultural practices are also incredibly local. What’s appropriate on Facebook, for example, isn’t necessarily appropriate on a BB discussion forum or on a blog meant to offer you a professional identity.
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