Reading Response to Prompt 3
How we play
The last three weeks’ reading assignments have all focused on technology. But how do Gaming, Wireless and Sound connect to composition and rhetoric? If we use the traditional definitions, it would seem that none of them do, but as we develop new mediums for expression, we have to develop new ways to examine them critically and discover how we use these new mediums to communicate and as artists and scholars.
In the Boghost article on gaming, he focused of how game players can be educated and entertained during play. By playing these persuasive games, users are not only being educated, they are also constructing a narrative based on the terms of the “assignment,” that being whatever reality the game designer has decided to create.
In the Rheingold article on wireless technology, we saw that mobile technology can be used to organize people in protest or just find out which movie to go see. Because wireless communication is taking over many of the functions written communications (today’s flyers for rallies or parties are becoming text messages sent through social phone trees), we need to expand the idea of what composition is.
In the Vioda article on sound, the discussion focused on what the music people shared (their “playlist” to stay on topic) said about them and what they could do to control that impression. Controlling impressions has a very direct link to composition. In a multimedia environment, choosing what music to share with a group is similar to choosing what type of vocabulary to incorporate into an essay. Is the soundtrack of a movie less important that the script?
Is play a legitimate subject for critical exploration? I would say yes. Examining how we play may shed more light on our communication and rhetorical habits than more serious interactions. It seems we play much more often than we study.
-M. Markham
