Journal #3-Jenna Kelley

Writing, technology, and circulation are all interconnected. For starters, one individual can write something with the use of technology and allow it to be circulated. What most people do not realize is that a tool for technology is not just a computer. It can also be a pen a paper. The device it is written on just acts as the medium for circulation. Through the readings that we had this week, we see how writing can be circulated through letters or even devices on the Internet. Margaretta Jolly uses the example of the Women’s Peace Movement to show us that these women used letter writing in order to create a community to support their cause. Their strong sense of community is what allowed these letters to be circulated in order to accomplish their goal. Moreover, Joel Penney and Caroline Dadas showed us a more modern sense of a community, a virtual community. They use the example of Twitter in order to spread the word about the movement known as Occupy Wall Street (OWS). They explain that writing through the technology of Twitter, creates a rapid circulation throughout the virtual community. They even prove that allowing tweets to only be a certain amount of characters (140) makes it almost purposeful to grab a reader’s attention for rapid circulation. Twitter also has the ability to retweet, quote tweets, and favorite tweets; therefore the virtual community is large and makes the author of the tweet having to consider an outside third party. Jolley can agree that letters are more personalized and more political, whereas the internet creates an imagined community that brings together separated physical borders through ways of communication. Through the literal and technological ways of communication, Jolley, Penney & Dadas showed us that no matter what medium an individual uses their writing to communicate, it could circulate to communicate a movement or even a personalized note. For example, letter writing personally reaches out to a person, newsletters can reach out to groups of people, and the use of Twitter reaches out to a third party of outsiders besides for whom it was meant to read it. Overall, writing, technology, and circulation are connected in that without one, you are unable to use the concept of the other.