Journal #4 - Eric Calderon

I feel that the biggest relationship between writing, technology, and circulation that they differentiate through different time periods. Usually, if you need a specific piece of writing to be disbursed to the people of the world, you need to rely on popular forms of technology. If you're trying to do it in the most effective way possible, you have to be up to date with the most accessible and popular form of technology, similar to the way Jolly, Penny and Dadas did in different time periods. Especially in today's social media influenced society, where videos, pictures, and even pieces of writing can be circulated millions of times within days, it makes it that much more important for people to realize that what they set out into cyber space can be spread and analyzed faster than ever before. This can be both good and bad.

A more recent example of this is when several videos that demonstrated police brutality, specifically within inner cities, went viral. I remember seeing these same videos being shared by people that I follow on twitter, and people that I’m friends with on Facebook. Along with the videos being rapidly spread throughout different types of social media, opinions on these videos were also being stated by different through status updates, and also videos. This also enabled writers to go and write articles to either state an opinion on this subject, or even call to promote a change that is needed within the United States. Which is what was explained in “(Re) Tweeting in the service of protest: Digital composition and circulation in the Occupy Wall Street movement” how the emergence of social media, specifically Twitter, can help escalate a specific movement. Although they argue that single tweets won’t necessarily change the movement, it’s the dialogue that is created through these 140 characters that help create quick circulation throughout the internet.

Throughout generations, there has been a substantial advance in how writing can be advanced throughout technology, which can increase the level of circulation of a specific piece of writing, whether it’s a lengthy news article that is attempting to take a stance that promotes change for a certain cause, or if it’s a 140 character tweet, new advances in technology have significantly altered the way we, the public, can see and receive writing through technology.