JR #3: Violet Soliz

Writing, technology, & circulation all go hand in hand. One of the main purposes of writing is to communicate, and communicating is a form of circulating information. Electronic technology, for the purpose of this reflection, shares many different forms of writing, such as online newspapers or Facebook statuses, and social media helps the writings to circulate.

Writing itself can be classified as a technology. Technology can be defined as a means of creating, especially in the creation of knowledge. In this sense writing is technology because writing is used by authors to create knowledge, engaging the brain of the reader to analyze, respond, and question said knowledge, similar to how technology engages its users through physical manipulation to complete a task. Writing could also be said to physically manipulate because to read you use your cerebrum, or you manipulate your cerebrum to do the task, in this case reading texts across various mediums.

Writing communicates via electronic technology over many mediums. Television broadcasts, the Internet, apps on a cell phone: what they all have in common is that they’re all an electronic technology that display writing in one form or another and then is shared to the public. This sharing to the public is circulation, and is how writing reaches a large audience to inspire or lead to something more, something like a social movement. This process is circular and therefore never ending: when one is inspired by a text they create their own text as a contribution, and this then circulates and someone else gets inspired, and so forth A prime example of this is the #blacklivesmatter social movement, that while in reality began centuries ago, the use of technology, in this case a smartphone that allowed the Twitter app, allowed the hashtag to circulate and consequently become a widely known topic. To continue with the concept of Twitter, the social media app uses tweets as a form of writing. This clearly requires technology because one has to have access to a smartphone or computer to be able to tweet. Once a tweet is “tweeted”, it has the ability to be “liked” and/or “retweeted” by other Twitter users. This form of circulation via technology allows the tweeted text to be circulated quickly and efficiently, reaching many audiences.

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