Journal 3 - Van Williamson

I think writing and technology do a lot to show us just how ineffective we are at communicating our ideas to one another and how easily we can be divided. The media’s ability to circulate information allows them to have a say in the way we perceive reality, which can either bring us closer together or drive us apart from one another. A good example of this is at the end of the Jolly reading, when the author talks about Lynne Jones and her open letter to the mother she met at a parade/protest. It is a little heartbreaking that these two women were having a conversation where they were in a strong level of agreement, but once Jones and the rest of the protestors shed their disguises the mother turned on them. I think it’s possible she had been herded into her own sort of “virtual community” by way of the media and social conventions, where the label of “feminist” is conflated with a person who is overzealous and entitled. Both feminists and traditionalists try to circulate their own message: one that agitates the majority for a greater cause, and one that looks to demonize those who would try and change the world we live in.

The chain letter campaigns in the Jolly text are definitely a precursor to Twitter, which thus far seems to be the most effective way for people to construct identities and communities. The #hashtag system is really in the hands of the community, making it not as easy to manipulate. I think my favorite part about Twitter is that hashtags can be hijacked and separated from their original meaning, if there’s enough interest vested in pushing against it. I remember after the 2014 Isla Vista killings done by Elliot Rodger, when it was revealed that the murderer was trying to bring “retribution” to women because of his inability to find a girlfriend. Some men tried to disassociate themselves from their societal guilt with #NotAllMen, but this was quickly satirized by those who had a much stronger argument with #YesAllWomen. The original argument, that not all men are dangerous and it’s wrong to make someone feel bad about being a male, was quickly trounced by a counterargument contained within a single hashtag. Not all men are rapists, but yes all women have to deal with the constant threat of abuse and it’s foolish to remain voluntarily ignorant of that struggle.

Journal 3 Carly Gillingham

Writing and technology together establish a first and foremost important relationship. If we view writing in the more abstract way like how we discussed in class, as in viewing a pen and paper as a sort of technology, then technology has always been vital for writing. Technology allows for a myriad of different mediums in which writing can take form. Writing, as discussed in our first journal entry, can take the form of arbitrary things like jotted down notes, or it can be a profound way for poets and artists to express themselves or for journalists to convey an important idea to the public. This leads into the next term: circulation. If not for circulation, then an audience could not be reached. Nowadays, more advanced technology, especially social media and digital publishing, is vital to circulation. In a digital age, social media can have a great impact on how far ideas are circulated. American newspapers used to be available only in print, and therefore only to regional US citizens. Nowadays, western news outlets are available in digital form to people across the world. Penney & Dadas, in their article, discuss how tweeting and digital composition played important parts in the Occupy Wall Street movement. Another example where social media and modern technology played this kind of role is the Arab Spring, which consisted of a number of individual revolutions in the Arab states that were coined “twitter revolutions” due to how tweeting facilitated the movements. These movements were also facilitated by digital news media, especially Al Jazeera. So, the interconnectedness of writing, digital technology, and circulation can be seen in these examples. Jolly’s article, however, also shows us a different way that ideas can be circulated through writing without tools like Twitter. She discusses the “imaginary” community created by the circulation of the symbolic “web” during the women’s peace movement in England in the 1980s, a large part of which was played by letter-writing. Jolly writes, “The feminist peace protests … found a powerful resource for making virtual community in articulating a collective identity of ‘Greenham woman through personalized address and epistolary networking.” This shows a deeply identity-based, personal means of circulating ideas through writing. This example uses a more abstract/loosely defined form of technology that was discussed (pen and paper, symbolism), than the automatic definition that we now think of with the word “technology,” which constitutes something closer to social media and digital composition. Either way, both examples show how important each tool – writing, technology, and circulation – are to one another and the different ways in which one can facilitate the other.

Journal 3

     Writing, technology, and circulation all go hand-in-hand. Writing, the most important tool of all, allows us to freely express our opinions for the world to see. What this allows for is for writers to bring attention to problems occurring in the country such as injustices, war, and so on. With this being the "digital age," a large portion of writing is now available online. On Facebook and other social networking sites, users will share articles for different reasons - articles they find funny, articles about the school they attend, and articles about things they want their friends and family to be aware about. Often times, the media will not touch upon important things that are happening not only in the United States, but all over the world. That is why these three things go together so well. Social media allows for a major kind of circulation that we were never able to reach before the Internet, Facebook, Twitter, etc. existed.
     How does this affect how we live our lives? Now, instead of watching the news or reading the newspaper for our daily dose of what is going on in the world around us, our news info session is also blended with our "social hour." Before, Facebook used to be a place where people shared pictures, let their friends know what was going on, and share birthday messages. Although this still occurs, I believe that now the social aspect of Facebook and Twitter have now blended with information sharing. People see Facebook less as a diary and more as a tool to inform others about what is really important to them. This is how writing has an important relationship with technology and circulation. Without technology, these articles written by journalists and normal people alike, would never have been published online. With the invention of social media, we have the opportunity to share these articles we feel are important and should be read. This is how writing gets circulated, and I believe it works as an even better tool of information sharing than the classic daily news or newspaper.

J3- Marin Arsenault

In my opinion, writing is the simple act of translating thoughts within the brain onto a tangible technology such as paper.  Writing includes grocery lists, poems, graffiti, and any other words on a tangible source.  To me, technology is something that at one point was an innovation.  I know that there are many scholars who argue that technology is much more roadd than the definition I provided, but I do not agree.  For instance, take writing Hieroglyphics on cave walls in ancient Egypt.   In this scenario, I do not see the cave wall as a technology because it was always there.  It was never an innovation.  The technology in this scenario is the tool that was used to etch into the cave wall.  Even though the tool might have been there the whole time, it was serving a new, innovative purpose.  Circulation, to me, is when writing became a tool of change as opposed to a means or recording.  Circulation has to be written as opposed to orally translated.  Circulation became possible when the printing press was invented and writing became a tool of persuasion, not merely a means of recording history.  I believe this is also when rhetoric was officially invented because with circulation comes the power of persuasion.  The printing press let one person’s voice be heard on a large scale without any geographical barriers.  Without circulation, one had to be in the same place as the orator in order to hear the speaker’s persuasion.  So, in short, writing is the simple act of translating thoughts onto a tangible platform.  In order to write, one needs a technology to transfer the thoughts to paper, such as pen and paper.  These are technologies.  Circulation is delivering the message that one writes to an audience outside of the individual’s physical location.  Writing cannot exist independently from technology although writing and technology can exist independent of circulation.  Though when one thinks of the modern day definition writing, one often think that circulation accompanies it.  Writing, technology, and circulation make up today’s definition of rhetoric. 

J3- Max Dietz

Writing, technology, and circulation are the angles of a triangle. The sum of their parts must equal 180 degrees (or the complete communication), but each angle does not have to be equal. Verbal communication is an example of a high circulation angle, almost nonexistent technology angle (depending on what platform someone is speaking on, be it TV or radio or a lectern with a microphone), and a low writing angle (the actual speech). Before the printing press, when every piece of correspondence and literature was hand written and hand delivered, the writing angle was very obtuse while the technology and circulation corners were much smaller. This is because the entire text had to stand by itself and convey all of the necessary information in one place. Email correspondence would be more represented of an equilateral triangle where all angles are equivalent. The Twitter example, as explained in “Occupy Wall Street,” relies almost exclusively on technology and circulation. The actual text did not matter nearly as much as the constant need text to be created. As increasing technology allows for widespread and instantaneous circulation, the need for thoughtful texts is decreasing. It is actually almost impossible to create a thoughtful text on Twitter. 140 characters is enough for a soundbite or a quick thought, but you cannot make an argument in that time. This is what I believe led to the rise of just saying, “Sad” at the end of a post. Three characters give people a way to express disappointment of disapproval of an idea without forcing them to explain (to themselves and others) why the content makes them feel that way. Still, quantity is worth more than quality. Is it worth it to put a day into writing a letter when you could have sent out hundreds tweets and a clickbait news story in the same time? Besides, most people would have already moved on by then.  Facebook also has a large technological angle, but the circulation angle is much smaller than that of twitter because the publisher has significantly more, but not complete, control over who sees the post. Text is also a much greater factor because there is no word limit. Technology is arguably an even larger part of Facebook than twitter because of how Facebook allows users to combine external media sources with text.

Chelsi Chang-- Journal #3

Writing, circulation, and technology are all deeply interconnected. Each abstract idea can build upon another to make something even better. For example, technology has definitely impacted circulation in ways we are still learning about today. The advent of social media websites has made so many people’s thoughts and ideas so readily available that you can almost learn anything about a person based off of a simple scan of their profile. One example of that is in the article we read by Joel Penney and Caroline Dadas where they examine the Occupy Wall Street movement. They discussed how much of this movement gained traction through social media, namely Twitter. Users were able to tweet and retweet their strong opinions about the one percent as well as find and meet up with people with similar views. Mixing technology with writing has allowed people to express themselves in a faster, easier, and more accessible manner. There is no longer one sole voice that speaks for the public; the public can now speak for themselves and anyone in the world can find, read, and—usually—reply at no cost.

We can even go back further into history and look at the Gutenberg printing press as a form of technology that changed the circulation of writing—arguably the most important moment in mass media history.  The advent of the printed word allowed people to mass-produce thoughts and ideas at a rate unprecedented in human history. Suddenly books and manuscripts existed with more than just one copy and literacy became a reachable goal for the middle and lower classes, as novels were more readily available to them.

            Even before the printing press, writing and circulation were still linked. Margetta Jolly discusses this idea in her article as she talks about the women who fought for peace during the 1980s. Despite being miles and miles away from one another, these women were able to create and maintain a sense of community by writing to each other as much as possible. The shared meaning created through these letters kept them motivated as they fought for world leaders to stop nuclear missiles and listen to their demand for peace.

            These three words both build upon and complicate the relationship with one another yet they can never be separated.

Journal #3- Mia Batansky

I think that writing, technology, and circulation are all intertwined. I believe that writing uses technology which helps promote circulation. Without technology I think circulation would be a lot more difficult to achieve. As time goes on, technology is becoming more and more advanced. With the help of technology, writing is able to get to people faster and more efficiently. Before technology was a thing, it was only writing and circulation. For example, in the article “Letter Writing and the 1980s Women’s Peace Movement” by Margaretta Jolly, she talks about how women used writing letters in order to circulate their words, ideas, and plans. They used it as a way to help their political plans advanced and as a way to communicate with one another. Another way they used writing to help create circulation was writing letters to help increase press. As time went on, technology advanced and circulation was able to increase. In the article “(Re)Tweeting in the service of protest: Digital composition and circulation in the Occupy Wall Street movement” by Joel Penney and Caroline Dadas, they talk about how technology was used during the Occupy Wall Street movement that occurred in 2011. Many people involved in the movement were able to create a hashtag on twitter that helped the others keep up with their movements and ideas. Because of technology being used, they were able to circulate their words amongst millions of people. Both examples show just how much writing and circulation change when technology is advanced.  Also, writing, technology, and circulation were shown in both examples even though they were in different time periods, and used for different things, one for a movement and other for a protest.  As technology becomes more and more advanced, circulation will increase. Because of technology today, for example, Facebook or even Instagram, people are able to express themselves in front of millions of people. With social media being prevalent today, people are able to publish their work whenever they want to whoever they want. I think that without technology, the circulation of writing would not be as strong as it today.