“It’s time again to welcome a new issue of Present Tense – volume 7, issue 2. Though not a special issue, this edition includes articles on an array of topics that coalesce around public and visual rhetorics.”

“Mr. Robot speaks to the increasing complex constructions of ethos in a multimodal media ecology. That there is no position of pure and absolute sincerity, that we are all imbricated in the brutalities of capitalism, is not a novel idea; however, Mr. Robot as content seeks to agitate against the very forms of power that enable it”

“Media support particular modalities over others, and formally shape and ideologically infuse products based on their affordances. Hence, students must be able to analyze rhetorical contexts while problematizing simplistic definitions of access and efficacy. The concept of a “multimodal home place” provides a tool to help students become more mindful about technology use.”

“The editors and authors of the chapters included in Multimodal Composing in Classrooms: Learning and Teaching for the Digital World show how multimodal composing has become an indispensible new literacy.”

“racism is an ongoing discourse that both gives rise to and emerges from many rhetorical moments—it is a continuous force requiring continuous opposition. The discourses of racism are as much visual as they are textual and oral”

This issue is our most multimodal collection to date, including our first slidecast essay (“The Quiet Country Closet”) and our first full audio essay (“Voices in Egypt”), as well as a number of other essays that incorporate images, video, and additional modes beyond alphabetic text.

“After writing about a visit to Bulgaria in 1996, I returned ten years later hoping to judge whether my original application of Baudrillard’s theory on the evolution of consumer society still held up…”