Reflections: A Journal of Community-Engaged Writing and Rhetoric Sep 2010 Open Access

Digital (Dis)engagement: Politics, Technology, Writing

Michael D. Donnelly

Abstract

This article deals primarily with the issue(s) of student engagement and technology by examining two YouTube videos, both posted by professor of cultural anthropology Michael Wesch. A critical examination of such texts is both academically revealing and pedagogically useful. By foregrounding the complex interplay of cultural attitudes towards technology, progress, and the purpose(s) of education, scholars and teachers may fruitfully engage students in both the critical study and composition of multi-modal texts. As a gesture in that direction, I view the larger issue of public discourse through the lens of Patricia Roberts-Miller’s taxonomy of models of the public sphere, and Jacques Ranciere’s notion of the distribution of the sensible.

Journal
Reflections: A Journal of Community-Engaged Writing and Rhetoric
Published
2010-09-01
DOI
10.59236/rjv10i1pp7-28
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Topics
discourse analysis social media public rhetoric
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References (24) · 2 in this index

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