BUILDING A DISCOURSE: BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN NEW MEDIA'S CONVERGENCE AND RHETORIC AND COMPOSITION'S MULTIMODALITY

My dissertation emphasizes the use of narrative structuralism and narrative theories about storytelling in order to build a discourse between the fields of New Media and Rhetoric and Composition. Propp's morphological analysis and the breaking down of stories into component pieces aides in the discussion of storytelling as it appears in and is mediated by digital and computer technologies. New Media and Rhetoric and Composition are aided by shared concerns for textual production and consumption. In using the notion of "kairotic reading" (KR), I show the interconnectedness and interdisciplinarity required in the development of pedagogy utilized to teach students to develop into reflective practitioners that are aware of their rhetorical surroundings and can made sound judgments concerning their own message generation and consumption in the workplace. KR is a transferable skill that is beneficial to students and teachers alike. The dissertation research utilizes theories of New Media and New Media-influenced practitioners, including Jenkins' theory of convergence, Bourdieu's notion of taste, Gee's term "semiotic domains," and Manovich's "modification." These theoretical pieces are combined in order to show how KR can be extended by convergent narrative practices. In order to build connections with New Media, the consideration and inclusion of Kress and van Leeuwen's multimodality, Selber's "reflective practitioners," and Selfe's definition of multimodal composing allow for a greater establishment of conversation order to create a richer conversation around the implications of metacognitive development and practitioner reflexivity with scholars in New Media. My research also includes analysis of two popular media franchises Deborah Harkness' A Discovery of Witches and Fox's Bones television series to show similarities and differences among convergence-linked and multimodal narratives. Lastly, I also provide example assignments that can be taken, further developed, and utilized in classrooms engaging in multimodal composing practices. This dissertation pushes consideration of New Media into the work already being performed by those in Rhetoric and Composition.

Subverting the subject position : toward a new discourse about students as writers and engineering students as technical communicators

There is ample evidence of a longstanding and pervasive discourse positioning students, and engineering students in particular, as “bad writers.” This is a discourse perpetuated within the academy, the workplace, and society at large. But what are the effects of this discourse? Are students aware faculty harbor the belief students can’t write? Is student writing or confidence in their writing influenced by the negative tone of the discourse? This dissertation attempts to demonstrate that a discourse disparaging student writing exists among faculty, across disciplines, but particularly within the engineering disciplines, as well as to identify the reach of that discourse through the deployment of two attitudinal surveys—one for students, across disciplines, at Michigan Technological University and one for faculty, across disciplines at universities and colleges both within the United States and internationally. This project seeks to contribute to a more accurate and productive discourse about engineering students, and more broadly, all students, as writers—one that focuses on competencies rather than incompetence, one that encourages faculty to find new ways to characterize students as writers, and encourages faculty to recognize the limits of the utility of practitioner lore.

THE CELEBRITY BURDEN: CELEBRITY CAMPAIGNS IN THE PURSUIT OF HUMANITARIANISM

Celebrity participation in humanitarianism and politics has received a lot of attention in recent times. Though many researchers have sought to explain the reasons underlying this phenomenon, there appears to be little information as to the efficacy of these celebrity efforts. The present research thus undertakes an analysis of the celebrity's participation through a study on the effectiveness of the celebrity-led campaign. To achieve this, I conduct a discourse and visual analysis of media publications surrounding two celebrity-led campaigns. The research leans heavy on theories underlining the celebrity mechanism and Street et al's framework on celebrity participation in politics. The study confirms Street et al's argument that performance, legitimacy and organization are central to the success of the celebrity-led campaign. For campaigns aimed at initiating policy change, I propose an additional category of stakeholders' response which provides a means of evaluating efficacy. My findings show that organization, legitimization, stakeholders' response and performance are highly dependent on the actions of the lead celebrity, making these celebrities active agents in the production of discourse on the "third world". As celebrities engage in humanitarian work, they take up positions as representatives of the aid recipient. The result is the dispossession and silencing of the aid recipient. Out of my discussion of these practices evolves the concept of the celebrity burden.

Add a Dash of Rhetoric, a Pinch of Technical Communication, a Handful of Pedagogy, and Mix Well: Cookbooks and Recipes as Instructional Texts, and What Domestic Texts from 1870 to 1935 Can Teach Us About Technical Communication

Through the use of rhetoric centered on authority and risk avoidance, scientific method has co-opted knowledge, especially women's everyday and experiential knowledge in the domestic sphere. This, in turn, has produced a profound affect on technical communication in the present day. I am drawing on rhetorical theory to study cookbooks and recipes for their contributions to changes in instructional texts. Using the rhetorical lenses of metis (cunning intelligence), kairos (timing and fitness) and mneme (memory), I examine the way in which recipes and cookbooks are constructed, used and perceived. This helps me uncover lost voices in history, the voices of women who used recipes, produced cookbooks and changed the way instructions read. Beginning with the earliest cookbooks and recipes, but focusing on the pivotal temporal interval of 1870-1935, I investigate the writing and rhetorical forces shaping instruction sets and domestic discourse. By the time of scientific cooking and domestic science, everyday and experiential knowledge were being excluded to make room for scientific method and the industrial values of the public sphere. In this study, I also assess how the public sphere, via Cooperative Extension Services and other government agencies, impacted the domestic sphere, further devaluing everyday knowledge in favor of the public scientific model. I will show how the changes in the production of food, cookbooks and recipes were related to changes in technical communication. These changes had wide rippling effects on the field of technical communication. By returning to some of the tenets and traditions of everyday and experiential knowledge, technical communication scholars, practitioners and instructors today can find new ways to encounter technical communication, specifically regarding the creation of instructional texts. Bringing cookbooks, recipes and everyday knowledge into the classroom and the field engenders a new realm of epistemological possibilities.