Delivery and Consideration of Recomposition of material are very important concepts in the digital age. Writers must not only consider the people that their original work will reach and potential secondary audiences, but also the audiences of any reproduction of the piece. Since we live in an age where “users take culture, remix culture, rewrite culture, and thus make culture”, a writer needs to take a “strategic approach to composing for rhetorical delivery” also known as rhetorical velocity. It is important to think about the best ways to communicate the original message, why and who would remix it, and how they would remix it based on the original work.
Good messages are less likely to be heard and spread if the delivery is not executed effectively. Delivery must be viewed on a case by case basis, based upon the mode of communication being used and the message itself. For example it is often necessary on social media or any digital media to keep messages short and attention-grabbing so viewers pay attention to them and do not lose interest too quickly.
One of the main aspects of this article that stood out to me as far as recomposition of information was the discussion of how information is “remixed” through sites like Wikipedia. Throughout my entire academic career I was told not to use sites like Wikipedia for research projects since articles can be edited by the public, therefore making its content potentially untrustworthy. I remember this always used to annoy me because there always seems to be a Wikipedia article for everything. Although I like to believe that most people who would sit down and take the time to add information to a very specific Wikipedia article have solely the intent to assist anyone looking for information, it is important to consider that that any recomposition of information, especially on a page open for anyone to edit, may not be great as a main source of information. I do believe that Wikipedia and similar sites do provide a good basis for anyone new to a topic to begin their research.
In a campaign where our main intent is to spread awareness on our topic, the idea of delivery and how the information we provide will be recomposed must be taken into consideration. A major focus of this paper was how recomposition has taken on a new role in the digital age. People are constantly sharing information which is “much more readily available to mix, mash, and merge.” Our main issue in our campaign thus far has been how people perceive what our intent is. Throughout and peer review sessions of our campaign pieces or proposal there has been confusion regarding whether we are directly trying to raise money for the water crisis or whether we are concerned solely with educating people on the issue. It is essential that we are clear and consistent about our mission throughout our campaign pieces so that our original message is not lost in translation through any theoretical recompositions by third parties.
One passage that stood out to me most in relation to our campaign was “The medium, or process, of our time—electric technology—is reshaping and restructuring patterns of social interdependence and every aspect of our personal life… Societies have always been shaped more by the nature of the media by which men communicate than by the content of the communication.” Since my first campaign piece is a Facebook page and my second one is a website, I will need to be aware of potential recompositions throughout the revising and creation of these pieces since I am using mediums that are so essential to modern communication.
I think the sentence “Writers must not only consider the people that their original work will reach and potential secondary audiences, but also the audiences of any reproduction of the piece” is a really important idea. It is central to the idea considered in the article of “how might the text be rewritten?” With the internet, people have the power to spread ideas faster than ever before. But people also have the ability to act on information faster than ever.
One idea from the blog post concerned the remixing of information through sites like Wikipedia. Through such sites, people are able to expand on ideas from texts, repurposing the ideas, crafting new arguments, and educating more people. The issue, however, is that the information is not always accurate, since almost anyone can edit the sites or post his or her opinion. But that is exactly what is so impressive about them.
Writers now must consider not only who they are writing to, but what people will do with their texts. Their texts might be used by vaster audiences, from class discussions to support for research papers. Essentially, once an author posts something online, he or she is surrendering his or her work to the audience in way authors have never had to do before. The remixing may lead to misinformation, but it may also lead to the creation of new ideas all across the world.
Building more off the idea of recompositing of information, I concur that usually the most accessible websites like Wikipedia are not always the most trustworthy. This is due to condensing, or recomposing if you will, of the original thought or fact. People would much rather read short attention-grabbing pieces of literature rather than read the original literature from which the abridged versions are derived. This leads to a game of telephone where the main source of information is misconstrued and twisted to the point where its truth is dissolved in the thoughts of millions of writers. The best way to distill the truth out of the condensed to consider the source, or even read the original work to assess whether the source can be trusted in the future.
Although these may present decent solutions to finding credible sources, the way we communicate through technology displays a bigger problem. Technology in the form of social media has allowed society to present thought in a concise and efficient way…almost; A lot of the original thought and facts are lost through this way of communication because only a portion of the idea is given. When using technology as a form of communication, the writer truly must consider all the facts and display them in way that fits the constraints of media.
I love the example of Wikipedia! I did not think about that one. I mainly thought of companies like Buzzfeed and R29, who have videos and opinion editorials about some of the most important aspects of our lives (and some really random stuff too). These articles often cite complex works by researchers, psychologists, scientists etc. They effectively remix the information into something that almost is easier to the normal every day person who is not involved in the area of expertise spoken about in the video or article. The thing is, are these people appropriately reforming the information like the author wanted it to be? Or do they negatively appropriate the information in which case could invalidate the original person’s work? I think of the horrible daily talk shows that take studies on health and blow it out of proportion, saying things like: “If you drink apple juice you’re going to die from cancer.” when the study did not claim that. I also think we, now having read this, should all strive to positively appropriate our data and do the studies or whatever media we are getting information from good by making sure we make it as easy as possible for readers to then in turn positively appropriate our information.