1.19.16 - Writing with Technology

In Chapter 2 titled Writing as Technology, of Jay Bolter's book, he discusses the historical significance of writing and its progression through history. The main thing that I pulled from this reading is that as human society, we would have been unable to progress without the utilization of writing. While word of mouth and memory were great methods of humans passing along to each other the tips of survival, it was not the most reliable method of passing along information. For example, a herbal recipe for treating a snake bite would be crucial to follow along on written instructions rather than word of mouth throughout generations. When we gained the ability to store information though writing, we were then able to make great strides as society.

In the Five Principles of New Media by Madeline Sorapure, she discusses, as the name implies, five guidelines that new media such as the internet follows. One of the things that interest me the most was the discussion of modularity when it came to the many components of a digital piece of writing. As compared to traditional print text, digiital writing is constantly changing, and writers can go back and add more content and information even after the article is published. One source that does extremely well is Buzzfeed, where not only are they publishing text articles, but also accompaining it with vidoes.