“Research Methods for Digital Rhetoric: Douglas Eyman’s Digital Rhetoric: Theory, Method, Practice, Nakamura, Hypertext, and Infographics”

Digital Research and Hypertext Network Analysis (HNA)

In reading section three of Douglas Eyman’s Digital Rhetoric: Theory, Method, Practice (2015), I was particularly drawn to the section in which he discusses the notion of Hypertext Network Analysis (HNA) as it relates to digital research methods. According to Eyman, HNA consists of “a form of social network analysis, but it moves the question of relationships away from people and organizations and instead looks at the nodes and ties of digital texts as instantiated in websites and web links. The key distinction between social network analysis and hypertext network analysis is that the websites themselves are considered actors within the networks being investigated.” This process seems to personify the website itself in a way, transforming it from a static entity which allows the user to absorb the information displayed on its platform to a dynamic window or portal by which the user can transport himself or herself to other web domains.

Interesting in Eyman’s analysis is his focus on the issue of “trust” and “credibility” as it relates to the Internet user’s ability to toggle back and forth between websites through the medium of the hyperlink. Implicit in his analysis is the notion that the user is influenced by the previous website (a.k.a. the original website) when visiting a page that s/he came across via a hyperlink. In my own teaching, I understood this perspective well; when teaching composition sections on digital and visual rhetoric, I would often ask my students to utilize different Internet search engines (especially public versus academic web domains) to look up information on the same topic. What they pulled up using these different platforms proved Eyman’s argument of digital trust and credibility; on the websites found through Google, students would complain about the high volume of unfounded claims and a lack of citation in the blog-like “articles” their searches returned to them. Advertisements on these websites and, oftentimes, a lack of clear authorship gave students the sense that what they were reading was questionable and lacked credibility. By contrast, using research databases on platforms like JSTOR and Taylor and Francis, which required them to log in using their university credentials, students liked that they were able to filter their results by year and that they could indicate if they wanted the results to be from peer-reviewed sources. Though frustrated that they had to log in at first, they began to appreciate that the websites were forcing them to prove who they were in order to access digital hyperlinked content. The students were much more receptive to the “articles for further reading and research” that these databases provided them than they were to the public options found on Google (and even Google Scholar).

Of course, Eyman’s analysis of hypertext caused me to think back to Lisa Nakamura’s discussion of hyperlinks in her introduction to Digitizing Race: Visual Cultures of the Internet (2008). While Eyman focuses on the issue of trust, Nakamura focuses on the issues of agency and subject/object-hood that hyperlinking poses. According to her, hyperlinking falls within the realm of Lev Manovich’s “myth of interactivity,” and asks the user to identify with someone else’s mental structure/train of thought (16). As her analysis pays particular attention to the construction of subject (that which interacts) and object (that which is manipulated through the process of interaction) on the web, the concept of the hyperlink within digital text asks the user to follow “objectively existing associations,” interpellating him/her into the thought trajectory of the author of the originary text/website. In recent years, trends within academic writing have brought the digital arena (as opposed to the print) into the foreground, which I think works both with/against Nakamura’s thesis. While the notions of “object” and “interpellating” would seem to connote a negative approach to the power of the digital hyperlink, I’m forced to consider academic blogs which focus on constructions of digital rhetoric, such as “Not Your Mama’s Gamer” and “Teachers, Profs, and Parents: Writers Who Care.” In platforms such as these, including visual images and hyperlinks are often required components to getting a post accepted for publication on the blog. Does a requirement like this, even though the posts are academic in nature, undermine the “credibility” of the site or author? Does it interpellate the digital reader? If so, is this interpellation always bad? Or, does it help clarify the train of thought of the author’s argument/provide readily accessible examples of the content and context around the topic in question? I think that the answers to these questions can vary.

(Note: I purposely didn’t put the hyperlinks to the blogs mentioned above; I’ll allow my digital reader to follow their own [digital] mental trajectory and check them out if s/he wants to!)

Infographics: Same Information, Better Platform?

Though unrelated in a direct sense to Hypertext Network Analysis, I was also drawn to the brief articles that discussed visuals and the increase in the number of infographics that have sprung up on the web in the past few years. According to just one of the many helpful infographics linked in this week’s readings, we retain an average of 20% of what we read, but we retain close to 90% of what we see. Some example infographics that relate to education and learning can be seen here:

I’m curious about how the use of infographics will factor into teaching over the next few years. Already, I have seen courses that incorporate the use of an infographic instead of a text-based document as the primary syllabus- personally, I think that a use like that for an infographic is fabulous. I think that too often, text can blur together and the remediation of that information into visual forms not only makes important information more readily accessible, but helps to better straddle the needs of both visual and audio learners. Examples of infographic syllabi can be seen here:

An even better method of syllabi infographic practice might be to give students a text-based hard copy of the syllabus and have them create infographics of it (either alone or in groups) to help them retain the important information about major assignments, due dates, and the goals, means and outcomes of the course. Talking over the syllabi (or any textual document) with students helps audio learners retain more, presenting it to them in graphic form helps visual learners retain more, and allowing students to participate in the process of translating the textual to the graphic helps kinesthetic learners retain more.

Sources:

Eyman, Douglas. “Section Three- Digital Rhetoric: Methods.” Digital Rhetoric: Theory, Method, Practice. University of Michigan Press: Ann Arbor, 2015. Web. 15 Feb. 2016.

Nakamura, Lisa. Digitizing Race: Visual Cultures of the Internet. University of Minnesota Press: Minneapolis, 2008. Print.