“New Media Text” and Pedagogy

After reading Selfe’s article, “Students Who Teach Us: A Case Study of a New Media Text Designer,” it really got me thinking about “New Media Text.” How important is “New Media Text?” I wanted to get some feedback on this topic. So, I decided to ask my fellow ENG 725 classmates in a forum thread. Only one person—Erik—responded, but he seemed to agree that teaching our students about “New Media Text” is, indeed, important. In fact, Erik even claimed that we as teachers would be doing our students a “disservice” not to address this contemporary issue in the classroom, whether it’s an online or seated class.

But, what exactly does Selfe mean by “New Media Text.” Here is what Selfe has to say about “New Media Texts:

I mean to refer to texts created primarily in digital environments, composed in multiple media (e.g., film, video, audio, among others), and designed for presentations and exchange in digital venues. These texts generally place a heavy emphasis on visual elements (both still and moving photography, images, graphics, drawings, renderings, animations) and sound, and they often involve some level of interactivity. (43)

After reading this definition, most of us probably realize that we have encountered some form of “New Media Text,” whether it’s online through YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, a blog, or another communication channel. I completely agree with Erik in that teaching our students about “New Media Text” is very important.

As the Information Age surges forward and digital media becomes a more crucial component of communication, we owe it to our students to prepare them for what they will encounter. Selfe says, “Teachers of composition are becoming increasingly interested in such texts, in part, because they see more of them given the growing presence of information technologies in so many areas of our lives” (44). We need to prepare our students to navigate through these digital waters. Writing is not just about the printed page anymore. It’s also about the e-page, whether that page is a website, social media account, blog posting, or an online video or presentation.

This past Friday, I went to an advisory board meeting with the MSU Marketing Department. The purpose of the meeting was to meet with working professionals to discuss how to make college graduates more marketable and employable. Two of the most common things said were writing skills and digital media knowledge. This directly relates back to Selfe’s idea of “New Media Text.” By incorporating this kind of writing, “New Media Text,” we can teach our students about writing and digital media at the same time.

The best thing about “New Media Text” is that we are now more able to teach students this kind of digital writing in the classroom. Selfe states:

Many schools—and even some home libraries—now include software that allows for multimedia authoring; digital photography and photographic manipulation; sound capture and digital sound manipulation; rendering of landscape, objects, and human forms; paintings and drawings, animations, movie production and editing; word processing, graphic design, and so on. (44)

I know that teaching “New Media Text” is easier said than done, but that goes for most things in life. Now that we have more capabilities, the possibilities are endless.

So, what do you all think? Are “New Media Texts” important? How will you integrate them into your classroom curriculum? Also, what legal considerations accompany “New Media Text?”

Work Cited

Selfe, Cynthia. Multimodal Composition: Resources for Teachers (New Directions in Computers and Composition). Hampton Press, 2007. Print.