Analogues to Argument: New Media and Literacy in a Posthuman Era

In introducing a series of articles on visual argument published in this journal in 1996, Birdsell and Groarke noted the importance of the visual in understanding "the role of advertising, film, television, multi-media, and the World Wide Web on our lives" (p. 1). Subsequent specific analyses of visual arguments have supported Birdsell and Groarke's observation. For example, Barbatsis (1996) noted that televisual expression makes use of narrative structure, authorial voice, and enthymematic processes to support its appeals and control the audience's point of view. Shelley (1996) described ways in which visual argument tacitly uses pictorial embellishment, selective portrayal, and fallacious appeals. More recently, Lake and Pickering (1998) discussed visual modes of refutation such as alternative portrayal, dissection, substitution, and transformation in documentary films on abortion. Recent studies of rhetorical discourse on the Internet and the World Wide Web have shown that these multi-media environments are important sites for argument (Gurak, 1997; 2001; Apple & Messner, 2001; Warnick, 2002). These studies indicate that the writers, designers, and spokespersons who express their views via computerized media seek to influence their audiences as frequently as do authors and speakers in more traditional media environments such as print, television, photography, and film. New communication technologies use rhetorical structures and strategies different from but analogous to more familiar forms of logic and reasoning. For example, whereas syllogistic, quasi-logical, and statistical reasoning more readily characterize argument in some traditional communication environments, the use of algorithms and intertextuality may occur more frequently as argument patterns in Internet-based, multi-mediated environments. A good deal of the communication and argumentation literature regarding mediated public argument falls into two categories. The first of these seeks to conceptualize the means by which arguments are mediated. By "conceptualize," I mean to examine how their components are defined, how their processes are explained, and how the principles that govern their use are articulated (Kennedy, 1980). The studies cited in the first paragraph of this essay fall into this first category. The second category focuses on how new technologies are represented in public argument (Flanagin, Farinola, & Metzer, 2000; Stroud, 2001; Warnick, 2002), and on critical analysis of their social effects (Turkle, 1995; McChesney, 1999; Kaplan, 2000). One could argue that these two categories are closely related, since those who conceptualize new media forms and functions often depend on arguments about the extent of new media influence to justify their work, while social critics of new media draw on textual studies to uncover the values an d ideologies embedded in discourse about technological innovation. My purpose in this essay is to review recently published books in these two categories. The first book conceptualizes new media by focusing on its key forms, conventions, semiotics, and design patterns. In doing this, Lev Manovich's Language of New Media contributes to our understanding of how new media texts are structured so as to influence their users through visual argument, coordination between text and image, hyperlinks, and various forms of reasoning. By tracing users' experiences of digital texts, Manovich explains how these texts are cognitively processed and interpreted. His emphasis on message design and reception makes his book a sine qua non for scholars and students interested in how argument works in multimedia environments such as the Web. The remaining two books deal with public discourse about technological innovation and its social effects and thus fall into the second category. They also both consider issues related to public policy concerning technological manipulation and alteration of the body. …