Points of Praxis

My Blog Reflects on Visual Rhetorical Theory and Disability Rhetoric and their Connections to Classical and Contemporary Rhetorical Theory

The more I look back on this blog, the more I realize where my personal interests lie in new media studies.  Just like I said at the onset of this project, I'm interested in the ways in which new media can empower and give a "voice" to the disenfranchised, the oppressed, the minority.  As I mentioned in an earlier blog, Jennifer Ley's "Catch a Landmine" uses contemporary audience's experiences with "pop-up" advertisements and makes a statement on cultural consumerism and the dehumanization of war.  In this case, audiences' experiences with the internet seem to pointedly contrast audiences' lack of experience with landmines.

Another project, Chicken Soup for Your Corporate Ass, relies on audiences' experiences and awareness of the (sappy, emotionally manipulative) Chicken Soup for the Soul books; however, in this case, the Chicken Soup for Your Corporate Ass reveals stories of individuals disregarded, dehumanized, and devalued by the all-powerful corporate conglomerates.  Authors William Gillespie and Ruth Wyman created Chicken Soup for Your Corporate Ass and publish it on wordwork.org, one of William's sites, which showcases William's work and that of many collaborators.  And, while I could spend an entire semester analyzing wordwork.org, I will focus this discussion on the aforementioned Chicken Soup.

Specifically, the stories seem like short stories or character sketches that describe the ways in which five individual's lives intersect.  In the end, just like in the print Chicken Soup for the Soul books, the selfish, greedy, and self-centered are punished.  Gillespie and Wyman's stories seemed reminiscent of 253, a electronic literary novel by Geoff Ryman about a train crash and the different lives of the passengers on board.  In both works, the characters' lives interact and converge with each other.

And, while the five stories in Chicken Soup for Your Corporate Ass could've been published in a linear, print-based media format, they are published online with hyperlinks connecting the characters and events in the stories together.  In this case, the stories are connected to each other through links just as the characters' lives intersect  in the stories.  The hyperlinks, then, reinforce the intersection of these stories by more than name alone.  Whereas in print-based media the stories would be presented in a linear fashion, with one story beginning where another one ends, online these stories can "carry on" simultaneously with all stories beginning and ending at similar moments.

Also, by publishing the stories online, they seem imbued with a more authenticity than they might've had if they were published in on paper.  While they are a parody of the "could-be" true stories published in the Chicken Soup for the Soul books, they seem more authentic because there is nothing to argue that they couldn't be true.  After all, companies exploit Korean workers everyday as in the "Chicken Soup for Your Transnational Ass"; workers are exposed to toxic chemicals as Victoria Washington was in the "Chicken Soup for Your Animal Experiemenation Ass"; and health insurance companies reject necessary medical claims because they are too expensive as in the "Chicken Soup for Your Health Insurance Ass."

Still, this degree of credibility and ethos seems contradictory for what one might expect for an online publication.  After all, as an English instructor, I tell students to be leary of the material they read online--to be discerning and investigate the motives and agendas of any online source they might want to use in their works.  However, in this case, the fact that these stories "seem" authentic and plausible seems to give them credibility that a print story might not have.  As noted by the trAce Online Writing Center, parody seems more authentic online because "of the gullibility of readers and the difficulty in verifying textual authenticity." Perhaps, the popularity of "everyday journalists" and blogs contribute to the perceived authenticity of the story.  Therefore, we read these individual's stories published online and accept them as (mostly) authentic. 

Gillespie, William and Ruth Wyman.  wordwork.org literature laboratory.  25 Nov 2005.  http://www.wordwork.org/index.html

Gillespie, William and Ruth Wyman.  Chicken Soup for Your Corporate Ass.  25 Nov 2005.  http://www.wordwork.org/chickensoup/index.html

Ley, Jennifer. "Catch the Landmine" 25 Nov 2005.  http://www.heelstone.com/amniotic/first.html

Ryman, Geoff. 253: A Novel for the Internet about London Underground in Seven Cars and a Crash. 8 Nov 2005.  http://www.ryman-novel.com/

"The trAce Alt-X New Media Competition."  trAce Online Writing Center.  Jan 2001.  25 Nov 2005.  http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/newmedia/shortlist.cfm#06

posted by: rgregory at 00:45 | link | comments (2) |

Comments:

#1  26 November 2005 - 20:10

 

Credit where credit is due: William Gillespie and Ruth Wyman are authors of "Chicken Soup...," and wordwork.org is one of William's sites, containing his work and that of many collaborators.

Only "The Ed Report" is a collaboration between Gillespie, Meissner, and Montfort, and while it is linked from wordwork.org, it's hosted elsewhere: http://edreport.com/

Mo'nonymous

#2  26 November 2005 - 23:58

 

Thanks for the help. I'll revise my blog and make the appropriate corrections.

Thanks again.

rgregory

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