Lo-Fi Manifesto
Did the tone of Karl Stolley’s “Lo-Fi Manifesto” remind anyone else of the old “Nick Burns your company’s computer guy” sketch on SNL? 
[Except insulting the high-tech instead of the "luddites"]. For instance, his thoughts on WYSIWYG software: “As if you the producer were the only one who mattered” and “it is lunacy to assume what the producer sees is what everyone, indeed anyone, else sees”. Woops, was what I was thinking? How wrong I was to enjoy this kind of software. But I checked to see how the websites looked in multiple formats? Dreamweaver provides possibilities for testing in a variety of browsers, isn’t that helpful and audience friendly? WRONG! MOVE.
I guess I’m most confused by his definition of “lossless” (“neither degrades nor becomes trapped in the production itself”). People use a variety of different softwares for different reasons and converting to lo-fi may easily result in loss. I looked at the suggested S5 alternative to PowerPoint and there are definitely some losses for those who have to use one of the templates and don’t have time to relearn the web-based software and design their own template. Also, somewhat surprising, the design of the S5 templates still have the same very unattractive PowerPoint visual characteristics. Stolley does discuss graphic designers’ attraction to Flash because of the font-embedding capabilities. I’ve heard graphic designers complain about Flash and its visceral nature but even then the capabilities outweigh the loss of using a different type of software because it allows for the “principals” they think most important to their project.
I agree that softwares should not signify entire digital genres but I’m not convinced that “lo-fi” is always the answer. One of his best examples is Google’s email service but I also blame some of the “lo-fi” characteristics for some of my own frustrations with gmails email service. Again, I think the benefits outweigh the “loss” but the loss still exists.
Lunsford & the fifth canon
I think Lunsford’s case study of her rhetoric class was interesting because it teased out some of the issues we had with the technologies mentioned in the Horizon Report. How interesting that it was the students who told them in “no uncertain terms that while they loved the opportunity to explore new media in writing and to push their writing in new directions, they weren’t sure their writing was actually improving”. Lunsford’s summation pointed to writing professors’ (as could easily be speech professors) values as rhetoric, research, argument and presentation rather than advanced training in media production”. Later she suggests that there has to be some sort of ballance and that the technology and the writing need to be met at least half way. I think striving for this balance is what most of us will have to work through during our own teaching careers. Working with Steve Wiley, he told me that when he first taught his media classes he tried to include as much technology as possible. After much frustration he then reverted to as little technology as possible. I haven’t discussed his thoughts with him recently but after having him for CRD701 it seems he would now agree with Miraglia’s challenge: to “‘teach writing and speaking’ while allowing students an opportunity for ‘authoring in the most compelling and discursive modalities of their generation’” (Lunsford, p. 177).
Random side note
I went to a presentation by Mark Johnson over at Burns Auditorium last week and he was pointing out how all of our language and especially our metaphors (which he says is how with think) relate to the body. After using the word “balance” above I realize that refers to a scale and then some kind of body weight. I think for those of you interested in the identity of the body as it relates to the digital, would find his book “Philosophy in the Flesh” really interesting.
