The Ethics of Online

Reading Wysocki & Johndan Johnson-Eilola’s text the second-time through (thankfully, this text marks the final of pieces I read ahead of time, in my unfortunate habit of reading wrong assignments), this jumped out:

“Importantly, if we value this search engine—which is in effect the front end to a database—

if we value this as a form of writing, then we can then begin to argue that the sorts of choices one makes in writing the database—for example, what categories to include, what to exclude; which category to put first; etc.—we can start to argue that these choices involve responsibilities to the reader and to society, just as we now do in other, more traditional forms of writing.” (p. 220, emphasis added)

In the margin, I scribbled ethos. In Advanced Composition, Kate Ryan devoted the second
portion of the semester to studying this concept, which I self-defined as, “Both the process and product of constructing, as a writer, the trustworthiness of your character as it reveals in your text and the exigency of the text’s situation.” In light of reading The Filter Bubble, I am questioning whether or not we should (or even can) demand an ethos from web-writers equal to that of traditional print writers. How do we justify rigorous expectations from authors of scientific journals, yet allow code writers to make their own rules—rules which do not always favor the at-large mission of furthering public knowledge? The debate comes back to a "great power/great responsibility" situation, just like we initially discussed regarding rhetors and the persuasive power of speech.

When Kohl wrote, “…from this point of view, it is only about the structural and thematic organization of the texts and not about the process of writing,” (p. 173) I recognized that he was differentiating between what “makes” a thing. Is it the process or the product? Most teachers and professors ban Wikipedia use in their students' composition, because of its supposed unreliability; that is, the finished product is an unstable text not trustworthy to cite. Yet, observing the process of a page on Wikipedia can reveal great amounts of knowledge regarding identity construction, how history adjusts according to interpretation and time, and how multiple writers create and negotiate text in social spaces. The end-product becomes a by-product for the rich process, Kohl seems to say, urging for the developmental history of a page to become the focal point of attention. Kohl further points out the changing nature of texts—from the dissolution of author and recipient (p. 170) to time becoming a dimension of the text (p. 174), the stable, static, hardcover books is the romantic remnant of a writing past gone by. 

 I am recognizing more and more the value of students' blogging, just like we do right here, right now. Text was never stable, and the interwebz only reveal, increasingly, its dynamic movement and change. Writing a blog allows the student to reflect on the temporarily and contingent nature of their text, as well as reflect on its change and metamorphosis over time. We are, in effect, creating textual timelines of our thought processes throughout the class. How cool is that? It's incredible.

But returning to ethos, how are we to transfer over expectations for credibility from the print world to the digital one? Are the same criterion for honesty and trustworthiness applicable? What is the importance or implications of a web writer’s ethos? The speed of developing technology dashes along at a quicker pace than public and scholarly response to these questions, and I think we should more actively attend to issues of online ethos.