Project Idea

I’m interested in looking how people are changing their writing in relation to online audiences in social spaces. I want to particularly focus on how rhetorical awareness of audience could be changing. Here are questions I want to explore:

·      Are internet users hyperaware of who their audiences are? How do they know to say different things in different spaces? Or why do they not know?

·      Related, how are internet users approaching or reading their audience?

·      Are users writing for “lurkers”? Or does the concept of “lurkers” alter what is written in some spaces?

·      Do users imagine their audience or do they alter what they say as a precaution?

·      How is audience controlled? How is it uncontrollable?

·      How do users write when we can’t control or aren’t sure of these audiences?

The tie to pedagogy is a bit shaky. Obviously audience is a rhetorical concept we teach, but how is that audience different from the online concept of audience? Why is it sometimes easier to decipher who the online audience consists of rather than in print readings? Can the skill of writing for a particular online audience transfer into the classroom? Should it also transfer in how we approach audience in our field? (If you read my blog post before this, my answer would be yes.)

This idea stems from my obsession with online social habits. I really wonder if people’s writing habits are changing in online spaces, and if so, how. And if they are changing, how should we approach the teaching of writing? The second reason I came to this topic was because I say different things in different spaces. Facebook is personal to me (college friends, professors, family) while Twitter is somewhat personal, but also includes a lot of strangers (because I decide who can follow me.) Am I reading that audience? Yes, but then how do I know how to do that?) Somewhat, because I control it? Not at all, because they are strangers?