RWS Minor>Feature Core Class

RWS 511: Literacy, Rhetoric & Technology (3 Units)

RWS 511 examines new media technologies from a rhetorical perspective. It investigates how web pages, blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other multimedia texts are used to persuade, build community, tell stories, entertain, and produce change. The class addresses how literacy is being defined and redefined in the age of MySpace, Youtube and wikipedia; what is at stake in competing definitions of new media literacy; and what strategies are available to us for interpreting, analyzing and composing digital texts.

The class will examine how work in rhetoric and literacy studies, and historical research on prior technologies can help us better understand new media. The class will explore which tools work best in specific contexts, for specific audiences and purposes. A central goal is to help students become more sophisticated, critical analysts of new media texts. But the class also aims to familiarize students with some of the more common, widely available tools for producing and “remixing” digital texts. RWS 511 is thus about new media literacies, while also aimed at helping students acquire specific literacy skills.

RWS 511 is open to all students but is intended primarily for students with backgrounds in the Humanities and Social Sciences. No previous experience with web design or multimedia software is required.

For more information: This class is one of the core classes in the Interdisciplinary Minor in Rhetoric and Writing Studies. For more information, contact Richard Boyd, RWS Writing Minor Advisor, at 594-4599 or boyd4@mail.sdsu.edu, or Chris Werry at cwerry@mail.sdsu.edu, or 594-3882.