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October 12, 2007, 01:37 PM ET
Writers Debate the Net's Effect on Their Craft
The Internet has proved its value as a self-publishing tool, but has it actually been good for writing — or for writers? 10 Zen Monkeys posed that question to 10 authors and scholars, and their responses are often quite revealing.
“The short answer is yes,” says Mark Amerika, an associate professor of art at the University of Colorado at Boulder, before issuing a caveat: “We probably need to expand the concept of writing to take into account new forms of online communication as well as emerging styles of digital rhetoric.”
But Mark Dery, a professor of media criticism and literary journalism at New York University, warns against “this ghastly notion,” propagated by some bloggers and Web 2.0 enthusiasts, “that every piece of writing is a ‘conversation.’”
“It’s a no-brainer that writing is a communicative act, and always has been,” says Mr. Dery. But the professor criticizes “the beige, soul-crushing logic of the PowerPoint mind” and the idea that “all writing, online or off, should sound like water-cooler conversation.” —Brock Read
Categories: Teaching
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