UNDERGROUND & STUFF

Underground Writing

Very interesting reading this week—especially as it pertained to underground writing. I have not thought much about virus writing as writing—but indeed, it is. And a type of terrorism for which I had never considered an exigency beyond a need to pull one over on everybody—a kind of geeky vandalism I assumed to be merely for getting away with it.
Now I am looking at it rhetorically, and can see it as a response to use—a complaint that more technically savvy users are becoming obsolete as common-user-friendly interfaces have developed. But I also see it as a way to create demand---for anti-bug programs, which could—and have—made a lot of money for some programmers and maybe some venture capitalists. I can also see the writing of viruses as terrorism against corporate powers—a kind of piracy in terms of time waste. While I don’t necessarily laud that type of piracy, bug writer can be considered, in some cases, modern day Robin Hoods. However, I don’t think that testing one’s programming abilities is a commendable motive to justify writing the bugs and infecting peoples’ systems. I was really surprised that the writers are an actual community of practice with their own common language and support systems—replete with journals, magazines, etc.

I found the article on Wikipedia interesting, as well, but found myself wondering if the type of macrostructure edits—which are mainly aggregative—would be limited to the type of writing produced on Wikipedia—that is expository writing—sorry to allude to the modes here, but I wonder if we would find the same dynamic in other “modes” of writing—or in writing that has purposes other than to explain. It seems that the structure of the Wikipedia technology—as well as the purpose of the writing encourages aggregative editing—which is not necessarily the same as revision. I wonder about changes in logic or structure of the pieces within the Wikipedia technology.

I also wonder if the answer to why we see fewer macrostructure edits in the U.S. schools is simply that writers are less invested; surface revision is simply easier than structural—aggregative or other---types of revision.

I do think the idea of collective intelligence is intriguing, though—and for this reason alone—to understand collaborative writing in a more nuanced and living way, wikis seem as good move in the writing classroom. I’d really like to try them next semester.

But back to underground, I am really intrigued by the article from Race, Rhetoric, and Technology—although I thought the title was odd: “Taking Black Technology Use Seriously […]”. Why wouldn’t we take it seriously? But as to the issue of underground writing—I am very interested in what is done when overt surveillance is absent—but I note that as we academics view the website, it is once again under the gaze—even now being analyzed systematically—soon to be coded and filed as what we “know” about African Americans and their use.