digital identities multimodal inteventions pedagogical implications

8/13/2019 Digital Identities Multimodal Inteventions Pedagogical Implications

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April Conway

Digital Identities, Multimodal Interventions, and Pedagogical Implications

The high stakes of digital identities were once again made clear in the past month with

the rollout of the United Nations Womensad campaign on Google search results. The creative

team from Memac Ogilvy & Mather Dubai used Googles auto-complete feature on March 9,

2013 to find out how the search engine would respond to searches beginning with such phrases

as women should and women need. The top four results for each of the four phrases, now

permanently documented in the ads, are all sexist. A brief report about the ad campaign found

on unwomen.org states, For UN Women, the searches confirm the urgent need to continue

making the case for womens rights, empowerment and equality, a cause the organization is

pursuing around the world.This high profile spotlight on one, ubiquitous form of digital

representation signals an international issue demanding local and international intervention.

Though the UN Women campaign is an important contribution to the conversation and

intervention of digital identity representation, the scholarship on this phenomenon is not new. In

1994, for example, Cynthia L. Selfe and Richard J. Selfe, Jr. published an article reflecting on

cultural information politics as they write about computer interfaces as maps that enactamong

other thingsthe gestures and deeds of colonialism continuously and with a great deal of

success (482). Throughout the article, Selfe and Selfe address the privileged discourse, class,

race, and professional cultures digitally represented at the time. When studying more current

scholarship its unfortunate to see little has changed and perhaps faulty understanding of

problematic digital identity representations has become even more entrenched.

For example, in a 2012Bitch magazine article based on her dissertation, Dr. Safiya Noble

dissects the myths, practices and policies related to search engine companies and searches,

focusing in particular on the digital representation of women and girls of color. In the article


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Noble writes, These search engine results, for women whose identities are already maligned in

the media, only further debase and erode efforts for social, political, and economic recognition

and justice (38). The article is expertly written to address how capitalism influences computer

programming choices and corporateidentity-constructing practices, but it also explicitly asks the

reader to imagine how a young black girl would respond to the derogatory results that appear

when she types in search terms that are supposed to yield results that accurately represent her.

The fact that the internet is ubiquitous in much of the world and that as result a majority

of people are notseeing themselves accurately represented or even at all recognized on digital

platforms is a critical problem that needs the consistent attention and intervention from global

policy powerhouses like the UN to grassroots communities and academic circles. From multi-

disciplinary scholars like Noble to rhetoric and composition scholars like Selfe and Selfe, there

aremultiple voices contributing to the conversation and intervention of digital representation.

Rhetoric and composition scholars, in fact, are being called on to contribute to these sites of

discussion and action by colleagues in the discipline. In a recent Council Chroniclearticle, Adam

Banks discusses both the need for higher education to actually look like America in all its

range, its diversity with respect not only to race but ability/disability, sexuality, and gender (qtd.

in Aronson 16) and the need for digital literacy to become the business that we (composition

scholars) are in (qtd. in Aronson 17). Part of this digital literacy Banks addresses is being able

to analyze and evaluate the frequently problematic nature of identities represented digitally, but

more crucial is the need to know how to change these discriminatory representations. This is a

charge that Noble, rhet/comp cyberfeminists, Self and Selfe and other rhetoric and composition

scholars, as well as online authors, offer through the very medium that so often creates such

negative expectations of marginalized groups: digital, multimodal projects that talk back


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(hooks). Thus, this essay briefly explores the often problematic nature of digital representation,

but will spend more time exploring opportunities of digital literacy practices as well as fostering

multimodal interventions for misrepresented online identities.

To return briefly to some of the systematic and specific examples of problematic digital

identity representation, I turn again to Noble who explicates contemporary reasons for this issue:

At the moment, U.S. commercial search engines like Google, Yahoo!, and Bing wield

tremendous power in defining how information is indexed and prioritized. Cuts to public

education, public libraries, and community resources only exacerbate our reliance on

technology, rather than information and education professionals, for learning. But whats

missing in the search engine is awareness about stereotypes, inequity, and identity. (38)

Throughout the article Noble holds corporate giants and regional predilections responsible for

the hierarchy of assumed preferences of how we view and understand each other and

ourselves. However, she is also quick to dispel the myth of the democratizing nature of search

engine results, arguing instead that discrimination is embedded in algorithms built by

programmers and that money moves links and websites to the top of the search result pile. What

is also important to note in Nobles writing is a concern for the de-humanization (in a face-to-

face manner) of education, thus leaving a vacuum for technology to fill; this concern echoes

Banks call for digital literacy, a literacy that is and should be facilitated, according to Banks, by

rhetoric and composition scholars.

One such scholar is Samantha Blackmon who in her article But ImJustWhite

explains the exigency of her pedagogical choices to explore discourse communities and

intersectional identities located in online spaces. Blackmon includes reflections from some of

her African-American freshman composition students who felt that neither African Americans


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as a whole nor they as young African Americans were correctly portrayed on the World Wide

Web (93); rather, these students noted that they were often represented as being associated

with rap and sports (93).In addition to these students reflections, as well as a white male

studentsreaction (from which the title stems), Blackmon highlights erasures of difference that

can occur in cyberspace and issues with access in regards to technology (95-96). Blackmons

overarching argument is to be both proactive and reactive to the alienation many students feel

when online, or when facing a lack of access to the technology that would allow them online.

To zoom out, so to speak, from the classroom into the realm of popular American culture,

there is a recent, particularly troubling example of digital representation, one that has been

circulated widely in multiple forms, and that has been remixed and responded to in equal

measure via digital platforms. This is the infamous Miley Cyrus MTV Video Music Award

performance where Cyrus, and I contend, by extension her duet partner Robin Thicke (no

stranger to problematic representation choices) exploit black womens bodiesand perpetuate

both the trope of denying women sexual agency and the trope of sexualizing women within a

patriarchal entertainment industry. Many critics of Cyrus were outraged at the graphic sexual

nature of her performance, and many defenders argued against this slut-shaming discourse.

More insightful, to me, were the critics who called foul on the intersections of racism and sexism

in the performance. A Google search (and I do recognize the irony) reveals some of these critics

to beJezebelbloggers Korra and StrangerCate,Racialiciousguest contributor Jacqui Germain,

andHuffington PostSenior Editor for Mobile and Innovation Kia Makarechi.When reading these critical responses online a number of thoughts cross my mind. For

one, I consider my own identity in relation to Cyrus, and though we are worlds apart in terms of

economic class, and of a different age by more than a decade, to say nothing of other cultural


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differences, we are both white women and thus racially privileged. To see another white woman

treat black women in such a way is infuriating. To read some white feminist female authors

defend Cyrus while completing missing the racist overtones (Why Miley Cyrus Is a Feminist

Icon byHuffington Postblogger Jincey Lumpkin is one such example) or marginalizing these

overtones is both infuriating and embarrassing. Then, I think about how widely circulated the

performance was: for those who did not watch the VMAs live, Cyrus performance immediately

went viral; again, a quick Google search reveals countless ways to access video clips of the

performance. The criticism also continues to appear digitally and thus I am lead to consider how

my students may have responded to this performance, whether without any critical reflection, or

not knowing how to articulate their criticism, or wishing they knew how to speak back, or

knowing how to speak back but hyper-conscious of a largely non-supportive society beyond their

immediate communities. Did any of my students feel as though their identities were misaligned

in the initial performance and then repeatedly misrepresented as the digital circulation began full

force? Because of these possible reactions, I consider the pedagogical practices that Smithermon,

Banks, Selfe and Selfe and others call for and enact in regards to digital literacy and digital

representation. In other words, I consider how I might foster students critical thinking and

construction of others and their own digital identities.

Some pedagogical decisions can be informed by Blackmon who leads her students

through a series of assignments and activities throughout the semester that allow them to explore,

engage with, and reproduce aspects of the discourse communities (race, class, gender, sexual

orientation orx-factor) (97) they identify with, primarily in online forums. There is also

Selfe and Selfe who emphasize educators and their students become technology criticis as well

as technology users (496) as means tocontribute to technology design (497-498), and to re-


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conceive the map of the interface (499-500). What these scholars help me with is preparing for

teaching digital literacy: to discuss how and what it means to see and create representations of

people in online spaces, and to begin to enact the creative aspects these scholars call for.

Other pedagogical decisions are informed by such rhetoric and composition scholars and

cyberfeminsit educators (44)Kristine Blair, Katherine Fredlund, Kerri Hauman, Em Hurford,

Stacy Kastner, and Alison Witte who in their article Cyberfeminists at Play discuss the goals

of teaching girls and young women how to enjoy and work with technology. Some of these

goals include creating Low risk environments (to) facilitate playful sites within which girls and

young women can take on the role of technological agent and Connecting digital practices and

personal interests (as) central to helping girls position themselves as digitally literate users and

producers (44). The practices outlined in this article make a number of things regarding digital

literacy clear: to start young, to focus on girls (and other marginalized groups), and to empower

through play, self-confidence, and rhetorical and material technological training. What I can do

as a composition instructor by considering these practices is to have students create the content

they want to see of themselves and their communities through strategic technological skill

building. This is work I can build off of from the work of Blackmon and Selfe and Selfe above.

Another particularly relevant text when considering pedagogical implications and

interventions around such cultural digital representations as the Cyrus debacle is Adam Banks

Digital Griots.Not only does Banks forward the idea that technologies themselves are

rhetorical in nature but his book is centered on the intersections of African American culture

and technologies (14).One thing that is critical to me about Backs book is that it shifts the

entire framework of how to discuss technology, rhetoric and culture to a culture frequently

misrepresented online (as in the case of Smithermons African American students) and that is


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underrepresented in the worlds of corporations and computer programming, words that are

designing the false reality we see online. Sharing Banks book with students could potentially

be an act of reorientation, in a cultural rhetorics sense, to discussions of these crucial concepts

around digital identity and culture.

Another place to turn to for pedagogical inspiration is to queer rhetoric and composition

scholar Jonathan Alexander and Jacqueline Rhodes who propose queer multimodality as a way

to represent ones own queerness(188) and to explore the gestures of queer critique that draw

our attention to and challenge normative identity, and that probe the intermingling of sexuality

and power in the West (202). After introducing to students to queer theory as a means of

critiquing more than sexuality but rather normativity of any kind, I find the second quote by

Alexander and Rhodes to helpful when critiquing instances of popular culture that is hugely

problematic in terms of power dynamics that lie along an axis of sexuality, such as in the Cyrus

case. As Alexander and Rhodes demonstrate in their article, queer multimodality, or

multimodality without the queer lens, offer opportunities for critique and for digital intervention.

To forward my own pedagogical idea I offer the digital, multimodal open letter. I began

thinking about the open letter as a means of intervention and creation in the wake of the Cyrus

fallout when I noticed some of the most widely-circulated responses were in fact open letters.

Sinead OConnor and Sufjan Stevens letters are perhaps the most cited on the internet.

However, I find the letters from these musicians to be problematic because neither of them

address the racist aspects of the performance, and though tongue-in-check it may be, Stevens

letter seems to in fact perpetuate racist assumptions by correcting Cyrus grammar in her lyrics;


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grammar that to me and to someJezebelcommunity members, is representative of African

American Vernacular English1.

These celebrity and other patronizing exceptions aside, other, more productive open

letters have appeared. Full of emotion and astute argumentation, these letters step in line as part

of a long and rich rhetorical tradition. What is obvious, though, from reading these artifacts is

that contemporary open letters are frequently composed and published online; therefore, these

letters are frequently multimodal as the alphabetic text is accompanied by GIFs, full-length

videos, photographs or illustrations, or other forms of hypertexts. Multimodality is an important

rhetorical consideration when considering digital and cultural intervention because it allows

authors to present visual and aural evidence to support their claims, or to talk back as bell

hooks name this argumentative strategy against racist, sexist and other discriminatory practices.

In her book Talking Back: Thinking Feminist, Thinking Blackness,hooks writes, Even in the

face of powerful structures of domination, it remains possible for each of us, especially those of

us who are members of oppressed and/or exploited groups as well as those radical visionaries

who may have race, class, and sex privilege, to define and determine alternative standards, to

decide on the nature and extent of compromise.The open letters I have read by African

American women, and articles that float similar ideas as these letters, declare alternative

standards in relation to the discourse that either congratulate or defend Cyrus on being hyper-

sexualized but failed to address her racist practices. The open letters, though, and most of these

articles do notseem to offer compromise as an option. Rather, they speak back from discourses

stemming from personal experience, academic logic, and a savvy rhetorical understanding of

digital multimodality and digital circulation.

1Or, given Miley's general trends lately, is this just a delightful little letter from one oblivious white

person who doesn't realize that that the other white person is simply misappropriating a cultural dialect

not her own? Violet Baudelaire,Jezebel14 Oct. 2013
http://violet-baudelaire.kinja.com/http://violet-baudelaire.kinja.com/http://violet-baudelaire.kinja.com/


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For example, one open letter byJezebelblogger Korra includes a GIF of black Caribbean

artist Rhianna looking either bored and/or quietly simmering as Cyrus parades onstage in front of

her at VMAs. This inclusion of making her letter multimodal by including the GIF could be

interpreted in multiple ways, including the decision to show a multimillionaire black woman who

was not buying into the world of black-women-as-props that Cyrus reinforced. An article about

the Cyrus debacle by fellowJezebelblogger StrangerCate cites and links to Korras letter, thus

performing a powerful move in the politics of citation that Sara Ahmed writes about (para. 2).

Additionally, StrangerCates article in heavily multimodal with numerous photos, videos, screen

shots of tweets, and hyperlinks to other articles that talk back to Cyrus and other critics

incorporated into the webpage on which the article appears. This article which supports Korras

open letter is a rich multimodal text that offers multiple pieces of visual and aural arguments to

supplement the arguments made via alphabetic writing.

What these two cultural and popular digital writers can offer me and my students are a

plethora of pedagogical considerations. These authors demonstrate n crystal clear rhetorical

awareness of audience and context, and are strong examples of when and how to use personal

experience as evidence in ones own compositions. They demonstrate, again, the power of

citation in terms of reinforcing your own argument with those of similar opinion, and perhaps

more importantly, supporting others, especially marginalized people, by citing their work,

especially in a way where their work, and ones own work, can be circulated widely and quickly.

These authors also show clear examples of how to mine the internet for examples of people to

speak back to, as well as how to mine the internet for visual and aural materials that can be used

to support ones own position.


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Though clearly teaching does not have to revolve around popular culture, popular culture

is where so many students are drawn to when they enter online spaces. Additionally, it is so often

popular culture that portrays identity and culture in problematic ways. Therefore, using digital,

multimodal assignments such as the open letter offers a way not only to practice digital literacy

in terms of analysis and evaluation of digital artifacts, but it also offers a way to produce digital

artifacts that talk back to and create representations of identity in digital spaces and with digital

means. And even when students do not come across or seek out viral instances of identity

misrepresentation such as the VMAs there can be problems. Seemingly simple search engine

experiences that set out to discover information about personal or scholarly interests, interests

that most likely are reflective of aspects of students identities, more often than not will be

problematic. Therefore, as a rhetoric and composition teacher I understand my charge to be, from

the many other scholars and online writers cited here, to foster digital andcultural literacy for

my students so that they can not only more fully articulate problems they see in representations

of their identities, but they can talk back with digital and cultural sophistication.


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Works Cited

Ahmed, Sara. Making Feminist Points.Feministkilljoys.com.WordPress.com. 11 Sept. 2013.

Web. 25 Nov. 2013.

Alexander, Jonathan and Jacqueline Rhodes. Queerness, Multimodality, and the Possibilities of

Re/Orientation. Composing(Media)=Composing(Embodiment) bodies, technologies,

writing, the teaching of writing.Kristin L. Arola and Anne Frances Wysocki, eds. Logan,

Utah: Utah State University press, 2012. 188-212.

Aronson, Deb. Tectonic Shifts, Turbulence, & Opportunities: Adam Banks on How CCCC Can

Help Re-vision Higher Education. Council Chronicle.Vol. 23, No. 2 (Nov., 2013), pp.

16-17. The National Council of Teachers of English.

Banks, Adam.Digital Griots: African American Rhetoric in a Multimedia Age. Carbondale and

Edwardsville, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 2011. Print.

Blackmon, Samantha. But ImJustWhite or How Other Pedagogies Can Benefit All

Students.Teaching Writing with Computers: An Introduction. Pamela Takayoshi and

Brian Huot, eds. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2003. Print. 92-102.

Blair, Kristine, Katherine Fredlund, Kerri Hauman, Em Hurford, Stacy Kastner, and Alison

Witte. Cyberfeminists at Play: Lessons on Literacy and Activism from a Girls

Computer Camp.Feminist Teacher. Vol. 22, No. 1. 2013. Print. 43-59.

Germain, Jacqui. Miley Cyrus, Feminism and the Struggle for Black Recognition.

Racialicious. Racialicious. 28 Aug. 2013. Web. 10 Nov. 2013.

hooks, bell. Talking Back: Thinking Feminist, Thinking Blackness.Cambridge, MA: South End

Press, 1999. Print.

Korra. Dear Miley, Keep Your Fucking Hands to Yourself.Jezebel. Jezebel. 26 Aug. 2013.

Web. 10 Nov. 2013.
http://groupthink.jezebel.com/dear-miley-keep-your-fucking-hands-to-yourself-1201998015http://groupthink.jezebel.com/dear-miley-keep-your-fucking-hands-to-yourself-1201998015http://groupthink.jezebel.com/dear-miley-keep-your-fucking-hands-to-yourself-1201998015


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Lumpkin, Jincey. Why Miley Cyrus Is a Feminist Icon. The Huffington Post.The Huffington

Post. 14 Oct. 2013. Web. 10 Nov. 2013.

Makarechi, Kia. Miley Cyrus Brings Her Race Problem To The VMAs. The Huffington Post.

The Huffington Post. 26 Aug, 2013. Web. 10 Nov. 2013.

Noble, Safiya Umoja. Missed Connections: What Search Engines Say About Women.Bitch

Magazine.No. 54, Spring 2012. pp. 37-41.

Selfe, Cynthia L. and Richard J. Selfe, Jr. The Politics of the Interface: Power and Its Exercise

on Electronic Contact Zones. College Composition and Communication, Vol. 45, No. 4

(Dec., 1994), pp. 480-504.

UN Women Ad Series Reveals Widespread Sexism. UN Women. unwomen.org. 21 October

2013. Web. 9 Nov. 2013.

ZombieCate. Solidarity is For Miley Cyrus: The Racial Implications of her VMA

Performance.Jezebel. Jezebel. 26 Aug. 2013. Web. 10 Nov. 2013.
http://groupthink.jezebel.com/solidarity-is-for-miley-cyrus-1203666732http://groupthink.jezebel.com/solidarity-is-for-miley-cyrus-1203666732http://groupthink.jezebel.com/solidarity-is-for-miley-cyrus-1203666732http://groupthink.jezebel.com/solidarity-is-for-miley-cyrus-1203666732http://groupthink.jezebel.com/solidarity-is-for-miley-cyrus-1203666732

digital identities multimodal inteventions pedagogical implications

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