The Important Things in Life
No life is perfect, certainly not the reality of life in the United States in 2023. With a name like “Digital Writing for Social Action,” it is important to understand how to best speak on the issues that most concern us. During the first half of the semester, we focused on what digital writing is and writing in general. Now in this second half, we are putting it into action — social action that is.
Media and Rhetoric
Media can be a helpful addition to digital writing when used thoughtfully and appropriately. I think media is beneficial for enhancing writing. Images can bring ideas to life or substantiate things that may be confusing or heady. This can help make digital writing more current whether it be with popular songs, movies, books, or images of current or recent events or updated more easily to be most current. In discussing this idea as a class, a classmate had explained how media can provide clarity and evidence to an argument that may otherwise rely on the writer’s idea and research shared.
If media is not incorporated thoughtfully, it can diminish the writer’s ideas and the originality of the piece. The rhetoric surrounding media is important to consider how the media interacts with the writer, message, and audience and vice versa. This can influence the reader’s attitude toward the topic and writing. The purpose of the media, whether that be enhancing, drawing new points, referencing outside points, or any other purpose, keeps the media relevant to the writing. The impact of the media can also be influenced by where it is placed within writing and how it interacts with the reader and the text. This may look like drawing new points based on an image or providing outside information and context. Context is the glue that holds together this relationship between media and the writer, message, and audience and explains circumstances that surround the setting for an idea. It may explain outside points or identify additional information that clarifies or better explains a topic.
Influencing Social Action
Writing for social action allows the writer to convey a topic in a way that the reader may feel influenced to take action of some kind. This may be an issue commonly associated with activism or a topic that encourages someone to think or do something new. Personally, when I think of writing for social action, I think of moving pieces about current issues that the writer has a stake in and encourages the reader to take interest in and action toward. This is writing that impacts people and moves them to care more by persuading them to pay attention to an issue. This is the kind of writing that I hope to achieve with practice, research, and passion.
This style of writing often includes anecdotes, images, or media that encourage a more personal response. Making it personal makes them more likely to be impacted by the writing and encouraged to take action. Some of the most successful digital writing attempts to respond to current ideas and events, be relevant to its audience, and provide an angle that may not have been considered before. These writings are inherently persuasive and usually on topics that are difficult to discuss and explain, especially civic and social issues.
Topics of social action range from social inequalities based on a person’s identity to political processes to environmental issues as well as so many more. If the issues in the world were easy to explain, there wouldn’t be as much to take action on. It is important that the conversations around these topics be created and added to with the hope that action be taken and change be made.
