Discussions from Digital Humanities
A Response to two pieces by Mark Marino
A Domain of One’s Own
The proposal in A Domain of One’s Own might go some way to granting independence to young people in online interactions, where currently they are often beholden to the restrictions of large multinational companies.
I finished school before the widespread use of the internet in Ireland. I had expected, and felt a little hard done by thinking about it, that over the next 20 years the curriculum and facilities would have evolved to ensure students graduated with a level of tech fluency that would allow them agency and independence online. Now, working with younger colleagues from all over Europe I am always surprised at how shallow their understanding of software and online interactions tends to be.
If 3rd level students, as standard, were encouraged to create and publish their assignments through a personal domain there would be a sea-change in the depth of digital literacy that ‘digital natives’ can harness.
Teaching Writing in the Post-Blogging Era
However chaotic, this Merino article reminded me of how many different developments in online communications I was familiar with through interacting online while the internet was in its own adolescent phase and how that, informally, gave me an understanding of how these interfaces work. He lays out the development of self-publishing, or platishing, on the web and how different styles of writing are demanded by each platform.
It’s something in between a publisher and a platform — something that weaves together the strengths of both. A platisher.”
(Glick, 2014)
Inspired by Marino’s Listicle I summarised the developments he identified, including tools he created himself, in a numbered list:
- The death of blogging (long live blogging).
- The Blogosphere was replaced by the Zuckersphere.
- Periodic prose posts were replaced by Twitter threads.
- Platishing was defined (Gluck, 2014)
- Medium.com as a successor to Blogger, which can be used for
- Educational sites
- or an Assignment platform
- But does not offer reverse chronological order
- or Control or ownership of layout, content or style
- The blogazine
- Chain of Dependencies tool
- Zotero Groups
- Topoi Glider
- Love Letter Generator
- Scholarship in the Internet Vernacular (quizzes, listicles etc.)
- NetProv
Marino encourages students to engage with these innovative styles of writing as they develop because of the new perspectives on teaching and learning they can reveal.
References
Marino, Mark C (2012) ‘A Domain of One’s Own.’ [online] WIRED. Available at: <https://www.wired.com/insights/2012/07/a-domain-of-ones-own/> [Accessed 13 December 2021]
Marino, Mark C. (Aug 22, 2019) ‘Teaching and Writing in the Post-Blogging Era‘ Medium. [online] Available at: https://markcmarino.medium.com/teaching-writing-in-the-post-blogging-era-ab7848247e33 (Accessed: 13 December 2021).
Jonathan Glick ( Feb 7, 2014) ‘Rise of the Platishers‘ Vox. [online] Available at: https://www.vox.com/2014/2/7/11623214/rise-of-the-platishers (Accessed: 13 December 2021).
