Content and medium are very important when considering rhetoric. The medium produces a certain type of content. Lanham says printed texts have “No pictures; no color; strict order of left to right then down one line; no type changes; no interaction; no revision”. There is a limit to what is said since print can’t be changed. Unlike a screen, for “text on a screen is more dynamic and changeable, that we can question it and interact with it, and this is akin to give and take between participants in oral discourse, the dialectic method” according to Applen. Texts on a screen are more changeable which keep the reader more engaged while also posing more questions.
Books and Movies
There then becomes questions on how the text on the screen does what it does. Why do some words get a certain font versus others? How come this image? Why this hyperlink? All these questions depend on the type of site the reader is looking at. This doesn’t happen with set mediums like traditional print and cinema. As Manovich said, everyone had to “enjoy the same goods”. Books are set in what they show as books “are based on narratives that are a series of scenes or dramatic moments captured in a specific order to convey the specific meaning of the author or director” according to Applen. Yes, “certain words or characters in books or movies might have different meanings for each of us”, but those thoughts don’t change until we grow and read the book or watch the movie again.
Books and movies can’t be viewed out of order. Books and movies must go in a certain order for the story to be understood. Like Applen said, “it is harder for us to imagine that we can just add or subtract information after they are complete; for everything to make sense in the narratives, we need to have all the proper elements in place”. However, as Manovich mentioned, “what comes before or after each element in a database is of no consequence, and each element is just as significant as any other element”. A website can typically view it in any order. The homepage doesn’t have to be read fully to understand the rest of the website. Applen stated that websites “can always be added to or subtracted from but still retain a sense of wholeness. A novel with a couple of chapters missing cannnot do this”.
Illusions
Certain mediums can only produce certain content which overall makes the rhetoric limited. People might think interacting with a website means they are in control, ‘“However, when we select an image or some underlined text in a hyperlinked environment, we are sent off to other places that others have decided we should go to and which are “preprogrammed”. We think we are making unique choices that reflect who we are as individuals, but this is illusory”. Applen and Manovich bring up countless good points on how limiting a medium can be. The content and medium produce a certain way of how something being said. Screens can have different fonts, images, links, colors, and a lot more things to question than something traditionally printed. Content and medium is very important to keep in mind when questioning the message of something.
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