Your choice of medium controls what you communicate. How you communicate your content is correlative with what kinds of rhetorical devices you can use. What you choose to “write” within controls how you end up gaining your intended response from an audience.
Author Marshall McLuhan once stated that “the medium is the message.” Although it’s his most famous quote, he had much more to say on the matter. In Understanding Media, he gave an example in the form of a simple electrical light. From the same chapter as his famous quote, “The message of the electric light is like the message of electric power in industry, totally radical, pervasive, and decentralized.” One does not think of a light as “media,” in normal circumstances. Yet, the choice to use electricity to advertise says something over a painted sign.
Doug Eyman gave a more typical example in his maligned textbook chapter: hypertext. The Web is the medium, and hyperlinks are a feature of content not possible within print text. The medium is actively allowing you to tell your viewer that your words have precedent. Click on “his maligned textbook chapter,” and you’ll know I’m not making shit up. Thus, my choice within this medium strengthens intertexuality.
J.D Applen takes the Web example a step further.
In Writing for the Web, Applen starts with the example of modularity. The Web is not a linear place. Pieces of it can be swapped out or edited over time, and it can all still be interconnected. This is true down to the minute code levels. The Web is modular, so it is quite variable. How interactive the whole experience ends up being is up for debate.
Literally everything about the initial canvas for your images and words can say a lot. Both on the hardware and software level. A piece of paper can say a lot, but it can’t do fancy Web things. On the other hand, using freehand techniques on a PC will be awkward with a mouse or cost extra to use a tablet. Your decision to proceed with either will tell the viewer something.
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