When humans think of the word “digital,” we think of technology. We jump to the idea of code and numbers that program our computers. In Doug Eyman’s piece, Defining and Locating Digital Rhetoric, we find that there is more to doing something “digitally” than our just computers.
We define digital as “expressed as a series of the digits 0 and 1, typically represented by values of a physical quantity such as voltage or magnetic polarization. “Analog” is the opposite of this. Similar to how we look at clocks! Take the idea of an “analog” clock. It tells time based off a small arrow ticking for 60 seconds before the other arrows move. A digital clock tells time based off the time it is programmed at. It digitally tells us (with 0s and 1s) the time.
Eyman states, “It is important to remember that ‘digital,’ however, also has a connection to the material production of texts, whether in print form or electronic,” (Eyman 19). He then continues on to site Angela Haas. She states, “Digital also refers to our fingers, our digits, one of the primary ways… through which we make sense of the world and with which we write into the world. All writing is digital: digitalis in Latin, means “of or relating to the fingers or toes,” or “a coding of information.”
So what does it mean for writing to be digital, even on a written piece of paper? Eyman discusses Haas further and mentions written communication such as Mesopotamian Cuneiform, Egyptian hieroglyphics, and more. This ties into rhetoric as it makes us think, and process what we’re looking at.
Leave a Reply