Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Thanks for Bogost's Comments

First, let me thank Ian Bogost for his thoughts comments to blog posting last week. His input was gracious and fosters a dialogue to which I look forward, because through this interchange I can better grasp his theses and increase my own understandings.

1. Last week I reviewed Bogost's first chapter on "Procedural Rhetorics" and, while I readily concede that persuasive games are rhetorical, expressed some reservations about whether their procedurality constitutes constitutes a new rhetorical domain. Should we not first see if existing theories of visual or digital rhetorics could be stretched and expanded to encompass persuasive games, before declaring a new domain is needed? That way, we could attempt to understand procedurality by tapping into existing literatures and analytical frameworks.

Ian's reply: You're right that there is a rhetorical move in claiming procedural rhetoric as "new," and indeed there are probably many precedents. I believe I mention legal process as one as well, in the first chapter. I'm not so much interested in procedural rhetoric as "new thanks to computers" but rather new as a theoretical concept, and I certainly would welcome articulations of historical versions of the concept.

My response: Ian, I appreciate your generous reply. Perhaps you agree with me that the "new-thanks-to-compuers" genre is rife with people who claim that today's challenges are "unprecedented" and thereby obsolesce all previous knowledge. Such a stance is, I believe, not very helpful in advancing understanding. We can learn much by building on scholarship which has gone before us. Like you, I would welcome collaborative opportunities to trace historical versions of procedurality that might inform current theory development.

2. In particular, I agreed with Bogost that current works on visual rhetoric seem to privilege static or filmic images and that works on digital rhetoric privilege text. But last semester I cited in my RCID 804 blog a number of visual rhetoric/communication scholars who are dissatisfied with the lack of theory development. They point out that much of the literature consists of articles in which authors simply select some image(s) and then write a critique. Yet without any theoretical frameworks to inform a repeatable research agenda, how do you know whether one author's critique is as good as any other interpretation.

It strikes me that the field of visual rhetoric may be ready for some solid theory development, that persuasive games could furnish useful cases, and that participating in this development rather than declaring a new rhetorical domain might be worth the attempt.

Ian's reply: On visual rhetoric: my position is "extreme" in relation to visual and verbal rhetoric perhaps because I think procedurality has been so ignored by (digital) rhetoricians. There is, of course, reason to consider the verbal, visual, sound, etc. aspects of games. The book takes some of them up, later on.

My response: Again, Ian, I deeply respect your forthrightness to acknowledge where you stand. The literature on the rhetoric of science suggests that knowledge-making in academe is ultimately a give-and-take process of argumentation and eventual consensus. Staking out an "extreme" position can be beneficial by, in this case, prodding those digital rhetoricians who have ignored procedurality. Though I maintain for now certain reservations as stated above, I look forward (as I mentioned last week, and as you stated in your reply) to reading the arguments laid out in the remainder of your book.

3. Finally, I asked last week about how, exactly, do "procedural rhetoricians" construct an argument. In so doing I noted that Bogost's book describes a "procedural gap" in which, like the "play" in a steering wheel before the gears mesh, gamers have "free space" to manipulate the game according to their own desires. If that is the case, is the game designer's opportunity to persuade the gamer diminished?

Ian's reply: On constructing a procedural argument; the constraint of additional rules produces a more richly meaningful possibility space. The concept of a game in which you can "do anything" (if it's even possible) is actually much less interesting than one in which you can do some very particular thing. The possibility space becomes more meaningful as it narrows.

My response: Thanks, Ian. Your reply helps me to better understand your argument.

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