How Mobility Affects a Text - Jackson Tarpley

Mobility as a tool of circulation has changed writing in an immense way, especially with the introduction of the new-age writing systems we see today. With this new found mobility of discourse, composers must realize that they're work will now be seen in a much larger scale. The fact that discourse is now much more spreadable seems to highlight a different issue, and that is: how do texts take a trans-national context? And is that even achievable? For example, in the past, a specific issue of a newspaper was only accessible in the city that it was circulated in, but now with the introduction of the online publication, that same issue can be accessed worldwide. Now when I say this, it's not in a hypothetical context. Many people do now access newspapers and other local forms of media on a global scale, because this discourse is much more mobile. Now that we see this kind of text-reader relationship, it highlights the cultural barriers that writing constructs. Through the use of specific diction, a discourse may be more relevant to one specific culture than another. Kenneth Burke touched on this concept with his theory of Terministic Screens, or the theory that states that a system of language interprets how an individual sees reality. When reading the question for the week, I immediately thought about this theory. The idea of terministic screens represent exactly what specific parts of discourse are highlighted when that discourse is circulated in the way it is today. Decades ago, composers were not aware of how their diction would be read outside their culture, but now its absolutely mandatory to think about that fact as a writer. When a discourse is deemed as highly 'mobile' or 'spreadable', the language used must be written in a way that most effectively applies to many cultures. Through my studies of Molz, Burke, and many other rhetorical theorists, I have determined that there is no discourse that is truly trans-national. Or, in other words, there is no such thing as a text that can be understood world-wide. And with the introduction of new writing technologies that make discourse more mobile, that truth is now only more evident.