Jana Rosinski

WRT 104
Summer 2014
Due: July 10
Details: 750 words + media
Inventory of Effects
Frame
We are steeped in an information-soaked, mediated culture. Messages surround us: from
the shuffling soundtracks on our iPods, the wallpaper/debris of flyers around campus,
street signs and radio jingles to the yellowed pages of a long-shelved manuscript, the white
noise blaring through the television, to the feed of news in our aggregate readers. Popular,
widely distributed forms of such messages mix with the lesser-known, unnoticed, even
insignificant bits and bytes. These conditions present us with something like a massage,
McLuhan contends, at least in the sense that "all media work us over completely".
Each of us is influenced by a mix of media effects. Over time, we generate unique
predispositions for particular media forms--for entertainment, for guidance, and for vital
information. As preferences shift, as informational priorities evolve, and as new media
forms become available to us, these habits are revised and re-mediated.
At the end of The Medium is the Massage, McLuhan connects his articulation of media
effects with identity when he gives us the questioning caterpillar in Alice's Wonderland:
"...and who are you?" With this question in mind, you should begin to develop a way of
accounting for the convergence of media effects bearing on you--defining you.
Form of the Text
Return to your Media Means inventory that registers your media environment--the precise
means by which you take information in each day, comprised of both form and content.
While accounting for your media environment, you should be tuned in to both mundane or
everyday forms and media-specific forms (more specific/specialized media that you engage
with). Next, you should begin to develop an understanding of the media encounters that
make up more than your environment; might they shape your identity itself? Use any of the
following questions to generate possibilities for developing your composition:
How varied are the specific media forms influencing your environment(s)?
What do specific media forms say about you?
Who or what controls the specific media forms you have identified? How is such
control exercised? Are controls visible and explicit?

 What are the effects of a particular media form? What might it mean to experience
too much or too little of the medium?
How has the media form been framed through other kinds of media? What are
specific examples of this framing? What impact does such framing have on you?
What sort of information flows through the particular media? To what extent is it
predictable or stable? How is it filtered?
Who gets to make or produce the media form? How might you replicate the media
as a way of speaking back to it?
How does the media make it possible to speak back to it? To critique it?
What patterns can you identify in the particular media? What patterns can you
identify across varied media forms?
What surprises you about your own inventory of effects?
Your essay may employ methods similar to those at work in McLuhan's text, where
description and critique of various manifestations of media work amongst specific design
features--images, icons, and so on. If you have ideas for integrating various media into your
essay, you should proceed knowing that I will support your efforts as much as possible, but
that working with multimedia may require more time on your part.
You will invent ideas for your essay - that is, you will make observations, write descriptions,
tell stories, look for patterns, and draw conclusions by doing a number exercises in class, as
homework, and as entries on your Tumblr. Feel free to arrange a visit to the Writing Center
(HBC) to discuss your ideas with a consultant, or for response, feedback, and advice on a
draft.
Grading Cues
[1] How well does the title provocatively and productively focused the reader's
attention?
[2] Does the writer organize the essay effectively, with a focusing idea, thesis, or
umbrella claim, and with appropriate transitions between sections?
[3] Did the writer provide rich, detailed, well-developed accounts of various media
effects as they extend to a particular sense of identity?
[4] Did the writer account for both the effects of particular media forms in the past
and projections of those media as methods or devices for invention or future action?
[5] Did the writer develop claims about the effects of the custom inventory?
[6] Did the writer make connections between theory and observation by referring
directly, through proper textual citation, to McLuhan?
[7] Did the writer make things explicit (e.g., details, not generalizations; claims, not
clichs)?

[8] Did the writer edit for grammar, style, and usage effectively?

JanaRosinski
WRT104
Summer2014
InventoryRemix/Remediation
Due:July19
Form:2minuteaudiofileofspeech+sound/music

Youarearemixmaster,amashupartist,aspinnerandrecyclerofeverydayart.Youhave
createdacompositionforyourInventoryofEffectsprojectnowyouregoingtosampleitand
remix/remediateitthroughsound)))))

Thetoolsandprogramsyouuseareuptoyou,butyouwillneedtouseyourphoneorcomputer
torecordanaudiotrackofyouspeaking.Youwillalsoneedaprogramthatallowsyoutoedit
soundqualityandaddmusicand/orsoundeffectsthatfityouraudiotext.ConsiderCCplatforms
thatsharemusicwithcredit(likeCCMixter)orcreatingsoundeffectsyourselfbyfurther
recordingofnoisesyouencounterorothersuchlayersyoucreate.Lastly,thiswillneedtobe
hostedonSoundcloudsothatitcanbesharedviaURL.Youwillneedtocreateanaccount
pleasemakethoughtfulconsiderationsofyouridentityincreatinganaccount.

Note:Youwilllikelyrunintoissueswithfilesizeandtypeintermsofcompatibility.Irecommend
Zamzardotcomforallofyourconversionneeds.