Hayles’ call for scholarship that can “locate digital work within print traditions, and print traditions within digital media, without obscuring or failing to account for the differences between them” (7), though seemingly obvious, really resonates with me because–outside of the GC–I don’t believe I’ve encountered such openness to a middle-ground approach. I teach in a writing program that is decidedly technophobic, and, conversely, I’ve taught in programs that have supplanted print traditions entirely. In both cases, students are frustrated because they feel as though they have to adapt their unique writing processes and rituals to those of their instructor. Hayles suggests we abandon this binary approach and adopt a Comparative Media Studies perspective, which can help us to perhaps find the overlap between digital media and print traditions. This perspective would be particularly useful in first-year composition, I believe, because this is where students are thinking critically about the choices they make with language and form. It seems obvious that students’ formalistic options should not be confined to print traditions exclusively–nor should they be restricted to digital media. A Comparative Media Studies lens, thus, would afford students the opportunity to make deliberate rhetorical choices from a broader modal pool.
