Tuesday, November 13, 2012

showing up to a knife with a gun fight.

How can a blog manage the way it's interpreted by the reader?
The reader interacts with this blog in a myriad of ways. Examine, now, all the different aspects of this blog. There are colors. Fonts. Layout. Paragraphs.          Spacing.            Etc. Your eye interprets each of these cues immediately. Subtly.
Then there's the content of what is written. The thought so to speak. But before that, superseding even the thought, is the mere choice of words. Not what is said, even, but how it is said. And before that there are mechanics. Not ideas, not words, but the sheer presentation of sentences. Periods coming here.  Commas here, and all the "rest" of your average fare of grammatical tools. These principles all cohere to form a block of text that is expressive.
First, however, there must exist a predetermined set of mutually agreed upon rules for communication. That is all the mechanical and formal stuff discussed above. However, the issue of pre-existing norms is a little more nuanced than this. Not only does this predetermined set of mechanical rules exist, but socially constructed (we're talking since the dawn of thought, language, writing, etc.) norms of communication. You expect by reading something you'll understand it. You expect to be given the opportunity, by reading something, to align your thoughts with those of an author.
Even if I wrote,
All fire; donkey merry calling blue, said running Colin, "have on!"
Your mind would desperately attempt to find some meaning within that written sentence. Written things are meant to convey meaning! Thought! Because a prerequisite of writing is thought! But what you just read is totally meaningless. If so, then how can you be sure what you're reading right now isn't also completely, and utterly, meaningless!?
Notice how I demonstrated "spacing" above by leaving large spaces on either side of the word.
There is, undoubtedly, intention there. How can you tell? What differentiates an intentional, thought containing sentence from a random assortment of words and mechanics?
What differentiates a written blog from a devised one? Premeditation?
The point is, there are subtleties which the human mind can comprehend. And there is much great thought written (thought?) on the human presentation and comprehension of these subtleties.
These subtleties are known in Academia as cues. There are two types of cues; cues "given" and cues "given off." One is intentional and the other is unintentional, respectively.
Bogs. What cues does this blog give? Give off? How do you know which are given cues and given off cues? Each and every word. Each and every aspect of formatting. Sentence structure. Everything. Each pixel of this blog is constructed. Either consciously in the act. Like riGHt NoW. 
or not. Just a flow of thought, translated/coded into digital text and formatting, following all of the constructed norms and technology that have developed through the ages and are learned throughout our lifetimes. But where does a blog learn such norms? Spelling? Grammar? This is a ? (question mark) and this > is not (a question mark). Symbols denote things, ideas, like questions. Norms and rules facilitate communication.
Cues given and cues given off facilitate interpersonal interactions. We enter social situations, whether online or in face to face interactions, with ideas of how to act. Ideas of our roles. Ideas of which identity we will bring to the interaction. Ideas of what identity the other person will bring to the interaction. In face to face communication and online, as certain scholarship has proved, these socially constructed and agreed upon identities act as a social lubricant.
When you're interacting with a person.
But when you're interacting with a blog. WHa7 5HoUlD Y0U EXPECT>>>>>>>

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