Is There a Chilling of Digital Communication?

Does law, or even the presence of the law, shape composing practices? Do fair use/copyright play a part in the web composing practices/pedagogy of students and teachers in technical communication programs as they construct web sites and design curriculum? Westbrook (2006) goes so far as to state that institutional ideologies combined with copyright law “render students’ multimedia compositions illegitimate” (p.459). This empircal study aims to examine these issues and to provide insights that can guide programmatic/pedagogical decisions regarding the instruction of students as technical/professional writers and new media composers.