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jim porter
My research focuses broadly on digital rhetoric -- that is, the art of communicating with/within computer-networked environments and in technical/professional writing contexts. I am especially interested in exploring how writing in digital environments requires us to develop new rhetoric theories, to modify our professional writing practices, and to redesign our writing pedagogies. My recent research focuses on digital communication ethics (particularly digital research ethics); the economics of digital delivery and distribution; and the impact of copying, downloading, and filesharing on writers' notions of intellectual property and authorship and on their composing processes. A broader theoretical question I am pursuing has to do with the role of rhetoric as a type of knowledge. What does rhetoric DO? -- as a discipline, as a field of knowledge, as a mode of analysis, as a methodology? Rhetoric was the center of the liberal education curriculum for most of the history of liberal education. ... Why is that no longer the case? Why does the modern university, even communication studies, neglect rhetoric? Is it because rhetoric has no function or useful role in the modern research paradigm? My historical and theoretical research argues that rhetoric IS a type of knowledge with much to offer, particularly to the understanding of digital written production. However, I also realize that this case has to be demonstrated, not merely assumed. |
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Recent
Publications and Work in Progress
• McKee, Heidi, & Porter, James E. (under review). The ethics of digital
writing research: A rhetorical approach. (under review at College Composition
and Communication)
• Porter, James E., & Rife, Martine Courant. (2005, June). MGM
v. Grokster:
Implications for educators and writing teachers. WIDE Paper #1, WIDE Research
Center, Michigan State University.
• DeVoss, Dànielle, & Porter, James E. (in press, 2006). Why
Napster matters to writing: Filesharing as a new ethic of digital delivery.
Computers & Composition, 23.2.
• The WIDE Research Center Collective [DeVoss, Dànielle, Cushman,
Ellen, Hart-Davidson, Bill, Grabill, Jeff, & Porter, James E.]. (2005).
Why teach digital writing? Kairos, 10.1. <http://english.ttu.edu/kairos/10.1/binder2.html?coverweb/wide/index.html>
• Porter, James E. (2005). The chilling of digital information: Technical
communicators as public advocates. In Michael Day & Carol Lipson (eds.),
Tech/Web: Technical communications and the World Wide Web in the new millennium
(pp. 243-259). Mahway, NJ: Erlbaum.
• Porter, James E. (2003). Why technology
matters to writing: A cyberWriter's tale. Computers & Composition,
20.4, 375-394.
• Porter, James E., Sullivan, Patricia, & Johnson-Eilola, Johndan.
(2003). Professional writing online
(2nd ed). Boston: Longman/Allyn & Bacon.
• Porter, James E. (1998). Rhetorical ethics and internetworked writing.
Greenwich, CT: Ablex and Computers and Composition.
Recent
Presentations
• Porter, James E. (2005, April). Repurposing delivery for digital
rhetoric: Access, interaction, economics. The Tag Lecture, Department of
English, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC.
• Porter, James E. (2005, October). Why Napster matters: Shifting
generational attitudes toward filesharing. Internet Research 6.0 (Association
of Internet Researchers), Chicago, IL.
• Porter, James E. (2005, September). New (and old) modes of production
and learning in the post-Napster era: Writing as memory, imitation, compilation.
Conference on Originality, Imitation, and Plagiarism, University of Michigan,
Ann Arbor, MI.
• Porter, James E. (2005, July). Why Napster matters to literacy:
The new economy and ethic of digital media. Conference on Learning, University
of Granada, Granada, Spain.
Recent
Courses Taught
AL 805 Rhetoric
Theory and History
WRA 202 Introduction
to Professional Writing
Other
Links
Curriculum Vitae
(PDF)
Graduate Program in Rhetoric
& Writing
