BLOG POST 4
(2) Why is the "visual" so important to digital writing? Reflect on your experience with visual elements and the internet. Refer to Bolter where relevant.
Bolter talks about visual elements as seperate from verbal text, at times. At other times, he suggests that the visual element can be text-based. For example, when poets use metaphors, they are incorporating a "visual" in their writing. In a similar way, "discoursive prose" also incorporates a text-based visual; Bolter talks about how discoursive prose has "abstract" parts and "concrete" parts and that the concrete parts are "subordinate" to the abstract parts (I'm thinking a general statement plus an example). Furthermore, Bolter really seems to want to emphasize that point; the concrete being subordinate to the abstract and how the visual element (whether text-based or an actual graphic) has always been used to "supplement" verbal text (Bolter 48).
I guess a simple way of figuring out what he is trying to say is by thinking in terms of words coming before pictures. You think of the word first and then the picture follows. That's what's happening in print. You read the word "tree" first, and then an image of a tree pops in your head. In contrast, when you walk around a park, you see a tree (you see the visual first) and then you think of the word "tree". I might be waaaay off here, though.
Anyways, I believe the visual has been taking on a much greater importance, and not just in digital writing. Bolter talks about the change of the ratio between visuals and verbal text in print. I don't know if he actually says it explicitly, but (at the very least) it's implied that we are seeing more images in print than ever before.
In addition, Bolter also talks about how older technologies remediate THEMSELVES in response to newer technologies. I thought that was a bit odd. From what I understand, newer technologies are a remediation of an older technology; that something new is fashioned after (or remediated from) something old. Yet, I think, Bolter may be also saying that remediation has a more complicated meaning than that, especially when he states that an older technology can "remake" itself. Again, I may be misreading Bolter, though. (Bolter 49)
But, if newer technologies are remediations of older technologies AND older technologies can remediate themselves in response to newer technologies THEN that suggests (as Bolter seems to say) that the increase of visual elements (both as graphics and text-based prose) is the way that the older technology of print is remediating itself in response to the newer technology of digital writing (Bolter 49).
I think you've got it right: Bolter is saying that older technologies remediate themselves. But, I had to smile when reading your post. Sometimes Bolter makes things *unnecessarily complicated*. I really find value in the idea of remediation, but sometimes it's a bit overboard. In terms of visuals, though, yes, Bolter is saying that visuals are permeating our text in more ways than ever before. With the prevalence of multimedia, we really see how visuals are definitely important. Think of how many YouTube videos we've played in our class! Visuals are a part of that media experience.