ABSTRACT

This chapter focuses on the rhetorical use of text on the page, on screen, and in video. Screen literacy requires the ability to both consume and produce meaning; writing with media is key to writing about it. Digital platforms offer different possibilities; they have expanded the palette of resources, allowing the integration of sound, image, and movement in addition to words. As such, screen-based media, whether time-based like video, or spatially-oriented such as a website, demand a different set of considerations. Writing in physical formats is fairly reified structurally, and the standard critical essay tends to proceed linearly: introduction, thesis statement, evidence, and conclusion. Of course, this structure is not intractable, but expository prose is seen as objective and critically distanced, so tends not to deviate in form. Screen media frequently combine spatially- and temporally-oriented elements in the same container, and their interplay can be tricky to negotiate.