Your sitting surfing the web and you come across a site where you can watch videos, connect to people and find information on various topics. This site that you are new to is called You Tube; you view it as just a social network, but actuality it has more to offer than that. An author named Sven Birkerts of the novel “The Gutenburg Elegies,” may view this site as an non literary medium that is to public for this “transformation” (120) into the electronic age for the new student generation. However, what was mentioned earlier about you tube being able to find information on any topic is the key fact that contributes that this digital medium, not fitting into Birkerts category of being non literary and disagreeing with his assumptions that all electronic mediums are useless but actually some like You Tube are useful educational wise to students. I have disagreement to Birkerts theory to all electronic mediums being unhelpful educational wise because You Tube is my prime example that some can be just as beneficial as a printed source could be to a student.
Birkerts view electronic mediums as “the devil…” (211) that took away his old private world and changed it by “booting up, flaming, commanding…” (211) , this makes him fear for the future students in the new generation. He sees that these electronic mediums as distracting to the younger generation. Electronic mediums are an upcoming change from privacy to being public. For this point, Birkerts possibly could be right. Maybe this new generation will not be able to handle You Tube because of it being to public with postings of videos, music, anything on the web. Even though You Tube has educational facts that can be offered on it about any subject, maybe students will be distracted by these videos or music and not pay attention to the educational aspects of this digital medium. So for my argument stating that You Tube can be literature, it is true, that You Tube can be literary; it is just the possibility of students taking this opportunity or not.
April 20, 2010 at 1:16 am |
your focus so far is on YouTube as being legitimate as a medium of writing (or literature) because it is educational. You can elaborate what educational means in your view–and that will lead you to a more specific thesis. Thinking about the critical perspective will also help–since SB is concerned that the electronic is anti-educational.