Date of Award

5-2010

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Legacy Department

Rhetorics, Communication, and Information Design

Committee Chair/Advisor

Haynes, Cynthia

Committee Member

Vitanza , Victor J.

Committee Member

May , Todd

Committee Member

Hung , Christina

Abstract

This essay argues that part of memory is external to ourselves. This memory, which began with writing but has since grown to encompass digital media, the internet, and other forms of new media, faces a two-fold problem in the information age. The first is privatization, which is represented by copyright, and has heretofore received a greater share of scholarly attention. Regulation is represented through the concept of protocols, which are the rules digital media execute in order to perform functions. Protocols are a regulation of external memory, which I argue also represents a threat to deliberation, the form of rhetoric that deals with the future. In order to contend with such controls, we must look to the possibility of the unexpected, which unfolds along the thought of Gilles Deleuze, and in what are known as aleatory methods.

Share

COinS
 
 

To view the content in your browser, please download Adobe Reader or, alternately,
you may Download the file to your hard drive.

NOTE: The latest versions of Adobe Reader do not support viewing PDF files within Firefox on Mac OS and if you are using a modern (Intel) Mac, there is no official plugin for viewing PDF files within the browser window.