DISCOURSE AND THE EMERGING INTERNET
SCOLLON AND SCOLLON (2004)
C. R. Wigham, LRL, UBP, 6 April 2011

 methodological guidebook
 ethnography, discourse analysis, action research
 use of computer mediated communication to improve Native Alaskan’s access to higher education
(1978 – 1983)
 how people, places, discourses and objects come together to facilitate action and social change

 inseparable
 change in technologies of discourse = change in discourse itself
 nexus analysis = method discourse social political historical technology

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“Repeated site of engagement where some type of social action is facilitated by a relatively consistent set of social processes”
 site of  nexus of practice  social practice engagement

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 what is said, how and why cycles of discourse  nexus of practice
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 close analysis of moment under analysis historical analysis of discourse cycles that intersect at that moment analysis of anticipations

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Engaging particular nexus of practice – face to face
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Navigating understanding the discourses within the classroom
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Changing introducing computer-mediated-communication new nexus of practice

 establish the social issue to be studied
 find the crucial social actors
 observe the interaction order
 determine the most significant cycles of discouses
 establish zone of identification

 zone of identification (Burke)
 social issue –lack of access
 face to face and distance  different accommodations of the historical bodies, interaction order and distribution of discourse

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 map cycles of people, places, discourses, objects and concepts which circulate through micro-semiotic ecosystem historical body overt + covert discourses motives analysis objects as mediational tools links and interactions transformations

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Platform event + meeting  panopticon event
Interaction order: interpersonal distances teacher = owner of space
Discourses in place: other discourses deselected for attention actions to transfer discourse type
Historical bodies: teacher – student

Micro-rythmns of social interaction
Participation in the structure of the institution mapping of the gate-keeping situations locating gates –Burke’s grammar of motives conventions of expressions differ

 difference with traditional ethnographic research
 re-engagement
 what actions will transform discourses into actions and actions into new discourses and practices?

Interaction order: primary and secondary
Discourses in place: distributed discourses short discourse texts topical weave
Historical bodies: expert-novice role in flux discourse forms from historical body = rare

 theoretical, methodological framework
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Need to follow all the potentially relevant cycles that emanate from a focal interest
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Research is action and all action is itself positioned at the nexus of various relevant cycles
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Nexus analysts embrace their embeddedness in places of study and try to improve those places