Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
Computers and Composition 30 (2013) 211–225
Interactivity and the Invisible: What Counts as
Writing in the Age of Web 2.0
William I. Wolff ∗
Associate Professor of Writing Arts, Rowan University, United States
Abstract
This study asks: what counts as writing in a Web 2.0 environment? How do the vocabularies, functionalities, and organizing
structures of Web 2.0 environments impact our understanding of what writing is in these spaces and how that writing is performed?
Results suggest that we, as scholars and teachers, need to pay more attention to, first, the interactivity that is embedded in and afforded
by Web 2.0 applications and, second, the processes that are invisible to the composer. Successful compositional engagement with
Web 2.0 applications requires an evolving interactive set of practices similar to those practiced by gamers, comics, and electronic
literature authors and readers. What we learn about these practices has the potential to transform the way we understand writing
and the teaching of writing within and outside of a Web 2.0 ecosystem.
© 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Comics; Electronic Literature; Gaming; Interactivity; Web 2.0; Writing; Writing Ecologies
1. Introduction
In the fall of 2009, as I was recording data for the study I discuss below, NCTE released Kathleen Blake Yancey’s
report, Writing in the 21st Century. The report was:
A call to action, a call to research and articulate new composition, a call to help our students compose often,
compose well, and through these composings, become the citizen writers of our country, the citizen writers of
our world, and the writers of our future. (Yancey, 2009, p. 1)
J. Elizabeth Clark (2010) argued that Yancey’s call marked a “new era” for our field, “a challenge to articulate
how technology is radically transforming our understanding of authors and authority and to create powerful new
practices to converge with this new digital world” (p. 27). For Yancey (2009), we have entered a “new era in literacy, a
period we might call the Age of Composition” wherein “our impulse to write is now digitized and expanded—or put
differently, newly technologized, socialized” (p. 5). Yancey’s and Clark’s calls echoed Selfe’s (1999) culturally and
socially situated redefinition of technological literacy (p. 10) and Yancey’s (2004) Conference on College Composition
and Communication Chair’s address during which she observed the field of composition studies has reached a liminal
moment: “Literacy today is in the midst of a tectonic change. Even inside of school, never before have writing and
composing generated such diversity in definition. What do our references to writing mean?” (p. 298). Indeed. To invoke
∗
Associate Professor of Writing Arts, Hawthorn Hall, Rowan University, 201 Mullica Hill Road. Tel.: +856 256 5221; fax: +856 256 5730.
E-mail address: wolffw@rowan.edu
8755-4615/$ – see front matter © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compcom.2013.06.001
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W.I. Wolff / Computers and Composition 30 (2013) 211–225
Dorothy A. Winsor (1992), in the early decades of the twenty-first century—in the age of Web 2.0—what counts as
writing?
In 2007, I started asking my students to think about how Web 2.0 applications facilitate the exchange of information
across multiple websites. I soon began witnessing the challenges they were having with both conceiving of information
movement and composing to facilitate it. Since that time, I have suspected that writing in the age of Web 2.0 is
significantly more complex than writing was in the age of print and even in the early years of the visual browser.
Inspired by Winsor’s seminal article, “What Counts as Writing: An Argument from Engineers’ Practice” (1992), the
study I discuss in the following pages was designed to investigate if writing in a Web 2.0 environment is substantively
different from writing in more traditional print-based and computer environments. What, the study asks, counts as
writing in a Web 2.0 environment? How do the vocabularies, functionalities, and organizing structures of Web 2.0
environments impact our understanding of what writing is in these spaces and how that writing is performed?
Winsor was chosen to frame the study for three reasons. First, I saw the investigation as similar to Winsor’s; where
she was thinking about how people were writing in disciplines other than English studies, I was investigating how
writing is happening in a new environment. Second, Winsor challenged three myths we suspected we might have
to confront, as well, namely “that when we really write something, we think it up all on our own and do creative,
original, individual work” (1992, p. 338); “that writing requires the direct presence of human beings” (1992, p. 340);
and “that writing necessarily involves words” (1992, p. 342). Third, Winsor’s whole discussion suggested that writing
is essentially meaning making. That is, regardless of the form, genre, or method of writing, the primary goal of the act
of writing is to create meaning for a particular audience in a particular context.
Results from my study confirmed that the Web 2.0 spaces many in our field have been asking our students to compose
in (blogs, wikis, Twitter, and so on) are, indeed, spaces for writing that, like more traditional print-based writing, have
their own grammars, styles, and linguistics. More importantly, results also suggest that we, as scholars and teachers
need to pay more attention to, first, the interactivity that is embedded in and afforded by Web 2.0 applications and,
second, the processes that are invisible to the composer. Paying attention to interactivity and what is invisible to the
user is something that gamers do (think of using Mario to find hidden coins). Authors and readers of comics (McCloud,
2005) and electronic literature (Hayles, 2008) focus on the interactivity and invisibility embedded in their texts. Study
results suggest that we as a field need to start thinking about how one composes in Web 2.0 environments in terms
of the relationships between writing and gaming (Colby & Colby, 2008), writing and comics (Mueller, 2012), and
writing and electronic literature (Grigar, 2005). Too often the theories and practices associated with Web 2.0, gaming,
comics, and electronic literature (elit), are discussed separately in our scholarship and in our classrooms (and, in the
case of comics and elit, tangentially, if at all). This can no longer be the case. Web 2.0 is causing these fields and their
associated user practices to merge. In the twenty-first century, effective and successful compositional engagement with
Web 2.0 applications—Yancey’s “new composition”—requires an evolving interactive set of practices similar to those
practiced by gamers and comics and elit authors and readers. What we learn about these practices has the potential to
transform the way we understand writing and the teaching of writing within and outside of a Web 2.0 ecosystem.
2. Study methodology
This study was designed to catalog the functions and writing spaces within Web 2.0 applications, investigate how
those functions and writing spaces were implemented across Web 2.0 applications, and identify function and writing
space relationships among Web 2.0 applications.1 The study included the following phases:
• Create a master list of English language Web 2.0 applications (September 2008). The master list was created by
cataloging and crosschecking Web 2.0 applications from the following websites: Go2Web20 <http://go2web20.net>,
Alexa <http://alexa.com>, and Movers 2.0 <http://movers20.esnips.com/>. Go2Web20 is one of the largest, if not
the largest, directory of Web 2.0 applications. Alexa tracks, ranks, and provides robust data on worldwide website
usage. Movers 2.0 ranks the top 100 Web 2.0 applications according to their usage by accessing the Alexa API.
1 This study was made possible by a Rowan University Non-Salary Financial Support Grant (2008–2009). Two former Rowan University undergraduate research assistants, Katherin Fitzpatrick and Rene Youssef, played significant roles in data collection and analysis and as such, the Results
section is written in the plural.
W.I. Wolff / Computers and Composition 30 (2013) 211–225
213
Table 1
Purposive Sample and Function Totals.
Web 2.0 Application
Total Functions
Web 2.0 Application
Total Functions
Bebo
Blogger
Dailymotion
Delicious
Digg
Esnips
Facebook
Feedburner
Flickr
Fotolog
Friendster
hi5
imeem
Last.fm
Linkedin
Livejournal
40
31
30
24
26
33
43
15
34
26
31
32
33
29
23
37
Meebo
Metacafe
Multiply
MySpace
Ning
Orkut
Skype
Slide
Tagged
Technorati
Twitter
Wikia
Wikipedia
Xanga
Youtube
25
29
44
48
46
37
24
31
34
21
30
26
15
44
38
• Generate random and purposive samples (September 2008). From the master list, random samples with 90%, 95%,
and 99% confidence intervals were created, as was a purposive sample (random samples were generated for use in
possible later stages of the study). If a Web 2.0 application appeared on the master list, Alexa’s Top 500, and Movers
2.0, the application was added to the purposive sample. Other Web 2.0 applications could be added if researchers
thought they would create a more accurate survey of activities associated with Web 2.0.
• Analyze the purposive sample (September 2008–August 2009). One of the challenges faced when analyzing Web
2.0 applications is that the applications are constantly changing by adding, removing, or altering core and minor
functions. As a result, we developed a Reflexive Cataloging Methodology as a means to capture and record changes
over a period. In a Reflexive Cataloguing Methodology, a researcher or group of researchers catalogs data from the
sample population at set points over a period of time, checking to see if the population has changed in any way. In
our study, we cataloged and then met to discuss data from the purposive sample once a month for twelve months.
• Consider whether functions can be considered writing (June 2009–July 2009). Researchers assessed each of the
functions identified and tagged in terms of Winsor’s (1992) descriptions, theories, and conclusions in “What Counts
as Writing? An Argument from Engineers’ Practice” to determine whether a particular function could be considered
a kind of writing.
3. Results
3.1. Create a master list of English language Web 2.0 applications and create sample populations
As of September 2008, Go2Web20 contained 2,663 Web 2.0 applications in their database. We identified 89 English
language Web 2.0 applications in the Alexa Top 500 list that were not on the Movers 2.0 list, and 25 English language
Web 2.0 applications on the Movers 2.0 list that were not on the Alexa Top 500 list. When all three lists were combined
and 36 duplicates removed, the resulting list contained a full population of 2,741 English language Web 2.0 applications.
Random populations of 368 (90% CI), 491 (95% CI), and 750 (99% CI) were generated.
We generated a purposive sample of 29 applications by identifying applications that appeared in the full population,
Alexa’s Top 500, and Movers 2.0 (Table 1). Two applications, Blogger and Delicious, were added to the purposive
sample because we thought it important that blogging and social bookmarking be represented, and they were the leading
sites in those areas. In September 2008, Alexa ranked Twitter the 972nd most popular website and Movers 2.0 ranked
it the 39th most popular Web 2.0 application. By March 2009, however, Alexa ranked Twitter at 80 (a 92% increase)
and Movers 2.0 ranked it at 10 (a 74% increase). NielsonWire reported Twitter use had increased 1,382% between
February 2008 and February 2009 (McGiboney, 2009). In short, Twitter could no longer be ignored. We opted to add
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W.I. Wolff / Computers and Composition 30 (2013) 211–225
Twitter to the purposive sample and remove MyYearBook—a site with a target population younger than college-aged
students.
3.2. Analyze the purposive sample
Between September 2008 and August 2009, we identified 69 unique functions associated with the Web 2.0 applications in the purposive sample (Table 2). Each of the functions was tagged with a particular name and given a definition,
creating a unique vocabulary, or “collabulary,” for our tagging, archiving, and research purposes. Only two functions
(creating an account and user-generated content) were found in all 31 Web 2.0 applications (Table 1). MySpace was
identified as having the most functions (N=48), followed by Ning (N=46), Multiple and Xanga (N=44), and Bebo and
Facebook (N=40). Wikipedia (N=15) and Feedburner (N=15) had the fewest. In other words, results suggested that for
a user to use MySpace effectively, they needed to know how to identify, understand, and use 48 unique functions; to
use Facebook effectively, 40; and so on.
Identifying and defining functions resulted in many challenges, especially because similar terms (e.g., Groups,
Communities, Networks) were used across applications but were often implemented in different ways (see also boyd,
2006). Consider Groups, which the majority (61%) of the applications in our sample had. We define Groups as multiple
users who have gathered for a specific interest or purpose. Most applications labeled their groups Groups, and their
groups functioned in ways that informed the definition we created. Others, however, did not. Xanga labeled their groups
“Blogrings.” Wikia called their groups “Wikis”; Orkut, Esnips, and Livejournal, labeled their groups “Communities.”
We, however, define a Community as a user-created space within which other users can create groups. Fewer
applications (23%) in our sample had that kind of community. As Wolff, Fitzpatrick, and Youssef (2009) have written
elsewhere:
[T]he Esnips homepage labels as communities what other sites might label as groups. LiveJournal announces
that it has a “true sense of community” where users can “join user-created communities centered around [their]
interests to share information and meet new friends. From art to zombies, if you can think of it, there’s probably
a community about it” (“Quick Tour”). LiveJournal, then, itself embodies the idea of community and also allows
users to create and to join specific communities that explore a specific topic that in turn contribute to the site’s
proclaimed community feel. Ultimately, LiveJournal communities are quite similar to other sites’ groups.
Further challenging our ability to create definitions, many applications (e.g. Flickr, Last.FM, YouTube) refer to themselves as Communities in their Terms of Service. This self-definition as a Community confronts what people typically
refer to Web 2.0 application as: Networks. We define Networks as a group of people organized by location, a definition
that must be differentiated from SocialNetworks (groups of people connected online that for the most part knew each
other in person prior to online) and SocialNetworking (groups of people connected online that for the most part did not
know each other in real life beforehand)—definitions informed in large part by danah m. boyd and Nicole B. Ellison
(2007).
3.3. Consider whether functions can be considered writing
Results of our analysis suggest 73.9% (51 of 69 functions) of what users do in a Web 2.0 environment counts as
writing (Table 2). These functions include more traditional forms of writing that use words and sentences, such as
blogging, forum writing, chatting online, and composing in wiki spaces composition. But, they also expand what can
be considered writing to include, for example:
•
•
•
•
•
•
customizing the layout of personal space in application (tag: designlayout)
controlling who has access to content one creates (tag: contentsecurity)
updating constantly of user activity within application (tag: newsfeed)
subscribing to another’s content in order to receive updates (tag: subscription)
adding to one’s account games and other apps for entertainment or other purposes (tag: application)
embedding media within a page, post, or other writing space (tag: embedding)
W.I. Wolff / Computers and Composition 30 (2013) 211–225
215
Table 2
Web 2.0 Function and Characteristic Tags, Definitions, and whether Tag Activity Counts as Writing.
Function / Characteristic Tag
Function Definition
Date Added (Definition
Revised)
Count as Writing or a
Writing Space? (Y/N)
account
The ability to become a member of the site or
application.
The ability to designate age appropriateness of
content.
The ability to add to one’s account games and
other apps for entertainment or other purposes
(such as Facebook apps).
Plugins that were designed by an application
(and not a third party) that can be added to
another application (and not the toolbar).
Applications that have created their own
monetary currency that must be purchased by
the user in order to purchase certain things on
the site.
The ability to upload a visual representation of
one’s self.
An area for expanded writing of a personal
nature.
The ability to create topics that organize content.
Real-time P2P messaging involving two people.
Public critique or the space for such.
A user-created space within which other users
can create groups.
The ability to control who has access to content
one creates.
The ability to design social network-like
communities.
The ability to create groups within social
networks.
The ability to create social networks.
The ability to customize the layout of personal
space in application.
The application connects directly with external
applications to help users share content or
connect with other users (such as when sites
connect users to YouTube so they can embed
video).
The ability to download desktop application that
will interact with online application.
The ability to download applications to cell
phone that will interact with online application.
The ability to draw sketches or pictures in a
specifically designated space and make them
public or private.
The ability to have content from this site
embedded in another site. This is not the same as
sharing.
The ability to embed media within a page, post,
or other writing space (not to be confused with
uploading content)
The ability to save content to the desktop.
The ability to classify someone as a family
member.
Those who are following content but who’s
content is not necessarily followed in return.
The ability to post to discussion/message boards
that are often divided by topic.
9.24.08
Y
11.17.08
Y
9.24.08 (7.21.09) (8.9.09)
Y
7.30.09
N
11.19.08
N
9.24.08
Y
9.27.08
Y
10.13.08
9.24.08
9.24.08
10.20.08 (11.12.08)
Y
Y
Y
11.17.08
Y
11.12.08
Y
11.12.08
Y
2.18.09
10.13.08
Y
Y
10.13.08
N
11.19.08
N
11.19.08
N
11.17.08
Y
6.2.09
Y
9.24.08
Y
10.13.08 (11.19.08)
7.21.09
Y
Y
7.21.09
N
9.24.08
Y
ageappropriatesetting
applications
applicationdesignedplugin
applicationspecificcurrency
avatar
blogspace
categories
chat
comments
communities
contentsecurity
createcommunities
creategroups
createnetworks
customelayout
directapplicationconnection
downloadapplicationtodesktop
downloadapplicationtophone
drawingspace
embeddable
embedding
exportcontent
family
followers
forums
216
W.I. Wolff / Computers and Composition 30 (2013) 211–225
Table 2 (Continued)
Function / Characteristic Tag
Function Definition
Date Added (Definition
Revised)
Count as Writing or a
Writing Space? (Y/N)
friends
Other users with an ostensible relationship to
you that you reciprocate.
Real-time P2P messaging involving more than
two people.
Multiple users who have gathered for a specific
interest/purpose.
The ability to use HTML when generating
content.
The ability to import bookmarks from another
application.
Private electronic mail within a Web 2.0
application.
Succinct update of occurrences or personal
status.
A group of people organized by location.
A constant update of user activity within
application.
Comments about an item written to provide
further information about the item (should be
distinguished from comments).
Connects with users’ OpenID login information.
The ability to add extras to a site to increase its
functionality and the users experience.
The ability to upgrade to a most robust account
that has certain features, such as storage space.
The ability to create a space to disclose limited
personal information.
The ability to control access to one’s profile.
Public messaging.
A quantified judgment of content.
An application provides the opportunity to
update others of new content sent via RSS.
The ability to search the site or application.
The application has opened its API for outsiders
to search.
The application integrates with users Google,
Hotmail, Yahoo! or other email account to help
user connect with others they may know.
The ability to see who is following your content.
The ability to send content to users/other people
often via external application.
The ability to create a slideshow of photographs.
Groups of people connected online that for the
most part knew each other in person prior to
online.
Groups of people connected online that for the
most part did not know each other in real life
beforehand.
The ability to subscribe to another’s content in
order to receive updates.
Suggestions that the application gives the user as
opposed to searching the email for it.
The ability to label various texts using keywords.
The ability to compose a tagline for a specific
space.
A public list of activities organized over time.
9.24.08
N
10.9.08
Y
9.24.08
N
10.13.08
Y
10.13.08
Y
9.24.08
Y
9.24.08
Y
2.18.09
9.24.08
Y
10.13.08
Y
10.13.08
7.21.09 (8.9.09)
N
Y
10.29.08 (7.21.09)
Y
9.24.08
Y
11.17.08
9.24.08 (7.21.09)
9.24.08
9.24.08
Y
Y
Y
Y
9.24.08
7.21.09
Y
Y
9.24.08
N
10.13.08 (7.21.09)
9.24.08
N
Y
7.21.09
10.13.08
Y
N
10.13.08
N
10.13.08 (7.21.09)
Y
8.8.09
N
9.24.08
11.12.08
Y
Y
7.21.09
Y
groupchat
groups
htmluse
importbookmarks
messaging
microblog
network
newsfeed
notes
openID
plugins
premiumaccount
profile
profilesecurity
publicmessaging
rating
RSSfeed
search
searchableAPI
searchemailforotherusers
seefollowers
share
slideshow
socialnetwork
socialnetworking
subscription
suggesteduser
tagging
tagline
timeline
W.I. Wolff / Computers and Composition 30 (2013) 211–225
217
Table 2 (Continued)
Function / Characteristic Tag
Function Definition
Date Added (Definition
Revised)
Count as Writing or a
Writing Space? (Y/N)
toolbarembed
The application has toolbar that embeds in web
browser to ease interaction with the site.
The ability to translate site to into one or more
foreign languages.
An ID that provides access to multiple areas
within a particular application. Not the same as a
login ID or Open ID.
The ability to add content to an application via
email.
The ability to add content to an application via
cell phone.
The ability to upload media documents other
than video, photo, and music.
The ability to post your own music content.
The ability to post your own photo content, not
including avatar photos.
The ability to post your own video content.
Content made by users of application rather than
the creator/moderator of the application.
A box that holds applications, often able to be
moved around the page.
An online writing space that can be edited by
more than one user.
9.27.08
N
10.29.08
Y
10.29.08
N
10.13.08
Y
10.13.08
Y
10.13.08
Y
9.24.08
9.24.08
Y
Y
9.24.08
9.24.08
Y
Y
10.29.08
N
9.27.08
Y
translation
uniqueID
uploadcontentviaemail
uploadcontentviacellphone
uploaddocs
uploadmusic
uploadphoto
uploadvideo
usergeneratedcontent
widget
wikispace
Each of the functions identified as a form of writing, or characteristic identified as a writing space, plays a role in
the creation of meaning for the writer and/or a specific audience. Further research needs to be conducted in order to
more fully understand the various processes associated with these new forms of writing, which we suspect involve a
host of rhetorical, practical, and ethical decisions.
4. Writing in the age of Web 2.0
Dale Daugherty and Tim O’Reilly invented the term “Web 2.0” to “capture the widespread sense that there’s
something qualitatively different about today’s web” (O’Reilly, 2005). Bradley Dilger (2010) has provided a thorough
review of the origination of and subsequent controversy over the definition of Web 2.0 (on the topic of controversy,
see also Jarrett, 2008; Scholz, 2008; Silver, 2008; Zimmer, 2008). He suggested “to truly understand Web 2.0 style
... we should seek to understand the relationships between truth, presentation, writer, reader, thought, and language
that Web 2.0 embodies” (p. 17). Others have also suggested we can better understand Web 2.0 and how to teach
writing within it by considering how it affords relationships among teachers, students, and texts. Stephanie Vie (2008),
for example, advocated for the integration of social networking sites in the composition classroom to reduce “the
deepening digital divide” (p. 11) between composition instructors and their students. Brian Jackson and Jon Wallin
(2009) and Geoffrey V. Carter and Sarah J. Arroyo (2011) discussed the importance of YouTube for teaching students
about rhetorical and social opportunities afforded by participatory composition. James Purdy (2009) and James J.
Brown, Jr. (2009) suggested Wikipedia is a space where students can problematize traditional ideas about authority,
collaboration, and revision (Purdy) and intellectual property (Brown). Dànielle Nicole DeVoss and James Porter (2006)
considered how file sharing affected writing instructors and challenges us to re-think traditional plagiarism policies.
Christopher Schmidt (2011) applied the cartography metaphor to writers who are composing in multimodal new media
environments. Kevin Brooks (2002) proposed a genre-based pedagogy for teaching creative hypertext because “our
discipline is, for the most part, still trying to figure out ways to encourage innovative and sophisticated means of
writing on the Web” (p. 337). Jeff Rice (2005) suggested a “pedagogy of the home page” after questioning, “What is
it about the home page that makes it a form of writing? Where does the home page belong in writing instruction?”
(p. 61). Complicating the rhetorical, theoretical, and pedagogical concerns discussed in the previous small sample
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W.I. Wolff / Computers and Composition 30 (2013) 211–225
(see also Day, McClure, & Palmquist, 2009) are, as study results suggest, the pragmatic challenges users face when
using Web 2.0 applications. These include, but are certainly not limited to, learning new vocabularies, recognizing the
characteristics of new writing spaces that contain multiple symbiotic genres, conceiving of the relationships among
multiple applications, and being able to transfer knowledge of functionality and style from one application to the next.
In order to grasp the implications of these findings, I suggest we go back to O’Reilly and Daughtery’s (O’Reilly,
2005) observation that Web 2.0 is inherently different from the Web prior to Web 2.0—what some have labeled Web
1.0. Web 1.0 was the time of hypertext—a series of online documents connected by hyperlinks. Linking, however, was
primarily site-specific. That is, major news and business websites did not link out to other websites, nor did usability
theories encourage them to do so. Indeed, the field of usability emerged from a website designer’s desire to find the best
way possible to encourage readers to stay within a particular domain; if they were able to navigate a site successfully,
they would not purchase products or consume information elsewhere:
Simply stated, if the customer can’t find a product, then he or she will not buy it. The Web is the ultimate
customer-powering environment. He or she who clicks the mouse gets to decide everything. It is so easy to go
elsewhere; all the competitors in the world are but a mouseclick away. (Nielsen, 1999, p. 9)
(It is important to note that although Jakob Nielsen defines usability in terms of market rhetoric, and virtually all of
his examples are commercial, not all websites’ primary goals are making money and keeping users within a particular
domain. Course websites, for example, often contained links to other websites).
It is easy to forget what the typical web page looked like in 1999, the year Nielson published his seminal Designing
Web Usability (and, coincidentally, the year Blogger was launched). Layouts were sparse, heavy with links to other
parts of the site, light on images, and formatted for 15-inch monitors. Video was rarely used; YouTube would not launch
for another six years. Users came to expect different domains would have different navigations, and though some basic
link names like “home” and “news” would be familiar from one news site to the next, there was no expectation of
overlap from one site to the next. Users learned how to navigate sites individually, learned how to click on their links
and read their chunks of text, and then move along. Nor was there significant linking from major news sites to websites
related to that news. For example, in 1999, one did not see and did not expect there to be links from a New York
Times article about the Lewinsky scandal to The White House website (Figure 1). Websites were silos. Like VCRs,
books, and CDs, websites were discrete entities within a larger media system. Each hard-to-navigate website, like each
hard-to-program VCR and each confusing microwave, was its own individual product. This is the great irony of Web
usability theory: it encouraged isolation within a system designed for interactivity.
Flash-forward a decade. Websites now employ multiple cognitive artifacts (Norman, 1991), writing spaces, and,
possibly, burgeoning genres. In the age of Web 2.0, successful sites facilitate the exchange of information between and
among other sites. This stands in stark contrast to the siloed websites of Web 1.0 and the isolationist criteria that inform
traditional usability theories. They are Interactive Domains—spaces in which users engage not only to read what is on
the screen, but to compose, communicate, create, share, and so on. Each of the 69 Web 2.0 functions and characteristics
identified in the study are examples of or facilitate that interaction in one way or another. This is why it is so difficult
to know what descriptor to use when discussing Web 2.0. Are they websites or applications or, perhaps, we should
just call them platforms? Perhaps they are ecologies in Margaret A. Syverson’s (1999) sense of the word, or even
genre ecologies (Spinuzzi, 2002). With all of the interactivity afforded by Facebook, MySpace, and YouTube, calling
them websites seems archaic, anachronistic, and not completely correct. The phrase Interactive Domains borrows from
Gee’s (2007) semiotic domains and hints toward their ecological screen-scapes. In semiotic domains, “words, images,
symbols, and artifacts have meanings that are specific to particular ... contexts” (p. 25). They have “design grammars”:
“principals and patterns in terms of which one can recognize what is and what is not acceptable or typical content in
a semiotic domain” (p. 28). The ecosystem that exists within the role-playing game, Zelda, for example, is a semiotic
domain filled with artifacts users need to decipher within the game’s context and grammars. So, too, is Super Mario
Bros., Ms. Pac Man, Galaga, even Pong. Each game ecology, like each Web 2.0 ecology, has to be read, learned, and
understood within its particular context and informed by a user’s prior gaming experience and knowledge.
Consider the issue of website vocabularies—the terms and names used for a site’s organizational structures and
interactive features. Usability theory has shown that naming portions of websites well, such as navigation menu items,
is vitally important for users to have a successful experience with a particular website. As such, the organizational
structures, the classification systems that lead to them, and the link names users click on to navigate them are not benign
website window dressing. Rather, they are rhetorical constructs that structure and shape a user’s experience with a
W.I. Wolff / Computers and Composition 30 (2013) 211–225
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Figure 1. The New York Times and The White House websites in 1999.
This figure represents the layout of websites in 1999 and also highlights the lack of direct linking between websites.
particular site—for better or worse depending on a user’s prior knowledge and web experience. The interactive and
user-generated features of Web 2.0 have brought users the new challenge of understanding new vocabularies within
the context of particular sites. These vocabularies can, for example, consist of familiar words, such as “Feed” and
“Post,” which mean something quite different from their traditional, off-line meanings. Other familiar words, such as
“Groups” or “Communities,” as discussed above, become challenging because they are often employed in different
ways on different sites. Or, there are new, acronym-heavy terms, such as, HTML, RSS, and API, that might hold little,
if any, prior meaning for users.
Many of these terms are associated with a user’s interaction. For example, in the blog application, Wordpress, a
user can click on an HTML tab in the Add New Post blog post screen (Figure 2) and compose using HTML tags.
The HTML tab is just one of many functions that present composing opportunities and challenges in the Add New
Post screen. The area has multiple symbols (a chain link, a musical note, a filmstrip) and terms (post, tag, html) that
challenge users to define in praxis and, as study results suggest, provide multiple avenues for writing. The chain link
provides the opportunity to create a hyperlink (tags: usergeneratedcontent, htmluse); the musical note provides the
opportunity to upload music (tags: uploadmusic, embedding). The filmstrip provides the ability to embed video (tags:
embedvideo, embedding). Posting (tag: blogspace), tagging (tag: tagging), and HTML (tag: htmluse) are all forms of
writing. Users also need to become familiar with the medium of blogging (tag: blogspace), the many genres associated
with blogging, as well as the functionalities and authorial implications of using the blog writing space (Rettberg, 2008).
Furthermore, users should be aware of how blogs interact with other Web 2.0 applications via RSS (tag: RSSfeed) and
other programming languages (for example, tag: searchableAPI) to facilitate the movement of content between and
among applications, and an understanding of how to use them within the context of a particular action, such as:
finding, retrieving, storing, and re-accessing a certain bit of information. Each Web 2.0 application (domain, ecology)
challenges users in a similar way by asking them to learn new terms, comprehend new symbols, engage with new
writing spaces, recognize relationships among multiple applications, and transfer knowledge from one application to
the next—all of which contribute to the interactive complexities of what it means to write in this new environment.
These interactive complexities are almost identical to those found in video games, as Edmund Y. Chang (2008), citing
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Figure 2. Wordpress Add New Post Screen.This figure shows the varied writing spaces, symbols, and functionalities on the Wordpress blog Add
New Post screen.
Alexander Galloway (2006), argued, “Writing, then, must also be action. Writing must also be both object and process.”
Galloway continues:
Without action, games remain only in the pages of an abstract rule book. Without the active participation of
players and machines, video games exist only as static computer code. Video games come into being when the
machine is powered up and the software is executed; they exist when enacted. (p. 2)
Similarly, without action, writing would only remain in the abstract, in the mind, in the rules of grammar, genre, and
composition. Without the active engagement of writers (also with machines), writing exists only as ideas, outlines,
brainstorms. Writing comes into being when the mind is powered up, critical thinking and language routines executed;
writing, too, only exists when enacted, when pen is put to paper, idea turned into word. Writing cannot only be learned
by reading or by hearing or by rote rules and lines but by doing, practicing, revising, and rewriting.
One of the important consequences of the ubiquity of active interaction is that sites that have not been considered
Web 2.0 are taking on some of these interactive qualities. Consider, for example, the 2010 New York Times online article
“Hydraulic Leak Cited as Possible Cause of Spill” (Figure 3). Immediately to the right of the opening paragraph, a
menu bar asks users to choose from the following options: sign in (tag: account), recommend the article (tag: rating),
post to Twitter (tag: share), add comments (tag: comments), email the article, send to your iPhone, print, get reprints,
and, share (tag: share). If you click on Share, you see options for LinkedIn, Digg, Facebook, Mixx, MySpace, Yahoo!,
Buzz, and permalink. When a user clicks on the Twitter link, a Post to Twitter window appears just to the right. The
writing space contains the title of the article, a nyti.ms shortened URL, and space for the user to add more information
(tag: microblog, usergeneratedcontent). The user then clicks Post and the tweet is sent to the user’s Twitter stream
where their followers will see it and, perhaps, click on the link to see the article. The cycle can then continue.
Traditional websites are not the only spaces that are becoming interactive domains. Dynamic toolbars, toolbar
buttons, and plugins are making the web browser itself an interactive domain that can be manipulated, organized,
and customized. The browser can be composed. For example, a user can install a toolbar (tag: toolbarembed) for the
social bookmarking and annotating service, Diigo <http://diigo.com>, that links their actions to their Diigo account
(tag: account) (Figure 4). When on a web page users would like to bookmark (tags: share, importbookmarks), they
can click on the toolbar button that reads Bookmark. This results in a popup window that contains writing spaces for
the web page URL and Title (tag: usergeneratedcontent); space to enter a Description (tag: usergeneratedcontent):
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221
Figure 3. 2010 New York Times website with Post to Twitter Functionality.This figure illustrates the processes of posting to Twitter and highlights
the interactive features of a more traditional website.
Figure 4. The Visibility and Invisibility Associated with Bookmarking a website.
This figure depicts the processes associated with bookmarking a website, including which parts of the process are visible and invisible. It also
suggests that some of the processes are forms of writing. (Eye and Eyelid image from Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics. Pencil icon from
http://library.thinkquest.org/J001156/pencil2.gif).
space to enter Tags (tags: usergeneratedcontent, tagging), Used Last Time, and Recommended Tags; check boxes to
indicate privacy settings (tag: contentsecurity); Save, Save and Send (tag: share), and Cancel buttons; and the option to
tweet your bookmark (tag: microblog, usergeneratedcontent), Add to a List, or Share to a Group (tag: groups). After
entering their information, they choose Save and Send. The information is sent to their Diigo account where, if set to
public, other Diigo users will be able to read it. Further, if someone subscribes to the user’s bookmark’s RSS feed (tag:
RSSfeed), the information for the new bookmark is sent to and will appear in the latter person’s RSS feed reader.
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Though seemingly simple as we look at the figures and read the narrative descriptions, the processes are really quite
complex, employing multiple signs (Hall, 2007), requiring a significant amount of prior knowledge and familiarity
with multiple Web 2.0 application functions (more, it should be pointed out, than were even identified by studying the
purposive sample). Users need to know what Twitter and Diigo are and must have an account already set up. They have
to know what a browser toolbar is and that toolbars can be edited. They need to know how to install toolbar buttons
and how to work effectively within the constraints of the provided writing space. They need to know what social
bookmarking is, how tagging works, and what happens to the information when it appears on Diigo and another’s RSS
feed reader.
Web 2.0 constantly challenges users’ abilities to engage with and conceive of the invisible. When users post
something to Twitter or Facebook from within a third-party page or create a Diigo bookmark from an embedded
toolbar, they must have a conception of what is going to happen with their data after they click Send. In other words,
users must be thinking about what is not seen while interacting with what is in front of them. This visible/invisible
dyad is similar to what Scott McCloud (1994, 2005) observed about the role of the gutter in comics. The gutter “plays
host to much of the magic and mystery that are at the very heart of comics! Here in the limbo of the gutter, human
imagination takes two separate images and transforms them into a single idea” (McCloud, 1994, p. 66). Within that
transformation is a:
Balance between the visible and the invisible.... Comics is a kind of call and response in which the artist gives
[the reader] something to see within the panels, and then gives [the reader] something to imagine between the
panels. (McCloud, 2005)
The visible/invisible dyad is at work in video games, like Super Mario Bros., when users have to conceive of hidden
coins to reveal; and, in Zelda, where users have to grasp the goals of the quest and find hidden objects without an aide
other than the ecosystem itself. When websites were silos, little was hidden; the links, text, navigation were all there on
a user’s screen, and link addresses were visible in the status bar and/or by viewing the page source. Users knew there
were other websites to go to, but they did not have a significant impact on how users used the site they were currently
on.
Web 2.0 interactivity and information sharing; however, requires users to conceive constantly of what is not there,
in front of them, on their screen, at that time. When users click the Bookmark button in an embedded Diigo toolbar,
they must have an awareness of the events that will take place that are invisible to them: that the bookmark will appear
in their Library and possibly the RSS feed of someone who subscribes to their bookmarks (Figure 4). That is, they need
to have (if not an understanding of how information can move between websites) an awareness that information does
move between websites and which applications will help facilitate that process more effectively for their rhetorical
goals and practical needs. These more complex computational characteristics of Web 2.0 greatly expand compositional
possibilities and have the potential to help students become more digitally sophisticated writers.
N. Katherine Hayles (2008) observed:
Literature in the twenty-first century is computational.... The computational nature of twenty-first century literature is most evident... in electronic literature. More than being marked by digitality, electronic literature is actively
formed by it. For those of us interested in the present state of literature and where it might be going, electronic
literature raises complex, diverse, and compelling issues. In what sense is electronic literature a dynamic interplay
with computational media, and what are the effects of these interactions? Do these effects differ systematically
from print as a medium, and if so, in what ways? How are users embodied interactions brought into play when
the textual performance is enacted by an intelligent machine? (pp. 43–44)
Replace the phrase “electronic literature” with “Web 2.0” and the singular word “literature” with “writing,” and we
begin to see the overlap between questions raised about elit and those raised here in response to Web 2.0. In what
sense is Web 2.0 “a dynamic interplay” among humans and semiotic domains and semantic databases? How are users’
utterences (in, for example, spaces like Facebook and Twitter) “brought into play” when their writing is enacted by
semiotic domains and semantic databases? What makes the processes described above so complex (especially for
students who for the most part are not technologically sophisticated) is that users do not see the movement on their
screens; this is not like entering a URL into an address bar and seeing the web page emerge before your eyes. Rather,
the movement of data—the computation—happens behind the scenes, facilitated by various programming languages
and computer processes. According to Hayles, “[c]omputation is not peripheral or incidental to electronic literature
W.I. Wolff / Computers and Composition 30 (2013) 211–225
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Figure 5. An Ecology of Composition in a Web 2.0 Ecosystem.
This figure shows the ecosystem of complex, overlapping, and evolving interactivities that are writing in the age of Web 2.0.
but central to its performance, play, and interpretation” (p. 44). Computation is also central to writing in the age of
Web 2.0. And we need to know much more about it and how to incorporate it into our writing pedagogy.
5. Conclusion
Writing in the age of Web 2.0 exists within an ecosystem of dynamic, overlapping, and evolving interactivities that
require the following from each user (Figure 5):
•
•
•
•
An understanding of new terms and signs in context (feed, module, page, widget).
An understanding of the functionality of the space (what happens when text is entered and button clicked).
Prior knowledge of multiple applications, how to install them, and how they work across platforms.
The ability to recognize when applications have changed and how to adapt to those changes (e.g., Facebook Terms
of Service).
• The ability to recognize when to use what applications in context of a particular action (such as, finding, retrieving,
storing, and accessing information).
• An understanding of when to use which mode of composition (image, video, audio, alphabetic text, code)
Web 2.0 applications require a sophisticated, reflective, elastic, semiotic, aural, eco-spatial, electratic (Rice &
O’Gorman, 2008; Ulmer, 2002), evolving information [interactivity]. I place square brackets around the word interactivity because it is too soon to name a term that encapsulates all of what I have described above. But whatever
that term might be, I strongly suspect it will be grounded in theories and ideas in the areas of gaming (Bogost, 2008;
Wardrip-Fruin & Harrigan, 2006; Wark, 2007), comics (Groensteen, 2007; McCloud, 1994; Varnum & Gibbons, 2007),
and electronic literature (Hayles, 2008; Dene, 2005). Web 2.0 applications are interactive computational ecosystems,
and within them, I find Yancey’s “new composition”—a composition that has more in common with video games,
comics, and electronic literature than traditional print-based alphabetic texts and hypertext. If we as a community are
going to more fully understand the compositional implications of this new composition—of the diverse and evolving
ways students write in, interact with, and think through Web 2.0 (not to mention the radically different dimensions text
will embody as touch screens, 3D, and 4D become ubiquitous)—we need to shift our perspective from seeing them
as spaces that afford multiple writing genres to seeing them for their visible and invisible diversity, complexity, and
interactivity. For this is what counts as writing in the age of Web 2.0.
William I. Wolff is an Associate Professor of Writing Arts at Rowan University, where he teaches courses on visual rhetoric, new media, and the
history and technologies of writing. Find him on Twitter @billwolff. He would like to thank his former undergraduate research assistants, Kathleen
Fitzpatrick and Rene Youssef, for their dedication to and work on this study. He would also like to thank the blind reviewers for their close readings
and insightful suggestions.
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W.I. Wolff / Computers and Composition 30 (2013) 211–225
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