Media Theory of Composition - Authorship

Authorship

Identity and the construction of such is an area of particular focus for new media theory. Individuals can control how they are represented online through personalized avatars and profiles, and the rhetorical moves behind this are often explored. Identity is an important aspect of authorship in many new media writings in this manner, then, especially in situations like Internet forums.

Many instances of new media have difficulty controlling authorship, though, and new media theory does not always view this as a bad thing. Digital medias are in a constant state of flux (versus the relative fixity of traditional text) because several transformations may occur. For instance, in the case of email, messages may be replied to or forwarded several times, during which times previous messages may be revised or edited by various parties. Technologies that allow for simultaneous authoring of texts also produce this effect.

Authorship is further complicated by the refashioning of analogue texts or the “remixing” of several new media texts. Jay Bolter says, “In the new theory of representation, in the present technological context of electronic, multimodal, multimedia textual production, the task of text-makers is that of complex orchestration. Further, individuals are now seen as remakers, transformers, of sets of representational resources.”

Those involved in new media theories have often needed to redefine “author” in the context of new media. Some theorists draw a difference between the authors of analogue texts as people who produce texts that readers interpret; in contrast, those who produce new media texts are seen as being in better alignment with the term “experience designers”, because they create spaces within which readers make their own paths. This is particularly true for interactive and immersive texts. This produces even more debate over who is seen as an author, because in many new media texts, the reader plays a dual role of consumer and producer.