Week 6: New Media and the Slow Death of the Written Word - Mark Zeltner

Zeltner opens this article by discussing his love with reading the newspaper. I have made an honest effort to try to love the paper, but without much success. Zeltner describes how he loves the feel of newspaper in his hands and the ink on his clothes. These exact two things are what turned me off of reading the newspaper in the first place. This could be because I hated being dirty as a child and have always had a slight obsession with being clean, especially my hands. I never quite grasped the understanding of why people would subject themselves to this kind of mess by choice. Spending week days at my grandparents while my parents worked, I would watch my grandfather read the newspaper daily and would want to read myself, until I learned of how dirty the paper would make your hands. Zeltner argues that most people under 25 hate newspapers. I would argue that that number may not completely be accurate and infact I would argue that there are probably many 30 year olds that have the same feelings towards reading newspapers.

One of my biggest frustrations with reading newspapers resides in the idea that I find them poorly designed both in layout and in functionality. When reading the newspaper, you always need a lot of space to accomodated turning the pages because of the sheer size. I have always tried to lay a newspaper out on a surface so that I do not have to get my hands too dirty. In many ways, the layout of newspapers is similar to the way we interact with the contents of the internet. I find newspapers are more time consuming to read because you have to search through to the page where you story continues, whereas digital technology has allowed for a user to simply click and directly be taken to that page, no time wasted searching. I question whether the time that has been saved is what makes reading online more appealing to the 25 (or so) and under age group. Another factor that could contribute to this is cost. Newspapers cost people money (for the most part) but many articles can be accessed online essentially free (assuming that you are already paying for an internet connection).

Zelter sets out to convince students that the written word and newspaper could be exciting, vital and interesting. I would argue that many of his students are infact, probably accessing many of the articles that are included in newspapers, but they are probably just doing so online.

The overall layout of Zeltner's points is quite well done. Each point is quickly summarized at the top and bottom of the page. However, the writing detail in some of the pages appears to be quite small. When viewing articles online the size of the font becomes very important. I also question whether certain fonts are easier or better to read than others. Having done some policy publishing work for insurance companies I have really started to take notice to the types of fonts that are used on websites and in documents. I have done some simple research on the different types of fonts and the more block like fonts are generally used moreso than the more cursive types. The article is further enhanced by the examples that Zeltner has provided. When discussing video clips, he includes a videoclip for our review.

Zeltner emphasizes that idea that webpages need to throughly be planned out. I agree that yes web pages do need to be carefully thought out, but I would argue that all writing should really be planned out like this. There are definitely other design elements that need to be considered when writing online such as font type/size, colours and overall layout.

After reading this article, I question what the best approach is to teaching students about these types of elements? Would it be the most effective to view a bunch of sites together to see which elements they think work or do not work? What is the most effective way to engage students in this deeper level of thought in their own writing processes.
http://english.ttu.edu/kairos/7.2/binder.html?sectionone/zeltner/NM