My name is Elizabeth Berger; I am a member of the class of 2010 pursuing an independent concentration in Persuasive Communication. I am fascinated by the power of language to affect change in the thoughts and actions of others. I want to find the synthesis of language – between what is written and what is spoken, what is said and what is heard, what is gathered and what is disseminated. While I am not a senior, I believe I bring a unique perspective to a project of this nature. I have experience using the web not only in all the usual ways, but this past semester I worked with a nonprofit and the Weinstein Co, using online advertising and viral marketing to build buzz about a film, The Great Debaters (a media company propagating itself through other forms of media – how elliptical!) In addition to a lot of writing and academic research experience, I am a hopeless media junkie – and by media I don’t mean solely the frantic cult of celebrity. You mentioned the death of Heath Ledger – what about the death of Benazir Bhutto, the news of which was completely sublimated on US news stations by the escape of a tiger in the San Francisco zoo? Popular culture is more than Andy Warhol or the Superbowl; it is information, the vocabulary to cultural literacy. We are what we consume, in fat and facts. I want to understand this craving, and use it to change the world that barrages us with language every day.

Reading this article, I had one great regret upon its conclusion – that Quel published this in 1971, before the internet became the great equalizer of language. Quel details a comparison between the writer, the intellectual, and the teacher, separating the written word from the spoken word. The power of language, thus, is divided, and wielded only by those with power in each of those separate spheres. But what would happen if those spheres of influence were united? A blog, a discussion forum, a Twitter entry – these are all spaces in which anyone and everyone has the power to contribute to a dialogue. To claim that “language is always on the side of power” (311) is no longer true, or at least does not have the same elitism it once had. There are two ways to consider this argument: either those without power at last have a forum to express their own thoughts, or, by providing a free forum, the internet has redistributed power among the masses.

The factors of dissemination of information have changed. Even the language of the internet has changed communication. All the “abbreves” associated with IM and text messaging have spread to all forums of communication (one would be hard-pressed to find someone who did not recognize “lol” in even a spoken conversation). Grammar, political correctness, even capitalization has lost its power to legitimize information. The informalization of written language brings it somehow closer to speech, with all its flaws and imprecision. While the written word can be endlessly edited and perfected, Quel makes the fascinating point that “Speech is irreversible: a word cannot be retraced except precisely by saying that one retracts it. Here, to cancel is to add…” (309) The internet has established a language somewhere between the two. While more information can be added to, say, an article on Wikipedia, once something is posted on the internet it can never be completely deleted from existence – it remains on a server somewhere, regardless of its merit. Things are copies and pasted, quoted and shared, posted and reposted. The sheer quantity of the compiled language and information is staggering.

How similar is this to Quel’s description of the relationship between teacher and student? When a professor lectures in front of a class, no matter the quality of the information or presentation, it is copied down in note form, discussed in sections and at lunch tables, repeated in essays – in short, disseminated through a variety of means, mutating from its original form into a sprawl of tangents and new ideas. Authenticity can be lost because there are no checks in place to counteract the natural tendency towards confusion and chaos. The endless dialogue of the internet preserves the authenticity of text while allowing it to go through the endless process of discussion and verification. What the internet provides that teaching lacks is an addition to the teacher-student contract – it invites dialogue, and, through the efflorescent cacophony of voices, perhaps also invites truth.