In his essay, Andrew talks about the "last new media essay," reffering to the blog and beyond the blog, to the new essay shaped for the internet reader. And this is what I'm going to focus on--that new approach to writing that the internet mandates. This new approach, in my mind, requires writers to "dumb down" and to not further discover their thoughts. Like Andrew says, Internet writing needs to be attractive, interactive and exciting--but not necessarily intelligent.
Our world seems to be moving toward casual--people don't dress up to go out to dinner anymore, jeans can be dressy and, well, writing is casual now too, especially on the internet. At the rate we're going, the "old essay" will almost completely dminish soon--and we will be left with this new form, the much more casual and cool form. There is this charm to reading an essay you can't understand every word in--it's some kind of security that you know the writer knows his shit and that gives home more credibilty. This may not be the most valid point, but in many of our minds this works--it makes sense. I like reading an essay and really having to think about what that person said, think ITELLIGENTLY about it. But the "new" essay doesn't do that--it's very conversational, very staight forward, very at your level. It's almost too understanding, it doesn't challenge us, doesn't give us a chance to really think and discover what's being said. And all the back up info is connected by a link--talk about easy research. What happened to going to the library and finding a book?
This easy hyperlink takes reasearch by the reader out of the picture--and not to mention the fact that the reader may find an opposing point, something else to ponder.
I ask, how can we make the "new essay" a little more intelligent and a little less self-explainatory? Or can't we?
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