Rhetorical Analysis of a DWE: Ole Miss Center for the Study of Southern Culture

Joyce Jefferson
Monday, July 13, 2015
ENC 4416 – Writing in Digital Environments
Professor Dan Martin

Digital Writing Environment (DWE) Rhetorical Analysis: Analyzing the University of Mississippi’s Center for the Study of Southern Culture Website
http://southernstudies.olemiss.edu/

Digital writing and rhetoric has been a major part of the Internet since its conception. It’s how we communicate within our own networks and with others across the world by using websites, blogs, social media, video and audio, web conferencing, forums, wikis, and other communication. Academic institutions across the globe have been able to connect and share their platforms even more so today than in any other time period. Not only have these institutions been able to utilize the Internet for scholarship, but they’ve been able to bring awareness to political, social, environmental, agricultural, and economic issues, as well as promote various cultures and lifestyles. The mission statement of the University of Mississippi's Center for the Study of Southern Culture states that the organization: “investigates, documents, interprets, and teaches about the American South”. The Center emphasizes the interdisciplinary investigation and documentation of the South as a region of cultural, historical, geographic, and demographic complexity.

Southern Studies is a new interdisciplinary study that has been sought out and researched for decades by academia, students, or those who just have a general interest on the subject. Today, with computers and the Internet, Southern Studies has taken on a new importance. Analyzing this website, the focus will be on the general aesthetics and content, the audience, who writes in this environment and who cannot, plus others. Specifically, centering on the idea of “what does this particular environment say about how writing in digital environments work or are changing how we think.” This question is important in regards to the website, the center, and how people particularly perceive Southern culture overall. Has that perception changed? Has the website and the Center made strives to these changes. If so, how?

There are various pieces of evidence throughout the website that proves the site’s aim at exploring, promoting and preserving Southern culture. Upon accessing the homepage, there is a slider which has five slides with information. The first slide is an introduction to the Center, what they do, and the goals they are trying to achieve. The second slide is about the SouthDocs (Southern Documentary Project) documentation studies where the Center tries to “preserve” Southern culture through photography, film, oral storytelling. Their motto is “Telling the stories of the most storied place”. The third slide presents the different publications produced by the institution, including their 24-volume New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture series that presents an array of Southern related topics such as history, foodways, language, social class, folklife, music, and others. The fourth and fifth slides talk about Outreach and the numerous events, lectures, and symposiums the Center hosts; and lastly, the Center’s partner websites (SouthDocs, Southern Foodways Alliance, and Living Blues - which focuses on music) and affiliates. More evidence is predominant through the Center’s mission statement, history, and the academic program where they offer BA and MA degrees in Southern Studies.

There are several other university websites out there that have centers or offer courses in Southern Studies, but the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at Ole Miss proudly endorses itself as “the first regional studies center of its kind.” Not every university that offers Southern Studies have these types of programs. There are channels that are used to influence the delivery of the content. Besides the website itself, the Center offers a blog that has sharing buttons. Their social media accounts are probably their biggest platforms for outreach online. Offline, they have events and several print media components. All of these contents provide the “stickiness” of the website as they are used to seek out enthusiasts of history (with emphasis on the American South) and they spend their time looking through the whole site.

As with many digital environments such as news websites, they are open to the public for commentary and some outlets will actually allow you to write posts. However, since this is an academic institution, there are very strict limitations on who gets to write in this environment and who doesn’t.  Writing in this environment is done by the faculty, staff, alumni, and sometimes members of the Advisory Committee, a group of members from various backgrounds and locations who have an interest in Southern American studies. This group assist with and provide guidance on the program. These are people well-versed and studied in Southern culture and also other liberal arts fields (English, literature, film, anthropology, history, sociology, geography, etc.) They hold the power (reign supreme) because they are more knowledgeable about the subject, have had more training and experience. But the overall power in regards to the website is within the Core Staff itself, which consist of Southern Studies scholars, professors, and qualified staff members. They keep the website (and its social media sites) content running smoothly and keep it organized. They ultimately determine what content is appropriate for posting.

Halvorson and Rach define messaging as “the art of deciding what information or ideas you want to give to – and get from – your users.” (Halvorson 74) Even though there are restrictions on who and what gets published, the public isn’t completely shut out from this website as it caters to a variety of difference audiences. Of course students, scholars, professors, and historians are the primary audiences. But anyone who has a general interest in Southern studies can benefit as well. Every audience member is catered to in some way. The Center offers events (many that are free to the public), publications (magazines and books) which house a plethora of information (some free to read online), and for high school students, they offer prizes for the best creative writing pieces. The Center’s affiliated centers offer additional information and resources. These are just a few examples of what the Center offers for the public. The audience is able to contribute to this environment by sharing posts from the website, interacting with the Center on their social media platforms, and if they have an interesting story to tell, they can contribute to the Center’s DocSouth program.

In terms of “spredability”, the Center’s website and its affiliated sites make sure that their content is viewable for all. The website has a responsive design, so it’s more accessible via mobile. The only app they offer is for their oral storytelling. All content is easily shared around. There are cons to this environment however. As this is an academic website, the limitation on the control of content is probably one of those concerns. Not everyone will get their view point across, and not everyone’s story will be told. There is no open forum or comments section as of now to hear those different viewpoints. They pick and choose what will be posted. For example, on the website’s blog there is an article about the Confederate flag, but it’s only showed from one view point. What about the other side? This subject has always been a controversial one, but if you’re going to have an open debate and be honest about Southern history, it’s best to have an open conversation and show all sides.

One of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture and its partners’ main objective is to “bridge the gap between scholarly research and broad audiences interested in the American South.” Since its conception in the mid-1970’s, the Center has been making strives to promote scholarship about the American South. Pretty much every aspect of academia has gone digital and more people are connected more so than before, this gives a great opportunity for the Center to expand on this idea of promoting regional awareness. The Center’s programs and others like it changes how others over time have perceived the South. The region as a whole has gotten a bad rep due or our history involving slavery, and even more so after the Civil War. Books can only tell us so much, but with the use of the Internet, the Center has been able to produce written works, video, audio, films, and connect with people who lived through historical times or have connections to their ancestors. It all works because they are able to display it and show it to the world. In this sense, people are able to bring different perspectives to the whole story. They not only focus on the South from a historical context, but in the now, and the future. This allows the emphasis to be on politics, social class, race, economics, and an overall evolving culture. As Brian Ward, author of “What’s New in Southern Studies – And Why Should We Care?” writes: "New Southern Studies" (NSS) constellates southern localities in relation to a number of non or extra-national cultural configurations such as the global South, the native or indigenous South, and Greater Mexico. This is allowed, in turn, issues of empire, diaspora, immigration, cosmopolitanism, and cultural exchange to come to the fore." (Ward 694)

Net Smart author Howard Rheingold states that: “what matters most with present-day new literacies are not just encoding and decoding skills and individual needs to know to join the community of literates but also the ability to use those kills socially, in concert with others in an effective way.” (Rheingold 4). The Center has been very effective in this strategy as the overall message of The Center for the Study of Southern Culture is to promote, document, and study the American South by offering people from different backgrounds a chance to understand the culture and identity from a Southern, American, and global context. Their various publications, events, online and offline projects to bring about how the perception of the South is changing. The future of Southern Studies and the role the Center and other related institutions will play in the digital world is still developing.

Works Cited

Halvorson, Kristina and Rach, Melissa. Content Strategy for the Web. Berkeley: New Riders,

2012. Print
Rheingold, Harold. Net Smart: How to Thrive Online. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2012. Print
Ward, Brian. "What’s New in Southern Studies – And Why Should We Care." Journal of

American Studies 48:3 (2014): 691-733. Academic Search Complete. Web. 13 Jul. 2015