New Media Topoi

For us, topoi signify the material and form that an argument takes in new media texts, while commonplaces signify the orienting experiences or modalities, which serve to anchor or reference a reader within the often disorienting experience of navigating and making meaning from a new media text. Here is a list of the topoi we discuss in this text:

Genre: Features and structures of textual experiences that a designer can reasonably assume a particular audience will understand based upon common ground experiences with these features across similar texts.

Sequence: A function of timing and organizing a text that is negotiated between a text’s designer and reader. A reader’s navigation choices will ultimately determine a sequence of a text; however, designers can use elements such as animation, linear hierarchies, or internal links that will render particular elements in a particular order.

Designer: The primary agent of production whose choices of materialities affect certain aspects of meaning-making within a specific text.

Link: A direct connection to elements within or outside of a text used to inform a reader in support of a designer’s claims or her character appeal within a particular text, or to defer attention to a topic by summarizing it in a key word or phrase.

Audience: The designed, intended agent of meaning-making whose actions, navigations, and experiences with a text will give definition to elements of a new media text.

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