Digital Rhetoric and Interactive Media

Jacob Euteneuer, PhD., Assistant Professor of Rhetoric, Hampden-Sydney College, Hampden Sydney, VA, United States of America

Course Type: Humanities-focused

Keywords: Rhetoric, Persuasion, Twine, Bitsy

University Department Level Credits Length Medium
Hampden-Sydney College Rhetoric Undergraduate Upper-division (Juniors and Seniors) 3 15 Weeks In-person

Course Description

In today’s world, more people than ever have the opportunity to create and distribute narratives, art, and arguments. At the same time, we spend more time, money, and energy playing and interacting with digital media than ever before. The vast majority of this media takes the form of interactive digital narratives. This class takes a dual approach to understanding how people make these persuasive objects and how people perceive them. First, it looks at the tools and contexts of making interactive narratives, sports, games, and toys. Then, we will analyze how the tools’ limitations and affordances affect the process of making–who gets to make things, what people decide to make, and how people find and discover these things. Having both of these in hand, this class examines how interactivity and play have shaped our culture as well as where things might go from here. The final project is the production of an interactive digital narrative that puts forth a specific, researched argument. Students in this course can expect to develop proficiency in several new digital tools and produce digital narratives and games detailing how those tools can be used to change how we see and think about the world.

Weekly Outline

  1. Interactivity and Arguments, Goalsetting for the semester
  2. Rhetoric, Narrative, and the Digital Difference
  3. Interactive Fiction and Twine
  4. Modeling Systems and Telling Stories with Twine
  5. Serious Games and Procedural Rhetoric
  6. Twine Research Systems Peer Review Workshop
  7. Whose Story Gets Told? Analysis and Exploration of Journalistic IDNs
  8. Play, Interactivity, and the Social Sphere
  9. Digital Rhetoric and the Attention Economy
  10. IDN Analysis Peer in Adobe Express Drafting and Peer Review
  11. Emotions and Design
  12. Bitsy and Ethos, Pathos, and Logos
  13. Scenes vs Summary in Narratives, Rooms vs Sprites in Bitsy
  14. Bitsy Emotional IDN Peer Review
  15. Reflection on Goals for the Semester and Finalizing Projects

Course Objectives ​

  • Examine contemporary representations of interactive narratives and games to understand their rhetorical potential.
  • Develop and create forms of interactive narrative in order to forward a specific argument.
  • Construct and defend a thoughtful analysis and evaluation of digital narratives.
  • Critically engage with information forms they encounter (summarize, judge, investigate, and/or challenge) through the modality of interactivity.
  • Break down and analyze the rhetorical moves made in a primary text, and then arrange and assemble those details in an essay explaining their overall purpose/effect for a specialized/academic audience. 
  • Read, summarize, analyze, synthesize, and evaluate texts in a variety of styles, genres, and mediums.
  • Explore and analyze a variety of interactive narratives in both physical and digital formats to better understand their rhetorical potential.

Reading

  • Play Matters by Miguel Sicart (Book)
  • How Games Move Us: Emotion by Design by Katherine Isbister (Book)
  • Play Like a Feminist by Shira Chess (Book)
  • “How to Make Good Small Games” by John Thayer (Webpage)
  • “The Rhetoric of Video Games” by Ian Bogost (Article)
  • “Writing for Algorithmic Audiences” by John Gallagher (Article)
  • “The Rhetorical Question Concerning Glitch” by Casey Boyle (Article)
  • “More Than Serious: Medicine, Games, and Care” by Tristin Brynn Hooker and Martha Sue Karnes (Article)

IDE and IDN Authoring Tools

  • Adobe Express
  • Twine
  • Bitsy

IDN Artifacts

  • Howling Dogs by porpentine (Twine)
  • Depression Quest by Zoe Quinn (Twine)
  • Would You Survive the Salem Witch Trials? by zinc199 (Twine)
  • Queers in Love at the End of the World by anna anthropy (Twine)
  • Endless Scroll by Cecile Richard (Bitsy)
  • The Nanodex – Bitsy game – by Adam Saltsman (Bitsy)
  • The World Was Sad Since Tuesday – Bitsy Game – by Fred Bednarski (Bitsy)
  • Holt – Bitsy Game – by Sean LeBlanc (Bitsy)
  • A Prison Strike – by Molle Industria (Bitsy)
  • The McDonald’s Game by Molle Industria (PC Browser)
  • The Best Amendment by Molle Industria (PC Browser)
  • Beecarbonize by Charles Games (PC Browser)
  • Yume Nikki by KIKIYAMA (PC Browser)
  • Today I Die by Daniel Benmergui (PC Browser)

Major Assignments (being assignments whose value is of 25% or more)

Persuasive Twine Project

  • Platform: Twine
  • Purpose: This project asks students to use a text-based interface to quantify and depict a system that exists in the real world such as college admissions, climate change, or mental illness. Once the system has been modeled in Twine, the student develops a short narrative that players can experience as they move through the Twine project.
  • Requirements:
    • Project Length: 5-25 minutes
    • Project Size: 10-50 passages
    • Project Aesthetics: CSS should be edited and used in a way that demonstrates exploring the use of various templates and stylistic effects.
    • Coding Proficiency: Beyond using branching paths, the student should also incorporate at least one variable and conditional statement.
  • Evaluation: 
    • Interactivity: The simple decision to give users the choice of paths allows for a great degree of interactivity. The choices that the designers develop for players help shape how the narrative is experienced and what variables affect the modeled system.
    • Story and narrative: Each project is required to develop a narrative that acts as a vehicle for the user to explore the modeled system. The sense of immersion and consequence that arises from embedded narrative should help bring the modeled system to life and highlight the stakes of the researched project.
    • Production values: A top-level project should have dynamic choices that the user can make in order to fully explore the space the developer has created in the project. The user should do more than just read in the project, and the design and presentation should move beyond the default template. Additionally, research and consideration have gone into both the represented system as well as the narrative experience.

Interactive Digital Narrative Analysis

  • Platform: Adobe Express
  • Purpose: The project develops skills in analysis and evaluation in students by having them perform an in-depth reading and critique of a professionally constructed, journalistic IDN. In addition to analyzing the IDN, students will also consider the larger cultural and social context of the texts.
  • Requirements:
    • Project Length: 10-20 minutes
    • Project Size: 1200-1800 words
    • Project Aesthetics: Modern, contemporary design aesthetics similar to or inspired by leading journalistic websites.
    • Coding Proficiency: Adobe Express is a free web editor that operates on a “what you see is what you get” (WYSIWYG) principle. Because of this, there is little coding proficiency.
  • Evaluation: 
    • Interactivity: Projects must include hyperlinks, sound clips, and video clips that allow readers to shape their own experience and investigate aspects they find most interesting.
    • Analysis and Evaluation: The author has shown a strong awareness of how the text’s content as well as rhetorical moves beyond the IDN have influenced the IDN’s message.
    • Production values: Because part of the analysis is how the professional IDN is designed, the production values should be very high and the design choices should be carefully and deliberately considered.

Bitsy Emotions by Design

  • Platform: Bitsy
  • Purpose: This project tasks students with creating an IDN that targets a specific emotion or range of emotions in their target audience.
  • Requirements:
    • Project Length: 1-15 minutes
    • Project Size: 2-30 rooms
    • Project Aesthetics: The developer must move beyond the basic template for a Bitsy project in every aspect including sprite design, color template, and sound effects.
    • Coding Proficiency: Students will use variables and conditionals to create interactive and engaging experiences. In addition to these coding basics, students are required to “hack” their Bitsy project using GitHub or Borksy to add additional functionality.
  • Evaluation: 
    • Interactivity: The project has a clear idea that fits the focus and purpose. The project uses the modalities and mediums of IDNs in general and Bitsy in particular to engage with the issue or subject at hand. Your game puts forth an argument about emotion in addition to being entertaining.
    • Story and narrative: Through the details and journey of the story, the author has helped reveal the larger significance of their story and what emotional connections it conveys. The story clearly engages with its audience and the tone, style, and content match the audience the author has conceived when creating the project.
    • Production values: The project’s structure and code enhance the conceptual core through deliberate, controlled, and clever design decisions. The project is free of simple and detracting errors or tech problems. Time, care, and effort have been put into the appearance and aesthetics of the project.

Course Best Practices

  • This course met for 90 minutes twice a week. In order to facilitate engagement and understanding, each unit was structured across a set of four common goals: explore, learn, create, and reflect. As students moved through the semester, the common cadence of explore, learn, create, and reflect helped guide their exposure to new technology.
  • For each of the three major assignments, it is important to have students build small demos or minimum viable products (MVPs) before starting their main project. These MVPs help students learn how to work with Twine, Express, and Bitsy without having to balance the content and cognitive load of the major projects.
  • Texts were read and interspersed throughout the semester. For each reading, a student or pair of students was responsible for developing questions from the text and facilitating discussion at the start of class.
  • For Bitsy and Twine, there are a wealth of resources on GitHub and YouTube and active communities on sites such as Reddit and Discord that are eager and willing to help people learn how to use the engines.
  • When analyzing journalistic IDNs it is important to consider the differences between standard narratives in digital environments and interactive narratives. The Washington Post’s project for playing mini golf in gerrymandered congressional districts and The New York Times’ analysis of your career prospects based on your zip code of birth and residence are excellent examples for students to consider.