In a blog post titled “The Future of Reading,” Jonah Lehrer brings to light a pertinent issue that is arising in response to current technology making it easier than ever before to read and buy books. Lehrer says, “[His] problem is that consumer technology moves in a single direction: It’s constantly making it easier for us to perceive the content” (Lehrer). However, Lehrer also proposes a solution: by stepping away from technology, readers can once again gain a deeper understanding of the discourse they are consuming, and begin learning at a more developed level. The ongoing shift to e-books becoming the main medium for reading allows for content to be more accessible but this deters readers from reading slowly and actually taking in the content. Lehrer explains the reason for this by bringing in research from Stanislas Dehaene, a neuroscientist at College de France. According to Dehaene, the literate brain has two distinct pathways for making sense of words. The first is the ventral route which is a process of grouping letters into words into semantic meaning. Lehrer says, “When you are reading a straightforward sentence, or a paragraph full of tropes and cliches, you're almost certainly relying on this ventral neural highway” (Lehrer). Whenever something on a page forces us to pay conscious attention to a sentence, the second reading pathway, called the dorsal stream, is turned on. This force to pay closer attention to what we are reading is necessary for Lehrer who suggests a solution to the easily perceivable content provided by consumer technology: “I’d love them to include a feature that allows us to undo their ease, to make the act of reading just a little bit more difficult” (Lehrer). By bringing in an intertextual component through the use of the neuroscience research regarding the brain’s two distinct reading pathways, the rhetorical situation that Lehrer creates in “The Future of Reading” brings meaning to this discourse as an argument for the way in which consumer technology is making it easier to perceive content.
Discussing the factors that allow a reader to consume and participate in discourse, in his journal article “Rhetorical Situations and their Constituents,” Grant-Davie defines the rhetorical situation as “a situation where a speaker or writer sees a need to change reality and sees that the change may be effected through rhetorical discourse” (Grant-Davie 265). Lehrer has created the kind of rhetorical situation that Grant-Davie is referring to as he sees a need to change the way in which consumer technology is making content easier for readers to perceive and affecting their ability to really understand texts. In order to address this rhetorical situation, Lehrer’s discourse touches on all four of Grant-Davie’s constituents for situation. The first, exigence, is clearly explained by Lehrer when he says, “I do have a nagging problem with the merger of screens and sentences. My problem is that consumer technology moves in a single direction: It’s constantly making it easier for us to perceive the content” (Lehrer). This clearly addresses what the discourse is about and why it is needed and Lehrer also later explains in the article what accomplishing his discourse will do: make reading more difficult so that readers will better understand the words they are consuming. Grant-Davie’s second constituent, rhetor(s), makes Lehrer the rhetor in this situation as he is the only one directly providing the discourse. The third constituent is audience which Grant-Davie defines as “Those people, real or imagined, with whom rhetors negotiate through discourse to achieve the rhetorical objectives” (Grant-Davie 270). Following this definition, the many audiences for Lehrer’s discourse include book consumers and those involved in industries providing books to consumers. The final constituent, the constraints, are “Factors in the situation’s context that may affect the achievement of the rhetorical objectives” (Grant-Davie 272). Numerous constraints can arise in any given rhetorical situation and Lehrer’s in particular include intertextual information like the neuroscience study on distinct reading pathways (which could be considered a positive constraint) and the fact that it has never been easier to buy and read books (which could be considered a negative constraint as most people would view this as a good thing).
Using Porter’s definition for “intertextuality” from his article “Intertextuality and the Discourse Community,” the way in which Lehrer’s blog post functions as an “intertext” can be clearly understood. According to Porter, all texts are interdependent and we can understand a text only insofar as we understand its precursors (Porter 34). This leads Porter to define intertextuality as, “the principle that all writing and speech - and, indeed, all signs - arise from a single network” (Porter 34). In “The Future of Reading” Lehrer provides several examples of “intertext” which include e-books like the Kindle, a reference to Shakespearean language, and included the most, information from a neuroscientist on the two distinct literary brain pathways and how these come into play in reference to new consumer technology. These examples of “intertext” present in Lehrer’s blog represent both of Porter’s types of intertextuality. Presupposition, which Porter says, “refers to assumptions a text makes about its referent, its readers, and its context,” would include the reference to Shakespeare in the blog because Lehrer does not include any sort of background information on Shakespeare as he is an important literary figure whose name provides all of the information necessary (Porter 35). The inclusion of the distinct literary brain pathways, however, is an example of iterability which, “refers to the ‘repeatability’ of certain textual fragments, to citation in its broadest sense to include…unannounced sources and influences…” (Porter 35). If Lehrer had simply mentioned that a neuroscientist had previously defined two types of brain pathways for reading, the average reader would not understand how this information applies to the rest of the blog post. Lehrer brings in this information then explains in depth what the two distinct pathways are and how they affect the ability of readers to perceive a text through new consumer technology. By providing this explanation, Lehrer gives meaning to his discourse so that the rhetorical situation he has created can be understood by his audience and a solution can be provided to force consumers to step away from the technology and begin receiving a deep understanding from reading once again.
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