Points of Praxis

My Blog Reflects on Visual Rhetorical Theory and Disability Rhetoric and their Connections to Classical and Contemporary Rhetorical Theory

Rhetoric of Autism Blogs

An interesting conversation is going on at Autismvox regarding the representation and privacy of autistic children in autism blogs written by their parents.  Ms. Clark, aka Autismdiva, comments that Kristina, the author of autismvox, often shares too many personal stories and personal images of Kristina's son, Charlie, on the blog.  Ms. Clark feels "uncomfortable with the way [Kristina] represent[s] Charlie’s speech on [the] blog, and I feel uncomfortable with all the photographs of him. I can’t imagine that he will like to look at your blog in the future. I think he will feel over-exposed. That’s just my opinion. I realize that you love Charlie, Kristina, I just think the world knows enough about him, way way too much about him.  I think autistics crave privacy more than NTs and that Charlie doesn’t have enough."

I disagree with Ms. Clark's criticisms, but as a scholar of rhetoric, I find the differences between Kristina's and Ms. Clark's blogs interesting--and I believe these differences offers an interesting opportunity to examine the different approaches to autism representation online.  Specifically, Ms. Clark's profile notes that she is an engineer in California while Kristina is a professor of Latin and Classical languages in New Jersey.  In Ms. Clark's blog, she often speaks of herself in the third person (as "Autism Diva") while Kristina often shares her and her son's experiences by making the connections between autism news and research to personal experiences.  Kristina, likewise, posts pictures of her son riding his bicycle and smiling triumphantly for the camera.

To be fair, I've been reading autismvox for sometime now (it was one of the first blogs I came across after Tobey's diagnosis that seemed positive and didn't construct autism as a fate worse than death like the Autism Society of America and Cure Autism Now often does), and I've only recently begun reading the autismdiva blog.  But, I theorize (and it's just a theory based on my own observations) that there are several notable differences between the representation of autism online between Kristina's blog and Ms. Clark's that might shed a little light on these different approaches to representation.

First, Kristina's background is in the Humanities, specifically languages and literature, where personal exposition is not only welcomed, but it's often encouraged.  I've heard numerous times from Disability scholars in the Humanities:  "The personal is political.  And, the political is personal."  Conversely, Ms. Clark's area of interest is engineering, a discipline that encourages writers to distance themselves from the text--for instance, engineering writers often avoid the first person in their discourses.  The author of the text needs to be unobtrusive and invisible, if possible.  I wonder if these different experiences with discourses and the position of the writer in the text might contribute to the differences in these blogs and the position or representation of the writer in them?

Also, it seems the two blogs have different rhetorical purposes that shape or influence the blogs' constructions.  While both blogs feature news stories on current issues in autism research and autism literature, Kristina's blog has a markedly different tone from Ms. Clark's, which is evident from the home pages of each.  The autismdiva blog's tone is much more confrontational and aggressive than autismvox.  As autismdiva notes in her profile, "Aut disce aut discede," one can either learn or leave.  Both blogs seek to encourage awareness on issues autism related, but they have entirely different tones and approaches to facilitate that awareness.  Likewise, each writer is positioned in different "places" in regard to autism--Kristina is the parent of an autistic child, and from what I gather, Ms. Clark is on the spectrum, herself.  This, of course, leads to different points of views, different perspectives, different purposes.

Why did I engage in this short rhetorical analysis here?  Because, I believe that both blogs function differently and contribute differently to the "dialogue" of autism.  Both serve valuable sources of information, but they approach the topic differently.  One isn't necessarily right and the other wrong.   I think they both have their rhetorical places in the conversation on autism.  I don't necessarily agree that the personal (both in regard to ourselves and our children) doesn't have a place in autism discourses.  I think these different points of view or rhetorical "positions" are important to the dialogue.  I'm reminded of Bakhtin's discussion of carnival here--various discourses function to construct the rhetorical whole.  Each "discourse" contributes to the construction of autism and one point of view or vantage point is no more relevant than other.  It's the contribution of each utterance that creates the speech act.

I also subscribe in some regard to my friend Kathleen's philosophy from the Walton's:  There's enough room at the table for all of us (and our different approaches/discourses).  We just need to pull up a chair and scoot on down.

posted by: rgregory at 14:51 | link | comments (2) |

Comments:

#1  25 February 2007 - 16:03

 

Hi Rochelle,

I tried to post the other day but for some reason got booted off--I wanted to congratulate you on being ABD. I do think you deserve a parade!!! It was good to see you and meet Marc (I hope that was with a "c") at the conference this week. I wish I could have gone to your presentation!

Anyway, I haven't been "lurking," I just decided the other day to see who was still posting in the blogs I'm attached to and you were! :)

I like that you bring in Bakhtin here to talk about the different points of view. Your observation validates what I've been working with regarding electronic literature, which has to do with trying to admit more than the "authorial" point of view or even the single critical point of view. The way Bakthin talks about formulating discourse always seems to ethical and accepting to me--rather than judgmental. I think that is why his work interests me so much. I look forward to hearing what you come up with as you move forward in your dissertation. You have a very focused topic, which I think is what I lack, and, better than that even, the idea of taking into account various points of view has so many wider applications.

Anyway, it was good to see you yesterday! I will let you know when I'm in Denton next time and maybe we'll do lunch. :) Cheri

crenshaw

#2  22 June 2007 - 03:45

 

My blog is for me. Kristina's blog about Charlie was in part about Kristina preparing to write a book about him. Kristina has a need to remain professional, as being too blunt will affect her standing, and might affect the sales of her book in the future. I don't blame her for that. I think it's a practical decision.

I blog for me and for autistics, including me autistic adult child.

I say very little about either of my kids on my blog because I wouldn't want my mom blogging the day in and day out details (including embarrassing ones), so I don't do that to my kids.

It's not that I usually speak in the third person, it's that the goal is to always speak in the third person... it leaves on with the impression that one can take what Autism Diva is saying seriously or not. Learn or leave.

There is some anger in some of what Autism Diva writes, (there are also a lot of tender comments directed toward autistic people and some of their parents) but that anger comes from seeing the absolutely gross abuse that is dished out to autistic people of all ages. Kristina never seems to communicate that level of anger, though she may feel it. It makes me feel like Kristina is not as invested in the autism community, but that's just my impression, and again, maybe she feels the need to maintain a cool headed professionalism for several reasons.

Anonymous

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