David R. Zemmels

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit. "
- Aristotle

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Publications

Bromberg, E., Birringer, J., Miklavcic, J., Facelli, J. C., & Zemmels, D. (2002).  Telemediated Art: The Utah experience with the ADaPT (Association for Dance and Performance Telematics) Collaboration. EDUCAUSE 2002 Annual Conference, Atlanta, Georgia.

Zemmels, D. (2000). Merging Fine and Performing Art with Digital Technology: An Exploration of the University of Utah’s Arts Technology Certificate Program. In J. Bourdeau & R. Heller (Eds.), Proceedings of World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications 2000 (pp. 1837-1838). Chesapeake, VA: AACE.

Zemmels, D. (2000). Going the Distance: Offering Design Curriculum in the University of Utah’s Distance Learning MFA in Directing/Theatre Education. In J. Bourdeau & R. Heller (Eds.), Proceedings of World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications 2000 (p. 1837). Chesapeake, VA: AACE.

Zemmels, D. (1999). VectorWorks in the Performing Arts. In J. Kent.  VectorWorks 8.5, Improbability Press. Contributed a chapter in this user manual on the Theatrical Lighting Toolkit module of Diehl-Graphsoft's VectorWorks 8.x, a popular computer assisted drafting (CADD) software program.

Selected Research

Looking Back to the Visual in Surveillance and Control for the 21^st Century
Spring 2007

Abstract
Does Foucault's panoptic gaze hold the same power in our post-industrial post-electronic age? The emphasis is now on more powerful non-visual methods of control and surveillance based on information about the body and that de-center the visual as the primary method, leading to general social ambivalence on the issue, especially since 9/11. It is for this reason that I suggest we are in a post-panoptic era, a condition characterized as de-emphasizing the visual as the primary means of surveillance and control in contemporary society. Through a rhetorical analysis of two case studies that enact the digitally mediated panoptic gaze enabled by Internet technology, I hope to find clues about how artists and other scholars can seek to return socail attention to issues of privacy verses surveillance and control though the re-use of the visual.

Teen Consumption and Production of New Media
Preliminary Research
Summer 2006

Abstract
This is should be considered preliminary research motivated by increasing teen use of the New Media and Internet Communication, focused on-line community-based web sites.  This is an important area of study for a member of Higher Education since this age group will be entering University within the next 5-10 years, so are the next generation of college students. Two key studies found that teens are far more ‘wired’ that any other demographic, and they are consuming more media in less time than ever before. I ask: what does this mean about the way this new generation thinks, communicates and learns with new media, and how can communication-based rhetorical scholarship be used to answer this question? In the last few years, there has been little qualitative rhetorical scholarship in the area of changing habits in new media consumption, although there are obviously immense changes captured by several interesting quantitative studies. Changes in new media consumption and practices are rapid, and this group of ‘wired teens’ appears to be driving it to a large extent since 9 out of 10 of them are the consumers of these new media. Does rhetorical scholarship have the tools to analyze these fleeting on-line artifacts? I chose 3 web sites for rhetorical analysis that appeared to be frequented by teens that fit the demographic of a wired teen as defined by Pew research studies cited below.  I examined the sites daily for 10 days, taking a snapshot approach for rhetorical analysis.  Further research will track trends over longer periods of time and compare the results.

An Archeology of Rhetorical Criticism and Internet Communication
Spring 2006

Abstract
This essay narrows the focus within the broad umbrella of Internet Studies to a critical rhetorical perspective on Internet communication and practices. Not enough attention is paid to the persuasive ramification of Internet communication and how is computer mediation of communication affecting messages produced in the medium. Toward that end, I will explicate the challenges Internet communication poses to rhetorical criticism and methodology, survey some of the research being done by rhetorical critics in online environments, and examine the strategies being employed.  By way of findings, I suggest that the rhetor of Internet communication may need a greater understanding of how electronic media content is developed, produced, and disseminated in order to critique it. Perhaps it is the skills of the scholar of new media and the Internet that need redefining, more than the theories and methodologies of rhetoric. I finish with brief rhetorical analysis of a case study that demonstrates what I posit as the rhetorical act known as “Google bombing.”

Postmodernism and the University
Fall 2004

Abstract
Modernism is the 800-pound gorilla in the room for virtually every form of Western discourse. Finding its roots in the 16th Century Enlightenment, modernism is the belief in “the essential capacity of humanity to perfect itself through the power of rational thought” (Cooper and Burrell, 1988).  This belief, actualized in various forms, has been the dominant influence on Western literature, art, politics, and science for nearly 400 years. A conflicting epistemological position has arisen in latter half of the 20th Century: ‘postmodernism’ is characterized by “the critical questioning, and often outright rejection, of ethnocentric rationalism championed by Modernism” (Cooper and Burrell, 1988). The ‘critical questioning’ by the postmodern perspective is intertwined with many other contemporary perspectives, such as feminism, neo-Marxism, poststructuralism, postcolonialism, and postfoundationalism, to name a few.  Bryan Taylor (2005) refers to postmodernism as an ‘umbrella’ term and concludes that “the ambiguity of the term stems partly from the enormous work that we ask it to do” (Taylor, 2005: p114). In the end, postmodernism may just be a placeholder for whatever term we, or posterity, choose to describe our immediate present. This essay examines in some detail the defining characteristics of these two perspectives, and then narrows the focus to what Postmodernism means in the context of organizational communication research of the University.  This is challenging because the University is an explicitly Modernist social institution, particularly in terms of its role in Western society as a ‘normalizing’ institution and as perpetuating the division of power through disciplines (Foucault, 1979).  How can Higher Education be viewed in the 21st Century from the critical postmodern perspective? How can doing so help?  I answer this question by offering an exemplar on how the University can develop strategies to break down the disciplinary barriers by examining cross-disciplinary research practices, as well as an informal case study.

A Perspective on Producing 'Real' Experiences in Electronically Mediated Spaces
Fall 2004

Abstract
Attempts to define the process of successful realistic reproduction of experience in mediated spaces are the genesis of such conceptualization as ‘liveness’ and ‘presence.’ This line of questioning did not begin until the advent of mechanical reproduction of physical objects by devices such as the earliest camera and continues to modern viewing of images on World Wide Web using modern high-speed networking and virtual reality simulations.  However, questions of ‘liveness’ and ‘presence’ are based on a desire to create the illusion of a ‘real’ experience in technologically mediated spaces.  In this essay, I postulate that the focus need not be on how to create an  ‘illusion.' Instead, we need recognize that the reality of all electronically mediated experiences will be ‘unnoticed,’ and therefore perceived as 'real,' unless there is reason not to do so. Using Reeve and Nass’ (1996) research, I argue that we humans tend to readily respond to and accept anything that seems real as if it were real in electronically mediated experiences.  In other words, it is not something that needs to be produced, only sustained. This is an important distinction when it comes to designing positive mediated experiences, and frees us from the pursuit of the photorealistic to reproduce the 'real.'

Liveness and Presence in Emerging Communication Technologies
Spring 2004

Abstract
In our contemporary electronically mediatized culture, the ontological distinction between live performance and mediated events is no longer clear-cut.  With the rise of Internet usage and the increasing prevalence of imagery and video, webcams, chat rooms, and other services available through the World Wide Web (WWW), the binary opposition between ‘live’ and ‘recorded’ is even less obvious.  I argue first that there is perhaps a better metaphorical concept available to comprehend different types of ‘liveness’ in technologically mediated forms of communication: chronotopes, to use Mikhail Bakhtin’s term for a spatio-temporal location or scenario.  Further, another term, ‘presence,’ seems to overlap ‘liveness’ in definition and usage to a degree and may be useful in continuing the conversation, since the definitions of what constitutes ‘liveness’ and ‘presence’ have much in common, specifically a perceptual spatio-temporal relationship of Bakhtin’s chronotopes in terms of a sense of relative intimacy and immediacy.  Finally, I will argue that modern usage of one particular form of emerging communication technologies, the World Wide Web (WWW), offers a greater sense of intimacy and immediacy, of ‘liveness’ and ‘presence’ to a degree not previously available in the history of human communication.

Communication Aesthetics: An Overview
Fall 2003

Abstract
Communication aesthetics can be reasonably defined as the study of human perceptions of meaning as aesthetic experiences. A French artist/philosopher named Fred Forest (1983) describes it thus, “Communication Aesthetics strives to integrate experiences drawn from philosophy, but also from the social sciences, the physical sciences, and anything else, science or otherwise, which can throw light upon its subject: the perceptible.” Perhaps Communication Aesthetics can best be described as a conceptual framework for interpreting and understanding broad artistic forms, popular culture, and public events. This essay reflects a path that moves past the concepts of general aesthetic theory toward a specialized branch known as ‘pragmatic’ aesthetics and on to communication aesthetics as ‘social drama’ as seen through the emerging discipline of ‘performance studies’.

Content Copyright © 2007 · David R. Zemmels