Writing in Digital Environments: A Definition

Digital environments have driven our conceptions of writing and written texts to a crucial crossroads. In today’s world, writing goes beyond just words and often necessitates the critical and careful selection of muli-media elements to make meaning. Indeed, according to WIDE (the Writing in Digital Environments Research Center at MSU), in many cases “[w]riting today means weaving text, images, sound, and video — working within and across multiple media, often for delivery within and across digital spaces. And, perhaps now more so than ever before, writing requires a deep attention to context, audience, and meaning-making across the multiple tools and media available to us as writers” (Digirhet.org 2005).