Internet-era communicative speed is cognitive and affective, not merely technological

Evidence

Digital humanities scholar Alan Liu emphasizes that “the new discourse paradigm” of internet writing prioritizes “postindustrial efficiency coupled with flexibility—that is, the ability to say anything to anyone quickly,” an effusive instantaneity he contrasts with “academic knowledge,” whether philosophical, historical, or artistic, that texturizes saying anything by saying it “fully, richly, openly, differently, kindly, or slowly.” Speed—of composition, publishing, circulation—founds the sensation of immediacy. Hot takes burning and bounding, episode recaps published minutes after airing, real-time reactions from live news scenes. But Liu’s point also brings home how much this speed is not just technological but cognitive and affective: reflexive impressions pressed from the hip, #NoFilter. — Anna Kornbluh, Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late…, 182

Categorization

• XREF: Gives the reader ammunition for the Antitheory fight: Liu’s acclaim for slowness is scholarly mediation’s defense against ‘immediate’ discourse, the same opposition she wants to articulate.