A Global "Society of Authorship"?

Of our two articles for this week, I responded much more strongly to Will Richardson's "Selections from Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms," or more specifically, one portion of said article.  On page 5 it states: "We are creating what author Douglas Rushkoff calls a 'Society of Authorship' where every teacher and every student, every person with access will have the ability to contribute ideas and experiences to the larger body of knowledge that is the Internet.  And in doing so, Rushkoff says, we will be writing the human story, in real time, together, a vision that asks each of us to participate (Rushkoff, 2004)."  What intrigues me is that now, ten years after the publication of the book from which the article is taken, we have a society where Internet access and participation is as widespread as Richardson predicted; however, I don't think it is a "society of authorship."  If anything, it seems like the more tools we have to distribute our voices in written format, the less people think of themselves as authors.  Instead, they come up with new words, like "blogger," to describe what they are and what they do, as if "author" or "writer" are taboo.  Why is that?  Anyone who writes is a writer.  If a blog is a kind of writing, then why not just call bloggers writers?  We don't call writers who write in other languages something different.  Who created this dichotomy and why?  And if writing is migrating more and more into the digital realm, then will writers someday cease to exist semantically, replaced by some other word that means the same thing?

As for the other article, I think what stuck out to me the most was the difference between types of multilingual students.  I never really took "1.5 generation" students (Matsuda 39) into consideration as something separate from ESL or EFL students.  And this is even after having worked with each type of student in the writing center, and having seen the difference in their issues and performance.  It makes me realize just how easy it is to overlook what, on the surface, seems like an obvious or commonsense concept in the academic world.  Sometimes we get so focused on each little task ahead of us, each individual session and student, that it's hard to see the whole picture.  I know this is kind of the opposite of the problem educational institutions usually have, but I think it is just as valid, and can have just as many negative effects. 

If we have tools, like those mentioned in the first article, to make voices heard by a global audience, then we really must make sure we're equipping people of all language backgrounds to make their voices heard by as many people as possible.  In this day and age, that often means legible, coherent English.  If we're unable to succeed in giving students that power, then it's no wonder they don't want to think of themselves as writers or authors.