The Perils of Research

Did you know practically every scientific article includes the words "editor" and "language" ? Perfect.

It is fascinating how the culture of technology changes language—everything from the recognition of emoticons to the speed of marketing has changed. For editors, this language shift is especially important as the expectations of audiences are shifting as well.
Thus far in my research, I have yet to find anything that directly embraces the change technology has had on language, and on editors themselves. An article published in 2005 by Blake Morrison establishes that editors are losing control in “this market.” It seems however, that few article writers like to establish what this market is, how it has changed, or ways in which editors have to change their own ways.
There are a handful of articles from around 1997 that are all about how writing has changed because of Word Processing. This is interesting, but we are a little beyond this point now. We’re not questioning how fast a reader must move across a screen or how writers have to write in choppy, quick statements to make up for an audience with a technology driven attention span (a.k.a. a short one). We can already embrace these facts. But have editors embraced this? How do they feel about wikis and the negative attitude toward editing from the freedom of technology philosophy? How have our cultural standards changed?
There is no question that a huge shift is forcing people to recognize how writing is changing and the job of the editor. In Jerome McGann and Dino Buzzetti’s article, "Critical Editing In A Digital Hemisphere", for example, the authors are focusing on the tools that change editors’ jobs. Does editing software challenge the professionalism of the editor’s mind?
As I am left with eight semi-related articles and more questions than answers, it seems that the research here is off to a good start. As to why I picked this subject, I can only say that I find Twitter fascinating—journalists are writing news briefs in 140 characters or less (check out http://jprof.blogspot.com/2009/01/writing-for-twitter-good-journalism-in.html). How do we control ourselves now?