From traditional to digital: understanding remediation of the postcard through the case of PostSecret.com

Abstract

PostSecret has been credited with blurring the lines between private and public information and traditional media formats and digital media formats. In 2004, what began as one man's art project became a worldwide phenomenon that has continued past the publishing of this dissertation, a lifetime in online lifespans. This dissertation examines a rhetoric of remediation, the dynamics and rhetorical aims of ethos, habitus, and materiality that construct, support, and complicate a traditional to digital remediation of postcards that furthers our understanding of what it means to meet audience expectations and needs in multiple spaces.