32 Words and more Strategies for writing about and with media Virginia Kuhn In this chapter I call for explicit attention to the formal qualities of the critical essay itself, as well as to the form of the media being reviewed. Verbal language remains the main critical mode; as such, I focus on the rhetorical use of text on the page, on screen, and in video. Reviewing and revising our critical structures can push back against some of the logocentrism and linearity of current institutional modes, encouraging polyvocality and a respect for alternative ways of knowing. Screen lit- eracy requires the ability to both consume and produce meaning; writing with media is key to writing about it. Over the years my work has taken many forms and has engaged numerous subjects, but it is always premised on the notion that being fluent in a par- ticular language – whether verbal, visual, or aural – requires not only the ability to consume meaning, but also to produce it. We might refer to this as decoding and encoding, or simply, reading and writing. The underlying con- tention is that in order to fully appreciate the rhetorical choices that went into a text’s construction, you must be forced to confront those choices yourself. As such, I define contemporary literacy as competent control of the available semiotic resources. At a fundamental level, this means being aware of the possibilities and constraints of composing in a particular medium or authoring platform, since these affordances shape what can be expressed within its confines. Here, for instance, I have a set number of words and a finite number of images available since there is a hard copy component of the platform, a book. Images are still quite costly to print, so I must be judicious in their use. Digital platforms offer different possibilities; they have expanded the pal- ette of resources, allowing the integration of sound, image, and movement in addition to words. As such, screen-based media, whether time-based like video, or spatially-oriented such as a website, demand a different set of con- siderations. And even as most platforms are either word-friendly or media- friendly (but seldom both), and even as they are nearly always in flux, there are a few guiding principles for writing about and in these environments. In