Tracing Ecologies of Code Literacy and Constraint in Emojis as Multimodal Public Pedagogy

Abstract

Abstract This article explores the role of Bitzer's constraint through Brooke's ecologies of code, culture, and practice as a method to analyze emoji as a form of multimodal public rhetoric. In particular, this article suggests that understanding digital forms such as emoji, which are controlled by the Unicode consortium, requires understanding the essential role that code literacy can play in shaping public writing practices in social media through two case studies: one on the multicultural skin tone emoji iOS update of 2015 and another on public emoji proposals as a way to illustrate how everyday rhetors can use networked writing intervene at the level of code.