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Lead

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Digital rhetoric can be generally defined as communication that exists in the digital sphere. As such, digital rhetoric can be expressed in many different forms —including but not limited to text, images, videos, and software.[1] Due to the increasingly mediated nature of our contemporary society, there are no longer clear distinctions between digital and non-digital environments.[2] This has led to an expansion of the scope of digital rhetoric to account for the increased fluidity with which humans interact with technology.[3]

Due to evolving study, digital rhetoric has held various meanings to different scholars over time.[4] Similarly, digital rhetoric can take on a variety of meanings based on what is being analyzed—which depends on the concept, forms or objects of study, or rhetorical approach. Digital rhetoric can also be analyzed through many lenses reflecting different social movements.[5] Approaching this area of study through different lens of varying social issues allows the reach of digital rhetoric to expand.

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from Digital Rhetoric:

Definition

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Evolving definition of 'digital rhetoric'

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The following subsections detail the evolving definition of 'digital rhetoric' as a term since its creation in 1989.[6]

Early definitions (1989 - 2015)

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The term digital rhetoric was coined by rhetorician Richard A. Lanham in a lecture he delivered in 1989[6] and first formally put into words in his 1993 essay collection, The Electronic Word: Democracy, Technology, and the Arts.[7]

In 2005, James P. Zappen defined digital rhetoric as a space of collaboration and creativity between the composer and the audience.[8]

Recent scholarship (2015 - Present)

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Drawing influence from Lanham and Losh, Douglas Eyman offered his own definition of digital rhetoric in his 2015 book Digital Rhetoric: Theory, Method, Practice. Eyman said digital rhetoric is "the application of rhetorical theory (as analytic method or heuristic for production) to digital texts and performances".[9]: 44 

Eyman's definition demonstrates that digital rhetoric can be applied as an analytic method for digital texts and as a heuristic for production offering rhetorical questions that a composer can use to create digital texts.[citation needed][10][9] Eyman categorized the emerging field of digital rhetoric as interdisciplinary in nature, enriched by related fields such as, but not limited to: digital literacy, visual rhetoric, new media, human-computer interaction and critical code studies.[9]

In 2018, rhetorician Angela Haas offered her own definition of digital rhetoric, defining it as "the digital negotiation of information – and its historical, social, economic, and political contexts and influences – to affect change".[11] Haas emphasized that digital rhetoric does not solely apply to text-based items—it can also apply to image-based or system-based items. Any form of communication that occurs in the digital sphere can be counted as digital rhetoric under Haas' definition.[12]

Other definitions

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Contrary to past conceptions, the definition of rhetoric can no longer be confined to simply the sending and receiving of messages to persuade or impart knowledge. While this represents a primarily ancient Western view of rhetoric, Arthur Smith of UCLA explains that the ancient rhetoric of many cultures, such as African rhetoric, existed independent of Western influence.[13] Today, rhetoric encompasses all forms of discourse that serve any given purpose within specific contexts, while also simultaneously being shaped by those contexts.[14]

Some scholars interpret this rhetorical discourse with greater focus on the digital aspect. Casey Boyle, James Brown Jr., and Steph Ceraso claim that "the digital" is no longer just one of the many different tools that can be used to enhance traditional rhetoric, but an "ambient condition" that encompasses our everyday lives.[15] As technology becomes more and more ubiquitous, the lines between traditional and digital rhetoric will start to blur. In addition, Boyle et al. emphasize the idea that both technology and rhetoric can influence and transform each other.[16]

Interactivity

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Interactivity in digital rhetoric can be defined as the ways in which readers connect to and communicate with digital texts.[17] For example, readers have the ability to like, share, repost, comment on, and remix online content. These simple interactions allow writers, scholars, and content creators to get a better idea of how their work is affecting their audience.[18]

Some ways communicators promote interactivity include the following:

  • Mind sharing is a way to get collective intelligence—crowd wisdom that is comparable to expert wisdom. The methodology consists of taking a consensus from the crowd—the answer that most people are suggesting is the best answer. If it's a numeric question (like guessing the weight of an ox), it's a calculated average or median. If it's an open question (like "what car should I buy?"), it's the most common answer.
  • Multimodality is a form of communication that uses multiple methods (or modes) to inform audiences of an idea. It can involve a mix of written text, pictures, audio, or videos. Online journals often embrace multimodality in their issues and articles by publishing works that use more than just written text to communicate the message. While the digital turn in rhetoric and composition has encouraged more discussion, theorization, and pedagogical application of multimodality and multimodal texts, the history of the field demonstrates a continuous concern with multimodal communication beginning with classical rhetoric's concern with delivery, gesture, and memory. All writing and all communication is, theoretically, multimodal.
  • Remix is a method of digital rhetoric that manipulates and transforms an original work to convey a new message. The use of remix can help the creator make an argument by connecting seemingly unrelated ideas into a convincing whole. As modern technology develops, self-publication sites such as: YouTube, SoundCloud, and WordPress have stimulated remix culture, allowing for easier creation and dissemination of reworked content. Unlike appropriation, which is the use and potential recontextualization of existing material without significant modification, remix is defined in Kairos as "the process of taking old pieces of text, images, sounds, and video and stitching them together to form a new product".[19] A popular example of remixing is the creation and sharing of memes.
    A laptop is sitting on a desk, the screen is divided in half showing a two blurred images of two people video conferencing.
    When shifting to online learning, many schools utilized video conference applications to continue teaching lessons.

COVID-19 pandemic

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The persistence of the global COVID-19 pandemic since 2020 has changed both physical and digital spaces. The resulting isolation and economic shutdowns complicated existing issues and created a new set of globalized challenges as it "imposed" a change to the "psychosocial environment".[20] The virus has forced the majority of individuals with internet access to depend on technology in order to remain connected to the outside world, and on a larger scale, global economies have become reliant on transitioning business to digital platforms. Also, the pandemic forced schools across the globe to switch to an "online only" approach. By March 25, 2020, all school systems in the United States closed indefinitely.[21] In search of a platform to host online learning, many schools incorporated popular video chat service Zoom as their method of providing socially distant instruction. In April 2020, Zoom was hosting over 300 million daily meetings, as opposed to 10 million in December 2019.[22] While some may view online learning as a drop in education quality,[23] the shift to online learning demonstrated the current state of accessibility to digital information while promoting the use of digital learning through Zoom meetings, YouTube videos, and broadcasting systems such as Open Broadcaster Software.[24] However, there have also been questions about whether or not the switch to online learning has also had detrimental impacts on students, and it has been difficult to transition younger students in particular to completely online models of learning.

The pandemic has also contributed to creating misleading rhetoric in online spaces. Heightened public health concerns combined with the accessibility of social media led to both misinformation and disinformation regarding COVID-19 to spread rapidly. Some people online theorized that the deadly virus could be cured upon the ingestion of bleach, while others believed the disease to have been intentionally started by China in an attempt to take over the world.[25] Trump also supported taking Hydroxychloroquine to prevent the contraction of COVID-19.[26] The World Health Organization (WHO) has advised on numerous occasions that the drug has no signs of preventing the spread of the virus. Despite their illegitimate nature, these conspiracy theories have spread rapidly in digital spaces. As a result, the WHO declared the proliferation of misinformation regarding the virus an "infodemic".[25] This label caused most social media sites to strengthen their policies relating to false information, but many misleading claims still slip through the cracks.

Summary of changes

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I researched and added a citation to the interactivity section, providing a source for a claim of the definition of interactivity.

I copy edited the interactivity section for clarity and for neutral tone in order to make the article more accessible to read.

I also copy edited the lead section for clarity and accessibility.

I copy edited the covid-19 section for clarity, and corrected typos.

I added links to other helpful articles in the lead section: software, technology, and rhetorical approaches.

I added links to the digital rhetoric page to the Wikipedia pages Digital Media and Digital Continuity.

I added a video conferencing image to the COVID 19 section.

I copy edited the lead section again for clarity.

I copy edited the definition section for grammar and clarity.

References

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  1. ^ Eyman, Douglas (2015). Digital Rhetoric: Theory, Method, Practice. University of Michigan Press. doi:10.3998/dh.13030181.0001.001. ISBN 978-0-472-05268-4.[page needed]
  2. ^ Van Den Eede, Yoni; Goeminne, Gert; Van den Bossche, Marc (June 2017). "The Art of Living with Technology: Turning Over Philosophy of Technology's Empirical Turn". Foundations of Science. 22 (2): 235–246. doi:10.1007/s10699-015-9472-5. ISSN 1233-1821. S2CID 147446410.
  3. ^ Boyle, Casey; Brown, James J.; Ceraso, Steph (27 May 2018). "The Digital: Rhetoric Behind and Beyond the Screen". Rhetoric Society Quarterly. 48 (3): 251–259. doi:10.1080/02773945.2018.1454187. S2CID 149842629.
  4. ^ Eyman, Douglas (2015). Digital Rhetoric: Theory, Method, Practice. University of Michigan Press. ISBN 978-0-472-05268-4
  5. ^ Ridolfo, Jim (2013). "Delivering Textual Diaspora: Building Digital Cultural Repositories as Rhetoric Research". College English. 76 (2): 136–151. ISSN 0010-0994. JSTOR 24238146.
  6. ^ a b Hodgson & Barnett (November 22, 2016). "Introduction: What is Rhetorical about Digital Rhetoric? Perspectives and Definitions of Digital Rhetoric". Archived from the original on 2017-04-27.
  7. ^ Lanham, R. A. (1994). The Electronic Word: Democracy, Technology, and the Arts. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-46885-3.[page needed]
  8. ^ Zappen, James P. (July 2005). "Digital Rhetoric: Toward an Integrated Theory". Technical Communication Quarterly. 14 (3): 319–325. doi:10.1207/s15427625tcq1403_10. ISSN 1057-2252.
  9. ^ a b c Eyman, Douglas (2015). Digital Rhetoric: Theory, Method, Practice. University of Michigan Press. doi:10.3998/dh.13030181.0001.001. ISBN 978-0-472-05268-4.
  10. ^ Eyman, Douglas (2015). Digital Rhetoric: Theory, Method, Practice. University of Michigan Press. p. 12.
  11. ^ Haas, Angela M. (2018). "Toward a Digital Cultural Rhetoric". The Routledge Handbook of Digital Writing and Rhetoric. pp. 412–422. doi:10.4324/9781315518497-39. ISBN 978-1-315-51849-7.
  12. ^ Alexander, Jonathan; Rhodes, Jacqueline, eds. (2018-04-27). The Routledge Handbook of Digital Writing and Rhetoric (1 ed.). Routledge. doi:10.4324/9781315518497. ISBN 978-1-315-51849-7.
  13. ^ Smith, Arthur L. (March 1971). "Markings of an African concept of rhetoric". Today's Speech. 19 (2): 13–18. doi:10.1080/01463377109368973.
  14. ^ Ge, Yunfeng (November 2013). "Book review: Anis S Bawarshi and Mary Jo Reiff, Genre: An Introduction to History, Theory, Research, and Pedagogy". Discourse & Society. 24 (6): 833–835. doi:10.1177/0957926513490318c. S2CID 147358289.
  15. ^ Boyle, Casey; Brown, James J.; Ceraso, Steph (2018-05-27). "The Digital: Rhetoric Behind and Beyond the Screen". Rhetoric Society Quarterly. 48 (3): 251–259. doi:10.1080/02773945.2018.1454187. ISSN 0277-3945.
  16. ^ Boyle, Casey; Brown, James J.; Ceraso, Steph (27 May 2018). "The Digital: Rhetoric Behind and Beyond the Screen". Rhetoric Society Quarterly. 48 (3): 251–259. doi:10.1080/02773945.2018.1454187. S2CID 149842629.
  17. ^ Zappen, James P. (2005). "Digital Rhetoric: Toward an Integrated Theory". Technical Communication Quarterly. 14 (3): 319–325. doi:10.1207/s15427625tcq1403_10. ISSN 1057-2252 – via EBSCO.
  18. ^ Morey, Sean (2017). The Digital Writer. Southlake, Texas: Fountainhead Press. pp. 37–70. ISBN 978-1-68036-354-8.
  19. ^ Ridolfo, Jim; Devoss, Dànielle Nicole (2009). "Composing for Recomposition: Rhetorical Velocity and Delivery". Kairos. 13 (2).
  20. ^ Fegert, Jörg M.; Vitiello, Benedetto; Plener, Paul L.; Clemens, Vera (2020-05-12). "Challenges and burden of the Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic for child and adolescent mental health: a narrative review to highlight clinical and research needs in the acute phase and the long return to normality". Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health. 14 (1): 20. doi:10.1186/s13034-020-00329-3. ISSN 1753-2000. PMC 7216870. PMID 32419840.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)
  21. ^ "The Coronavirus Spring: The Historic Closing of U.S. Schools (A Timeline)". Education Week. 2020-07-02. Retrieved 2021-02-18.
  22. ^ "Zoom Revenue and Usage Statistics (2020)". Business of Apps. 2020-04-09. Retrieved 2021-02-18.
  23. ^ Lauria, Sam (2020-09-19). "Zoom University is cheating students out of a proper education". The Statesman. Retrieved 2021-02-18.
  24. ^ Subhi, M A; Nurjanah, N; Kosasih, U; Rahman, S A (October 2020). "Design of distance lectures in mathematics education with the utilization of the integration of Zoom and YouTube application". Journal of Physics: Conference Series. 1663 (1): 012058. Bibcode:2020JPhCS1663a2058S. doi:10.1088/1742-6596/1663/1/012058.
  25. ^ a b Nguyen, An; Catalan-Matamoros, Daniel (25 June 2020). "Digital Mis/Disinformation and Public Engagement with Health and Science Controversies: Fresh Perspectives from Covid-19". Media and Communication. 8 (2): 323–328. doi:10.17645/mac.v8i2.3352. S2CID 222228241.
  26. ^ "Hydroxychloroquine, once touted by Trump, should not be used to prevent COVID-19, WHO experts say". www.cbsnews.com.
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