Online communication has transformed the way authors create, distribute and respond to text. Douglas Eyman in his article “Defining and Locating Digital Rhetoric,” examines the work of rhetoric in digital contexts and clarifies that the old modes of thinking about rhetoric must expand to new technology and new platforms.
According to Eyman, using rhetoric is application of rhetorical theory in digital texts and performances. It includes web sites, social media, multimedia objects and other online communication. Rather than considering digital rhetoric to be on the opposite spectrum of classical rhetoric, Eyman explains that it employs the same fundamentals of rhetoric, namely, the audience, purpose and persuasion, and modifies them to fit the digital context.
He demonstrates that using rhetoric cuts across numerous disciplines: rhetoric, composition studies, and technical communication, and media studies. Digital texts can be multimodal (the combination of text, images, sound and interactivity) therefore writers should consider how these elements interact to persuade the readers. It is what makes rhetoric complex and flexible.
Eyman demonstrates the role of the audience in digital spaces. Online readers are not mere passive. They also comment, remix, and share content making them participants in the rhetorical act. This interactivity makes writers to consider ethics, accessibility, and the movement of content carefully as they write on-line.
This is because learning rhetoric is critical to students and scholars who are on-line writing areas. Rhetorical awareness has to expand with technology as demonstrated by Eyman. With a visualization of the way to persuade online, authors are able to create communication, which is more effective, ethical, and interesting in the modern world of the network.
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