Whenever we mention the word digital, we tend to imagine a computer, Smartphone or the internet. When used in normal speech, digital is often used to mean the same thing as electronic or computerized, particularly when compared to its counterpart, analog. But, as Doug Eyman introduces in “Defining and Locating Digital“, there is much more to the idea of the digital than these superficial associations.
Binary Code and the Power of Replication
Digital systems are technically defined as discrete valued whereas analog systems are continuous valued, which are typically waves. Digital technologies have codified differences. They are based on binary figures and not on similarity or scale. This difference is essential as it implies that computerized systems are not confined to the contemporary computers. Digital Writing systems such as Morse code, braille, and even alphabetic text. These are a digital system since they are constructed out of single, symbolic units. In modern computer networks, computer data is coded as bits or 1s and 0s, a concept introduced in a landmark work by Claude Shannon, A Mathematical Theory of Communication.
There are evident benefits of digital systems over analog systems. They enable replication of information in a correct form, compression of information in an efficient manner and more securely. Digitizing of the analog signals is also possible and this is critical in production and distribution of multimedia. It is these affordances that drive the digital to such power in the area of rhetoric where messages are continuously reproduced, re-constructed and shared.
Digital Rhetoric as a Continuation of Rhetorical Tradition
Another aspect of the digital that Eyman brings up is its relationship with the human body. When reading the work of Angela Haas he reminds us that digital is the word digitalis. Which translates to of the fingers. Since ancient cuneiform writing has always been a form of coded writing, material. Rhetoric is in this way, always digital. Media, be it in print or screen form, have long been used as instruments of persuasion, and training and molding knowledge as Lev Manovich suggests. Digital rhetoric, in its turn, connects the historical practices of writing to the current communication technologies. And spreads the rhetorical power within the multimedia and networked environments.
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