Digital Spaces

Human-Computer Interaction

Digital rhetoric can apply in many digital spaces. One area of digital rhetoric is Human-Computer Interaction or HCI. HCI can be described as “the study of people, computer technology, and the ways these influence each other” according to Dix, Finlay, Abowd, and Beale (1993). There are a lot of connections between digital rhetoric and HCI. Eyman mentioned both “focus on how people use technological systems to accomplish a wide range of tasks, and the deployment of terms such as ‘user’ and ‘usability’. He also mentioned one of the key connections being the importance of interface. For “digital rhetoric, the interface is both object and location; it serves as the point at which software, hardware, user, network, the virtual and the material come together. One of the key tasks for HCI is the development and programming of interfaces…”. 

Overall, digital rhetoric and HCI need to be paired together. Rhetoric has always been the study of how and why, the meaning behind what is being said or done. HCI is the study of how people and computers influence each other. That sounds a lot like rhetoric. It is also digital, as HCI has computer right in the name and the concept. It makes complete sense for these two to be paired up with each other. Though, there are a lot of different areas digital rhetoric is important.

Critical Code Studies

Another area is Critical Code Studies or CCS. Code is extremely important in rhetoric. There are a lot of questions surrounding code, and rhetoric is all about questions. The questions Eyman brings up from a A 2011 HASTAC Scholars forum include: “What does it mean to look at the code not just from the perspective of what it “does” computationally, but how it works as a semiotic system, a cultural object, and as a medium for communication? How do issues of race, class, gender and sexuality emerge in the study of source code? And What insights does code offer to the cultural critique of a digital object?” 

These questions aren’t just about understanding code, but the things code impacts. Code isn’t just about getting something to do what you want. It is a form of communication. Code can be studied in rhetoric just like any other text can. Eyman said it well, “Much like literary studies is a branch of rhetoric that engages in a very focused examination of specific textual genres using a wide range of critical methods and theories, critical code studies can be seen as a subfield of digital rhetoric that takes code as its central object of study”. These questions are not just important to the world of code, but to the world itself. This is because more and more of our daily lives are being impacted by digital aspects. People use codes daily so it is very important to study all the areas surrounding code. 

In Summary

Digital rhetoric is very helpful in helping us understand the impact of digital spaces. We can understand code but to understand all the thoughts around it is very important. The questions around digital spaces are very important as digital spaces become our new way of life. It is scary to think of how fast we are moving without fully understanding all of what is going on. New digital technology comes out and we don’t think much on how bad things could get. Everyone wants the brand new thing without realizing some important questions weren’t answered.