Before reading this week’s reading, I had never really considered computer programming or coding to carry rhetoric. However, the way Brock (2019) posits various literature convinces me. I didn’t have a strong stance on this before. But code can be meaningful no matter what the programmer sets out to do with it. An “if-else” statement can hold as much rhetoric in it as a persuasive essay when you really think about it.
rhetorical Authenticity
It has been years since I’ve truly studied computer science. (AP Computer Science Principles in sophomore year of high school, you will not be missed!) So, curiously, I asked my friends currently studying computer science “Do you think code can be counted as rhetoric?”. One friend, who is taking a computer-science-adjacent course, said no. Ultimately “code and by extension chat-bots cannot reproduce rhetorical authenticity, as these things are rooted in human experience and intention” (Nuñez, 2025).
She posits that while code can imitate rhetorical strategies, code “cannot engage with the moral complexities of authentic discourse,” which is an intriguing facet to consider when dissecting the rhetorical value of computer programming. While she and I aren’t entirely in opposition to the rhetorical value of code, I did disagree with her on that code and things like chat-bots can hold rhetorical value. Moral complexity? Not so much. But in programming something like chat-bots, I can believe that there is left over bias from the designer that signifies their own personal goals or background.
Reading Brock’s (2019) analysis of the literature, he brings up Beck (2016). Beck says that “an understanding of algorithms as being fundamentally persuasive” and that is something I do agree with. An algorithm feeds off us so we give it meaning. But even by itself, without humans interacting with it, I believe that algorithms say something about our own identity.
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