Understanding Digital Rhetoric

To understand the meaning of digital rhetoric we must break it down.

As we discussed in class, digital in this sense is engaging with technology with our digits (fingers).

Rhetoric is the use of persuasive speaking or writing to address and leave an impact on a certain audience.

It can be inferred that digital rhetoric is the communication and persuasion that is done within a digital environment. But, how can we engage and understand digital rhetoric to enhance our writing online?

Hypertextuality

The reading touches on how the use of hyperlinks allows for the incorporation of other works embedded within our own.

For example, we can link different forms of media and other pieces of work to support our digital writings. These can include video, audio, music, text, and animations.

The reading mentions, “By inserting the individual text into a network of other texts, this information medium creates a new kind of textual entity— a metatext or hypermedia corpus (Eyman pg. 25).”

Hypertextuality is the ability to use, create, and link fields of information. So, when we hyperlink we are practicing hypertextuality as well as enhancing our digital rhetoric.

The Rhetoric of Digital Texts

The reading establishes ideas of digital rhetoric through the linkings of multiple theories.

The four elements mentioned:

• The use of rhetorical strategies in the production and analysis of the digital text.
• Identifying characteristics, affordances, and constraints of new media.
• Formation of digital identities.
• Potential for building social communities.

By combining these ideas boundaries are set to establish an understanding of what digital rhetoric is. The foundation set by the reading supports the above definition of digital rhetoric. In addition, it “provides a solid foundation for the analytic approach of digital rhetoric that is both compelling and quite accessible (Eyman pg. 31). Understanding digital rhetoric allows us to build skills to persuade and create pieces that help us form digital identities in digital societies.