Blog 3

Rhetoric in Digital Rhetoric: Theory, Method, Practice by Douglas Eyman states,

“Rhetoric has a number of overlapping meanings: the practice of oratory; the study of the strategies of effective oratory; the use of language, written or spoken, to inform or persuade; the study of the persuasive effects of language; the study of the relation between language and knowledge; [and] the classification and use of tropes and figures” (Bizzell and Herzberg).

Rhetoric also includes ethos, pathos, and logos under a branch of persuasion. Rhetoric is used in writing essays, speeches, books and more. Once technology was created and started to grow, digital rhetoric came into play through commercials, blogs, vlogs, social media, and overal digital media.

The definition of digital rhetoric in Digital Rhetoric: Theory, Method, Practice states “the application of rhetorical theory (as analytic method or heuristic for production) to digital texts and performances.” To put this in simpler terms, digital rhetoric is rhetoric used and applied digitally whether that be through a computer or cellphone.

Although this is the definition, is it completely true?

Can you still be persuaded the same way by reading a text of a speech digitally than listening to a speech live and in person?

It is hard to get the same effect digitally than in real life. This challenges the tradition of digital rhetoric because digital rhetoric is quite different than rhetoric.