Jane Donnabella, Maddie Amsterdam and Anthony Falco

Professor Ben Ristow

Digital Rhetoric
Final Portfolio
2 May 2015
Collaborative Writing Project
We are the Millennials, the Gen Ys, shaped by Web 2.0 and the constant
evolution of technology. We have never known a time before televisions and radios and
computers. Because of this, media has always felt like a natural surrounding, gently
cocooning our interactions with the world and teaching us how to navigate life with
glowing screens constantly pulling us away from reality. We are the distracted, the
narcissistic and self-obsessed, the easily click-baited, and the lazy with a phone glued to
our hands and a blank look permanently plastered on our faces. We are the
technologically savvy, the geeks and techies, the hackers and trolls, the Twitter-verified
Instafamous Facebook fanatics.
With all of these qualities in mind, it might be easy to assume there was little for
us to learn from our Digital Rhetoric course. What could you teach digital natives about
their own culture? The answer: a lot. Perhaps the worst quality we share is our hastiness.
We communicate in shorter and faster modes, evolving from letters to emails to text
messages. As our messages become smaller, so does our need to think about what we say
and how we say it. The need to convey information in a convenient and efficient fashion
eclipses tone and style, and we lose our personal touch. Marshall McLuhan told us, The
medium is the message. So what does it mean if our medium is limited and impersonal,

and what does that teach us about our culture? It all traces back to the five canons of
rhetoric, and the most important canon, delivery. Delivery has changed drastically from
country to country, era to era. From messengers on horseback to morse code to email, the
way we have connected to other humans from a distance has evolved at astonishing rates
and will continue to evolve throughout our lifetimes. In a world where digital literacy
structures thought, it is becoming increasingly important to understand the rhetoric of
new media.
Technology does more than change the ways we communicateit affects our
identities, shapes our culture, and structures our thought. Our Digital Rhetoric course
began with discussions of the evolution of written technology and the art of rhetoric.
Primary orality was dependent upon performance and limited in its small scope and
nonpermanence. The invention of the alphabet in Ancient Greece marked the beginning
of literacy, which allowed for messages to be recorded and dispersed amongst larger
groups of people. In 2015, we are deep into the age of what Walter Ong calls secondary
orality, which is marked by communication through electronics such as telephone, radio,
and computer. Communication in the digital age is interactive, immediate, and dependent
upon visuals, medium, and networks. Ong states, The computer achieves the ultimate
(thus far) in separation of the knower and the known. This disconnect does more than
shape an audiences interpretation of informationit can also distance the writer from
writing itself. This separation is key to understanding concepts such as digital identity,
cybercultures, trolls, and memes.
Stephanie Vie defines (e)dentity as an electronic identity left behind by digital
traces. These traces are most often thought to derive from social media profiles, but Vie

reminds us that we also leave digital traces every time we conduct a Google search or
purchase something from Amazon. The separation between self and object is represented
by our (e)dentities; we make choices every time we create a digital profile, post a picture
online, or write an email, but these choices are never fully representative of our identities
in the physical world. Aware that our online actions have physical consequences, we try
to create (e)dentities that depict the best versions of us. We edit our photos, send overlyfriendly messages, and create profiles on the mediums our friends belong to. But our
(e)dentities can also depict us as negativelythey can make us appear unintelligent,
uninvolved, or unfit for a job. Digital mediums are limited in the ways they depict
individuals, meaning we will never have full control over our (e)dentities. For instance,
Facebook asks its users to build a profile by uploading photos and listing favorite movies,
musicians, and sports teams. Not only does this profile leave out important bits of
personal information, but it places a misrepresentative emphasis on certain areas. The
visual emphasis on photos and friends encourages users to be judged according to
appearance and social relationships rather than interests and hobbies. We deliver
ourselves how we see fit.
But the Internet is not simply a representation of our actions in the physical world
it also shapes our values, interests, and ideas. Our discussion of cybercultures showed
us how technology determines and is determined by the culture in which it develops. The
Internet comprises thousands of digital subcultures that shape our understandings of
issues such as gender, race, and politics. Pramod K. Nayar defines subcultures as
unofficial cultural formations that seek to escape or subvert state and corporate power,
often through the use of similar technologies. Our discussion of trolls and hacktivists

illuminated the idea of subcultures as a response to power structures. In his exploration of

trolls motives, Mattias Schwards writes that trolls intentionally disrupt online
communities to get an insane amount of drama, laughs and lulz. But as we learned in
our discussions on hacktivists, trolls motives can be far more complex than simply
doing it for the lulz. The Internet collective Anonymous constitutes individual trolls
who claim to strike anyone they perceive as an enemy of freedom. The group began as a
small 4chan subculture and has evolved into a terrifying force to powerful institutions.
The belief that hacking can serve as means of achieving freedom of expression was
illustrated by Edward Snowdens statements in Citizenfour. In exposing the NSAs
surveillance practices to the public, Snowden hoped to create a transparent government
and bring power to American citizens. While some see Snowden as a patriot, others see
him as traitor whose actions compromise democracy.
The Internet is a big, scary place. It enables one to rise to power while enjoying the
comfort of his own home.
Digital rhetoric is a significant element in our current society. With its recent
emergence the concept has not been fully defined. Each day new media and softwares are
created ultimately making digital rhetoric a limitless artform. From analyzing its features
from different perspectives with the aid from authors like Nayar iit could potentially give
us an answer to some of the cultural phenomenons that occur daily in cyberspace. This
idea of going viral has completely dictated how the world operates in this day and age.
Has mankind gone hungry for attention? It may seem so. Web 2.0 and the 21st century
technology has absolutely connected the people of the world but has it also become an
extension of those relationships? With the rapid advancements being made in

technological research and construction we can hardly speculate of what this world is
going to look like in the near future. Analyzing digital rhetoric and the cybercultures
created from it we can begin to understand how this new technology makes the world
operate.