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Concept
Digital rhetoric
Summary
Digital rhetoric can be generally defined as communication that exists in the digital sphere. As such, digital rhetoric can be expressed in many different forms, including text, images, videos, and software. Due to the increasingly mediated nature of our contemporary society, there are no longer clear distinctions between digital and non-digital environments. This has expanded the scope of digital rhetoric to account for the increased fluidity with which humans interact with technology.
The field of digital rhetoric has not yet become well-established. Digital rhetoric largely draws its theory and practices from the tradition of rhetoric as both an analytical tool and a production guide. As a whole, it can be structured as a type of meta-discipline.
Due to evolving study, digital rhetoric has held various meanings to different scholars over time. Similarly, digital rhetoric can take on a variety of meanings based on what is being analyzed—which depends on the concept, forms or objects of study, or rhetorical approach. Digital rhetoric can also be analyzed through the lenses of different social movements. This approach allows the reach of digital rhetoric to expand our understanding of its influence.
The term “digital rhetoric” differentiates from the term “rhetoric” because the latter term has been one to be debated amongst many scholars. Only a few scholars like Elizabeth Losh and Ian Bogost have taken the time to really come up with a definition for digital rhetoric. One of the most straightforward definitions for “digital rhetoric” is that it is the application of rhetorical theory (Eyman, 13).
The following subsections detail the evolving definition of 'digital rhetoric' as a term since its creation in 1989.
The term was coined by rhetorician Richard A. Lanham in a lecture he delivered in 1989 and first formally put into words in his 1993 essay collection, The Electronic Word: Democracy, Technology, and the Arts.
In 2005, James P. Zappen defined digital rhetoric as a space of collaboration and creativity between the composer and the audience.
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