Digital and Networked Rhetoric
Digital and networked rhetoric studies how persuasion and meaning work in digital texts, software, and online networks, from websites and social media to videogames.
Definition
Digital and networked rhetoric is the study of how persuasion, identity, and meaning are produced in digital texts, computational artifacts, and networked communication environments.
Scope
This topic covers the rhetorical analysis of digital and networked communication. It treats digital rhetoric as a synthesizing field, the procedural rhetoric of software and games, the dynamics of circulation and virality in networked publics, and the politics of online persuasion. It addresses how interactivity, hypertext, and platforms reshape rhetorical agency and audience.
Core questions
- How does interactivity change the relationship between rhetor and audience?
- How do software and games persuade through their procedures?
- How do texts gain rhetorical force through circulation in networks?
- What new forms of rhetorical agency arise online?
Key concepts
- procedural rhetoric
- circulation
- interactivity
- networked publics
- hypertext and remediation
Key theories
- Procedural rhetoric
- Bogost argues that computational artifacts, especially videogames, make arguments through their rules and processes, a procedural rhetoric distinct from verbal or visual persuasion.
- Digital rhetoric and online persuasion
- Eyman defines digital rhetoric as the study of rhetorical practice in digital environments, while Warnick and Heineman analyze how authorship, interactivity, and intertextuality reshape persuasion online.
History
Rhetoricians began analyzing digital texts in the 1990s as hypertext and the web emerged, with early work on the rhetoric of websites and online communities. Bogost's 2007 Persuasive Games introduced procedural rhetoric for computational media. Eyman's 2015 synthesis defined the field, and the rise of social media shifted attention to circulation, networked publics, and the politics of platforms.
Debates
- Continuity or rupture with classical rhetoric?
- Theorists dispute whether digital rhetoric mainly extends inherited concepts to new media or requires genuinely new theory to account for computation, interactivity, and algorithmic circulation.
Key figures
- Douglas Eyman
- Ian Bogost
- Barbara Warnick
- James Zappen
Related topics
Seminal works
- eyman2015
- bogost2007
Frequently asked questions
- What is 'procedural rhetoric'?
- Coined by Ian Bogost, it is the idea that software and videogames make arguments through their rules and processes—how they let users act and what consequences follow—rather than only through words or images.