Rhetorical Handbook

Let's Get Rhetorical: How to properly use Tumblr to reach your target audience and persuade others.

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Putting it All Together

Make sure to follow all these steps in order to get an amazing Tumblr like Kim, and never forget to take into consideration your audience!

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Language is Key

The ease of communicating with others through language on an online platform is one of many Tumblr’s advantages. Gorgias and the Sophists believe that language - between individuals - is where truth resides, and it has a personal benefit of creating belief, as well as shaping truth and reality. Language and communication on Tumblr is also key in finding a different “truth” - a truth that involves that involves the development of strong relationships between you and your followers. 

With your blog, you want to be able to connect to your followers, and to do this requires language. You want to be open, but not too open with your audience (basically, don’t share any personal info you don’t want others knowing about yourself that they shouldn’t know). Not only can you “direct message” other users, but you can also open up your asks to let people send messages to you whether that be anonymous or not. 

Communication through language is also a great way for people to understand your blog and the posts you choose to reblog. The say a picture is worth a thousand words and for your blog, this is absolutely true. Being more of a visual platform, your visual posts - photos, gifs, videos, etc. - will speak to your followers as if you were communicating with them. Your posts should say, “This is the type of blog I am and what I will be posting on it.”

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Hashtags Create Meaning

Symbol --> Thought or Reference --> Referent (real world thing)

Hashtag + Picture/Video/Text --> context and hashtag connect to create meaning for your users

Richards, a rhetorical theorist, introduces the idea of meaning making triangle. Here he states that we deploy symbols to stand in for objects that we don’t have with us. Although Tumblr doesn’t have any physical signs like any sort of traffic sign, it does make use of hashtags to conjure up these thoughts of what these symbols represent. 

Hashtags do something very similar. With hashtags, you want to use them in a way that your followers will get the point you’re trying to get across through your pictures, text, and so on. Hashtags also have the power of appealing to a broader audience. Since users can search the site for anything (TV shows, celebrities, fashion, you name it), they will sometimes use hashtags. These could be a single word or a phrase that their followers or people who post similar things will be able to recognize, as well as connect them to stuff in the real world. For your blog, your hashtags should act as symbols that connect to the context of your posts. 

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Centrifugal Forces... How to Effectively Use and Introduce Them to Your Followers

Unlike centripetal forces, with centrifugal forces you will be separating and introducing new concepts, ideas, and posts to your followers.

This example is a great way to show how some may react when something new is introduced to them.

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Centripetal Forces Working Within Your Blog

Centripetal forces are alway acting within Tumblr, especially within fandoms and themed blogs.

In this example, this blog is strictly just pots about the show, Stranger Things. This blog lets users know that what they will post will most likely be photos, videos, and the like from the show. Fandoms want to bring people together using centripetal forces with posts that its members will relate to. 

So, if you don’t watch the show or maybe you just don’t like it, this blog would not be one you would follow. You are not brought together or joined by something that would link you two together. You might just be seen as a deviant user to this type of fandom blog.

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Identification and Consubstantiality at Work

The goal with fandoms, or any type of blog that follows your similar theme, is that you want to be able to find users that have things in common with you. Fandoms are typically great examples and ways in which you can identify with other users online and create that consubstantial bond between you and others around the world. 

However, don’t just limit this idea of identification and substantiality to fandoms… You can think of you of any themed blog as being something that others will identify with (ex. fashion blogs, sports blogs, etc.). There are people out their that do have similar things in common with you and your blog and can identify with you. It is up to you with how you choose to identify with and reach you audience members through the types of posts, jargon, and more to reach this level of consubstantiality. 

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How to Effectively Use the 3 Proofs in Your Posts

Just like a speech, you’ll want to be able to effectively and appropriately use the three proofs in a way that will establish your credibility, how you relate to your audience and other users online, and the reasoning and logic behind your blog and its purpose.

Ethos - Establishing Credibility

For Tumblr, appearance, delivery, and the content in relevance to your theme is important. Make sure to hit all of these points and you’re sure to get followers on whatever type of blog you choose to create. Having a bio or “About Me” link will help in establishing this credibility as well. 

Pathos - Relate to Your Audience

When people first go on a new blog for the first time, they tend to look at the first couple of posts, bios, and some might even click on your “About Me” link. Here, you can share your personal story, your interests, and more to let audience relate and understand you better. Some users even add personal pictures of themselves, them with friends, and more to actively engage with their followers. 

Logos - Reasoning and Logic

Logos may not be one of the most used proofs on Tumblr, but it does play an important role if you’re every trying to share you opinion or thoughts on subject/topic, if you’re in an open discussion with other users, or if someone opens up their “asks”.

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When you meet someone who is in the same fandom as you

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How Best to use Terministic Screens to Your Advantage

For our example, let’s use the above photo of sad, crying pop-art comic book girl. We can assume she is sad because she is presumably laying down with tears streaming down her face. 

In the above photo, we know that the girl is sad through her body language and tears. However, by adding the thought bubble ‘I love boys’ over her ahead, the meaning is changed from just being a girl who is sad to a girl who is crying over her love of boys. 

Looking at the same photo again, everything is the same except for the thought bubble. Now, instead of what was first perceived as just a pop-art comic of a sad girl or a girl crying over her love of boys, we can perceive this photo to be that this girl is either crying over her love of pizza or how badly she wants pizza.

This last photo has not only changed the text inside the thought bubble, but it has changed the actual pop-art comic itself. By altering her skin color and changing the the words inside the thought bubble, we now perceive this photo as one that deals with how different minorities and races feel in today’s society.

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Photos, Gifs, and More - Seeing Your Posts Through Different Terministic Screens

“Even if any given terminology is a reflection of reality, by its very nature of a terminology it must be a selection of reality; and to this extent must function as a deflection of reality.” - Kenneth Burke 

Kenneth Burke, one of the best known literary theorists, introduced us to the idea of ‘terministic screens’. With Terministic Screens, we know that through language reality is selected, reflected and deflected... but how is this done?

Select: we select pieces of reality

Reflect: how we see reality - specific views

Deflect: we direct attention away from other elements. 

“We must use terministic screens, since we can’t say anything without the use of terms; whatever terms we use, they necessarily constitute a corresponding kind of screen; and any such screen necessarily directs the attention to one field rather than another.” - Kenneth Burke

Being able to apply this concept of Terministic Screens is important for any Tumblr. The photos you post and the captions you choose to caption them with will change the meaning and perception of the photo to your followers. 

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As a 14-year-old girl, I spend a lot of time on the Internet. Whether that's watching YouTube videos or listening to music or catching up on the latest g...

Heteroglossia Functioning in Tumblr - Key Words & Phrases You Just Gotta Know

The above link contains Tumblr specific jargon that could not only be helpful when deciding whichever speaking style you choose for your target audience, but understanding the various languages and sub-languages (heteroglossia) that are frequently used among Tumblr users. 

*Click the title of this post to open the link in another tab*

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Picking the Right Speaking Style for Your Blog

So now that you know what the three styles are, you need to ask yourself which style will work best for you.

The choice is really up to you, the creator of the blog. You want to make sure you understand your target audience very well, making sure you understand which type of speech will be clear for them to understand, what words they will be able to recognize, and which style will help you in achieving the 3 proofs (ethos, pathos, and logos) in your blog. 

Since blogs like a Tumblr are usually seen as safe-spaces where one can reblog, post, etc. things of their liking for their followers, it would most likely be best to go with a style that is reasonably straightforward and clear for your audience. Most of your followers tend to only reblog pictures, gifs, videos and/or audio posts. They tend to skip over long text posts (unless they’re quotes) because, in their minds, who really has time for that anyways? Your audience will most likely focus on the 1-2 lines that are written under any post that your reblog. These lines being your caption or anything related to the photo. The low style, one that consists of clear, direct speech with short sentences and easy to understand jargon will most likely be you best bet for anything that you reblog, regardless of your audience. 

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Cicero’s 3 Speaking Styles - How to Best Apply them to Your Blog

Thanks to Roman Rhetoric, Cicero has introduced us to his three styles of speech - low/plain, middle, and high/grand. 

Each one is used to cater and reach a specific type of audience. For the purpose of your Tumblr, it is up to you to decide which style you think would suit your blog well, as well as which style will be best understood by your audience. 

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Delivery

Bringing it all together, this is where you will deliver your content to your audience, or followers, through the type of medium, or template you chose for your theme. Your delivery of your blog is crucial to the success of your Tumblr. Based on aesthetics, themes, posts, and how will you execute and delivery this content in a pleasing way to your audience will determine whether or not you get that follow back. 

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Memory

Although memory won’t be of much use for Tumblr as it was for rhetoricians back in the day, it can be used in a way that you should remember the in’s and out’s of how to work your blog, reblog, and more. Viewing ‘how-to’ videos like the one above or just playing around on the site will help you become more familiar with Tumblr, as well as making it easier for posting content in the future. Once you get a feel for what Tumblr is like and understand its basic components, everything else will make sense. Reblogging, “following” other blogs, and more will already be ingrained in our memories with increased exposure and use on the site. 

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Style

We know that with style, you adjust your message (your choice of jargon, humor, etc.) to your audience and that is just what you’ll be doing with your blog. For example, if you’ve created a fandom account about the show, Supernatural, you’ll want to include photos of them, video clips/snippets from the show, gifs, and jargon that your audience will know (i.e. understanding why Sam and Dean say ‘jerk’ and ‘bitch’ to each other, Dean always saying ‘Son of a bitch!’, etc.).You wouldn’t want to mention anything about rival shows or anything unrelated to the show’s content, its main characters, and anything else that fans would be offended by. Again, make sure you adjust the content that you post on your blog accordingly to your audience. 

If you haven’t seen the show, you wouldn’t be able to truly understand the screen-cap and the subsequent text that follow it. Only those who religiously watch Supernatural and are fans will understand the context of the photo in relation to the commentary texts below. 

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Arrangement

Here, you will structure, or arrange, your blog to be the most effective. To do this, you will customize your theme, either by using one of the various free templates that Tumblr offers, buying one of their preset themes, or searching through other blogs for HTML codes for their different themes. From there, you can customize your theme and blog however you choose. You can change the font and background color; add links for a home page, message, and more; add as many columns to your blog as you would like; customize your header, description and more. All of these changes that you make while you’re arranging your blog are crucial. You want to your blog to be aesthetically pleasing to the eye, easy to follow, and organized. 

Pastebin is a great example of where fellow Tumblr users share their custom themes. Simply copy the HTML code that the user has put on Pastebin and copy that into the ‘Edit HTML’ link under ‘Custom Theme’. Again, you are more than welcoming to browse through any of the preset Tumblr themes, but be aware that some might be free and others are not. Custom themes like these that you find on Pastebin give you a little more leeway in to how you want to create your theme, customizing it to best fit your and audience’s needs.