Visual Rhetoric and Social Media
It’s a new age. Life has a whole new rhythm and feel to it, and it is all credited to the advance in technology, which in turn has given rise to the field of digital and visual rhetoric. Gone are the days when oral speeches were the most meaningful way a message could be delivered. When at one time, the quality of a message could be determined by the arrangement, style, and delivery of it, today almost anything can pass as an important message just by the means of the medium that is delivered by. The desire to fit in has always been in a human’s nature, and the rise of social media not only provides a certain standard that one should fit into, but also encourages it. Oral speeches in ancient days were given by educated individuals who formed what they thought were non-refutable arguments worthy of hearing, and today digital and visual rhetoric allows educated individuals as well as less educated individuals to speak their mind. The effect of this on speech, rhetoric, and human culture has been profound in ways that are both positive and negative; however, it also highlights the absolute necessity for rhetoric of any kind and its permanence in society.
It is important to address first and foremost, the shift that even allowed digital rhetoric to exist. Digital rhetoric is a development from written rhetoric, which arose from the development of oral rhetoric. Walter Ong, a Jesuit rhetorician from St. Louis, studied the movement from an oral culture to that of a print culture. When people think of a word, it is almost impossible to say the word without immediately thinking of what the world looks like or how it is spelled, so much so that “we cannot separate if from ourselves or ever recognize its presence and influence” (Ong 4). This is a glimpse into how much written language and rhetoric has had an impact on even the way that humans think. In this sense, it is difficult to imagine how people thought before thoughts and ideas could be recorded. He states, “The oral word as such distresses literates because sound is evanescent… it can operate with exquisite skill in the world of sounds, events, evanecsenses” (Ong). Ong emphasizes the impact of the temporariness of oral speech and how it takes much more work to sustain culture and keep alive the accumulation of knowledge through oral means only, “other wise these truths will escape, and culture will be back on square one, where it started before the ancestors got the truths from their ancestors” (Ong 12). There is no question that this method takes up a certain time and strength that people today lack because of the luxury of the written word. Not only that, but expanding on knowledge and exploring new concepts was difficult because so much energy was concentrated on remembering what was already known (Ong 12). Essentially, oral rhetoric limits humans to memorizing and containing, rather than analyzing or breaking down ideas or theories. It is also interesting to note that the invention of “writing falsifies,” meaning it “makes all of a word appear present at once,” when in actuality, once the word is spoken it is no longer occurring anymore, and disappears from existence (Ong 24). In the Phaedrus, Socrates expresses that writing is simply a tool that one can use to manipulate and is therefore, inhumane. He argues that attempting to establish what is in the mind in the physical world as writing is deceptive (Plato). Socrates, according to Plato, thought that writing “destroys memory,” and “weakens the mind” (Ong 28). Although some aspects of the current culture was lost due to the advance in the written language, it seems that the world has improved immensely from the advance that led to written language. These improvements make the loss of this precious practice of storing information in the mind worth it. In order to reach the full potential of human oral thought, writing is required so that the work and thoughts may be expounded upon. Though it may seem like writing reduced the need or importance of oral speech, it actually “enhanced it, making it possible to organize the ‘principles’ or constituents of oratory… to achieve its various specific effects” (Ong 9). When people think of and process words, they think in a language that they can see physically, as well as in their minds. Ong states, “literacy is regarded as so unquestionably normative… that the deviancy of illiteracy tends to be thought of as lack of a simple mechanical skill” (Ong 13). The written language was developed so that humans could reach their full potential and place ideas into an existence that one can physically hold on to. In this way, the desire to remember and record things so that they would not be forgotten was born and would only continue to grow throughout the years.
Humans are somewhat obsessed with remembering the past. Throughout history the need to remember and record events in peoples fleeting lives only increased and today, it takes form in a phenomenon that has developed into something called social media. Walter Ong stated that, “computer “languages” resemble human languages in some ways but are forever totally unlike human languages in that they do not grow out of the unconscious but directly out of consciousness.” In regards to the invention of computers, philosophers like Socrates and Plato would indeed consider it an obstruction to true thinking. Computers do not have the ability to fight back or answer questions in an unconscious way. As Roland Barthes states, “to the pleasure of writing, he is left with no more that the poor freedom either to accept or reject the text” (Westlake 26). Words are thus, “frozen, and in a sense dead,” which actually works for the sole purpose of remembering, however this would imply that because the words cannot be changed, they must be worthy of being permanent (Ong 31). One thing is certain, “whether for good or bad, electronic technology will have long-range effects on the nature of writing” (Halpern and Ligget 3). At one point, this could have been a positive thing, because then it only allowed well-formulated thoughts and rhetoric that have been reviewed and edited countless times to reach the masses. Although it once took an immense amount of time and effort to get a published work to reach a wide audience, today the social popularity of a post can happen in a matter of hours and even minutes. Not only this, but greater value has been placed on what once took a simple click of the “enter” button on one’s keyboard, than something that required several years to consider worthy to publicize. Social media platforms such as Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and Snapchat allow people to publish anything to their heart’s desire, regardless of whether it is intelligible or worth reading.
Facebook in particular, organizes information and posts depending on chronology and popularity with no regard for the level of quality in a post. The Facebook News Feed functions so that “the meaningful updates get posted and discarded with the same amount of attention as the mundane” (Goodwiller 3). In this sense, an update on ISIS could directly follow a friend’s update on the health of her pet gerbil. At one point in time, oral rhetoric was the only practice available and so its content was attended to with great care. Aristotle’s five canons of rhetoric: invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery were taken into serious consideration. This in comparison to how any information is ready at the click of a button today changes how people view rhetoric and also how they think. One of the main defining features of Facebook is the ability to “like” something, which signifies approval. It is a wordless way of stating your presence and acknowledgement of a given post rather than actually commenting on something that would usually require composing a sentence in one’s head. Goodwiller states that this is preferable over, “engaging in a dialogue with the author and other commentators in the comments section” (Goodwiller 7). The question lies in whether this is an effect of laziness or whether social media has caused our culture to have a simple indicating symbol replace what would normally require composing thoughts into rhetoric. The practice of writing things out, or organizing one’s thoughts to come to a conclusion is slowly being rejected, thus producing one’s own thoughts and realizations has become more rare. Regardless of what the answer to the question is, it shows that “we privilege consumption over production, just as the larger culture privileges the consuming class over the producing class” (Westbrook 461). Humans are able to analyze and understand a piece of rhetoric, but they do little to produce anything out of what they are given other than reciting a response. Social media sites like Facebook, are examples of both an incredible influx of consuming and producing. Because it allows anyone from anywhere in the world to post what they wish, there is little to no filter and it is up to the audience to determine what they deem worthy of their time. Content absorption is sacrificed for the gain of superficially consuming or “liking” more information and posts. In an effort to keep up with this constant feed of information, the audience has less and less time to spend on each post they see. Social media adjusts to the decreasing attention spans that it feeds and works even more to keep the attention of the audience. Facebook utilizes the concept of “hashtags” and “hypertexts,” knowing that this is what will cause the audience to absorb, consume, and buy what they want them to. This has nurtured in our generation a culture in which “rapid scanning or skimming of material on screen has become a frequent activity” (Dyson and Haselgrove 210). It is more likely that the less words a post has, the more likely people will be to read it, consider it and proceed to act upon it. Thus it makes sense that visual images would draw more people in, as reading takes time that people no longer seem to have. However, there are limits to visual rhetoric, as well as new possibilities it offers that written and oral classical rhetoric cannot.
When comparing how online social networks and classical rhetoric work, the main difference is that social networks “allow for the inclusion of multiple text variants… which widen their expressive potential and support discourse to achieve their persuasive aim. Thus, with a short message one may say a lot” (Berlanga, Garcia, and Victoria 129). This brings in the question of how Aristotle’s five canons of rhetoric fits into visual and digital rhetoric. Compared to oral speech, there are standards of visual rhetoric that oral speech is not capable of meeting and vice versa, as “certain elements of…. performance are absent in computer-mediated interaction (visual cues such as clothing and facial expression and aural cues such as tone), they are replaced in chat and on websites by more “staged” elements such as font, photographs, music, and graphics” (Westlake 30). Because humans are aware of the importance of facial expressions and tones to deliver a message, communication through media gives rise to the creation of “emojis,” which are small pictures that one can type into a chat to aid a sentence that could be understood in different ways. Despite this rather smooth adjustment to modern culture, arrangement, style, delivery, invention, and memory remain critical aspects of a well-rounded speech and essential to eloquent rhetoric. In fact, aspects of this can be seen in social networking sites today because “rarely do the users just share their life… it is with the aim of prompting certain responses… with a certain degree of persuasion” (Berlanga, Garcia, and Victoria 130). The five canons then prove to be useful in our fast-paced society. However, the use of visual rhetoric has the ability and advantage, in a sense, to invoke an audience’s reaction without the use of words. In the modern day, this tends to attract more people because the current generation revolves around instant gratification. Because visual and digital rhetoric tends to catch the audiences’ attention more effectively, the amount of written rhetoric is reduced and this lack of written production is encouraged as “visual rhetoric is being defined repeatedly as a frame of analysis for looking and interpreting, but not often enough for producing” (Westbrook 461). Social media robs the individual of being required to say something to be heard, which in turn, can actually make written rhetoric that much more meaningful. Thus, through the production of visual rhetoric, Facebook makes it easier for the mundane to be heard and makes it harder to stand out as a good writer or rhetorician.
Facebook has become such an influential means of communication that if one doesn’t have a Facebook profile, they are often considered to be isolated. “The generations of people older than current college students [are known] as the ‘silent’ generation,” because they do not share the same reliability on Facebook as the current generation does (Westlake 31). No more do people live in “quiet desperation,” rather “people now lead lives of noisy and ostentatious desperation” (Westlake 31). Communication is different now in that, “interaction participants are no longer required to share the same reference frame or the sociocultural paradigm, as required in traditional models” (Berlanga 129). Any thing that is publicly posted has the ability to reach an audience that one would never physically interact with. Furthermore, people can interact with each other without ever actually uttering nor ever typing a single word. Facebook operates in a way that allows people to be present and have a voice without necessarily being required to say anything. Ethos and social standing was generally determined through a person’s credibility, rhetoric, and words, but in the social media world, it is established through the amount of “likes” or “shares” that one has on a photo or post. No matter how much people may seem to deny it, the amount of ethos someone has is linked to how many friends one has on social media. Goodwiller states that, “a person’s ethos on Facebook relies on… who they are friends with, what they did over the weekend… and who they quote… the building blocks upon which their Facebook reputation is constructed” (Goodwiller 6). This desired “reputation” causes a never-ending chain of “friending” more people on Facebook so that one can get more friends, more likes, and more ethical grounds on which they have authority and acceptance as a voice to be heard. Though this can be a result of complete superficiality, if “the relationship one maintains or has established in the real world, still remains in the virtual world,” there is a consistency there that offers the same feeling of permanence that written rhetoric does (Berlanga, Garcia, and Victoria 134). This might offer some comfort and can be true, but only if there is consistent communication and interaction between the Facebook friends in person as well. Exchanging writing and rhetoric must be pursued in the relationship if it is stay personally ethical and communicative. Unfortunately, the label of being “friends” on Facebook can be lost as easily as it can be gained, with the simple click of a button. This instability bolsters the need to be noticed and heard in social media and as a result the “hashtag” was invented. A hashtag is made up of the pound symbol and a tag, in which whatever word is attached to the tag links to a community of other pictures or posts that have that same hashtag. It is not uncommon to see hashtags such as, #follow4follow, #like4like, or any word that has to do with the picture that was just posted. What this indicates is the almost chronic-like need for this generation to have the attention and approval of the world. In terms of rhetoric, less attention is paid to persuasion, because all the convincing that one needs, is the idea that if they #follow4follow, they will satisfy their desire to establish ethos and be admired without producing the rhetoric that is normally required to do so. Ethos is gained when one has more followers than his or her friend, or when that particular picture has more likes. It has gotten to the point where if one is truly desperate they can purchase followers with moeny to make their profile look more “credible”. However the standards on which this ethos is established is based on the system of social media and technology, which can easily be controlled by its users according to their preferences. As a result, a profile of superficiality is what people in the social media world use to judge another person’s character. Surprisingly (or not), this leads to a false base on which to build rhetoric upon. Thus, a majority of the rhetoric that arises from Facebook, if judged by that only and not the real person is based on false grounds. Another key element of social media, or technology in generally is how easily things can be deleted and recovered from its memory, which helps to aid an online reputation. Speaking from personal experience, I always found it amusing how some people tend to post new profile pictures with the caption, “temp,” implying that the photo they currently posted (usually a “selfie”) was only temporary and would be replaced soon with a real photo, as opposed to this fake “temp” one. There’s this idea that a person has to caption something as temporary when in actuality, everything on facebook is temporary given that one can change whatever they like on their profile at any time. This “selfie” and caption combination represents this human’s longing to perhaps test the waters, see if their picture will be “liked” by many people and only decide to keep it if it is approved by the masses. In this sense, people are able to build an image of themselves that they feel will give them acceptance and a superficial love from the masses without feeling the consequences of rejection of doing something that people would not approve of. By using this casual word, “temp,” the person is using a short and sweet rhetoric style that suggests innocence and lack of narcissism. That “selfie” that was just posted does not reflect narcissim, one might think, because it’s only temporary. However, so is everything else on Facebook, so what does that rhetoric truly imply? When it comes to rhetoric, the ability to be “empty, sly, and insincere,” is even more encouraged, as people tend to present less of their true personality and instead present more of who they think other people would want them to be, much less who they desire to be (Meltzoff 30). This access to endless temporariness and “second chances” that Facebook offers greatly contrasts how painstaking it might have been to erase even one’s handwriting before the invention of the computer. This has nurtured an attitude that is not afraid to make mistakes. However, this also adds a certain pressure of perfection as it eliminates the excuse of lack of resources to succeed. This generation’s obsession with being noticed and with being remembered for good things increases with the rise in technology. Because “Facebook is a medium in which the events of a night can be both told and completely erased with the click of a button,” it makes it harder to grasp onto permanence of any sort (Goodwiller 4). When any issue is over, the amount that people talk about it is less and less and eventually, it dies. The same can be said for anything that occurs on social media. In this sense, electronic rhetoric and oral rhetoric have something in common that written rhetoric does not have. Electronic rhetoric has this ephemeral nature that has the ability to disappear through lack of stability or through a human’s control, just like the oral word does. Rhetoric has undergone a series of shifts from oral, to written, to visual on social media sites and through it all it has shed light on the fact that not all improvements lead to human progress in ethics. However, it is important to acknowledge the fact that rhetoric has greatly contributed to our shifts in perspective on how we see each other and the world. Social media encourages the desire to be remembered and offers the capability to erase just as easily what people do not want to be remembered. The question here lies in what the subject chooses to use social media for and the ways in which they live out their decision. What I personally observe to be the most common result is that people use both, and the creation of this alternate identity is produced. People record and post everything that they want to remember, while also freely deleting anything that gives them a bad reputation or is not to their liking. Here, the power truly lies in rhetoric. With the constant flood of information and the decreasing attention spans of this generation, it is up the rhetorician to produce something that stands out even brighter for the public to notice. Rhetoric fights the modern world, but also adjusts to it and gives everyone the opportunity to try their hand at what they observe to be the best form of persuasiveness. For some, the five canons of rhetoric serves as a stable option, while for others, visual rhetoric is a more effective way of appealing to the masses. Regardless, it is apparent that no matter how many shifts rhetoric goes through, its impact on human life and relationships in this world renders it a permanent necessity.
