Social Media as Rhetoric

I can honestly be the first to say that social media consumes me. And yes, I do mean to say consume here because that’s exactly what it does to me—it eats away at my free time, gobbles up my train of thought, and snacks on my little pieces of productivity. No matter how much I try to avoid it, I can’t—especially in the world of writing. Even right now, I’m logged into Facebook. It’s a problem, really. However, working for Outside Bozeman, social media important for my job I’m constantly editing blogs, posting on Facebook, or tweeting. Then, because I think I’m super witty and incredibly clever, I have to log back into these social media sites to see how many people have liked, commented on, or shared what I’ve said.

A couple weeks ago, I found this article: http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2012/02/daily-chart-0.

It talks about the Facebook community as a whole in regards to its users. Basically, if Facebook users were a country, it would be the biggest, based on population, following closely behind China and India. Obviously, I’m not the only person addicted. In fact, there are an estimated 50 million other people who log on everyday like I do.

Here’s a video on basic facts about social media. Keep in mind that even though this was near the end of 2011, some of these facts have already changed just within the year.

With the advent of social media, many people have been concerned about the decreasing forms of human narrative. Hard copy newspaper sales have decreased and the use of grammar books have plummeted. While these are real things, they aren’t completely our focus with this. What I want to focus in on is how social media is being used as rhetoric.

I decided to do a little research of my own this past weekend looking through my Facebook feeds and Twitter feeds trying to find trends among what people say about what they post. I wasn’t too interested in the pictures, but instead how people interpreted and presented things. Here are three specific things I’ve found personally:

1.  Ignorant simplicity – People really enjoy this sense of childlike behavior that happens through the posting of very uncomplicated posts.

2.  Fierce and vehement opposition of all counter-arguments – There is a huge abundance of name-calling, pointed “you’re wrong and this is why” statements, and also flat out lies just to prove a point.

3. Absence of dull and lac of attention grabbing content – When people post something, they want it to be read, entertaining, and shared. They do this through the use of humor and cunning statements. People that get the most feedback are those that practice this well.

Now, I’m not saying these things previously listed are true of everyone. There are always exceptions. These are just observations that are trending.

As we’ve probably all heard by now, Aristotle focuses in on three principles to rhetoric—ethos, pathos, and logos. They address the personal credibility, emotion, and logic behind an argument.

With this in mind, you do actually see each of these things in social media. There are people that post things that encompass all of these facets of rhetoric. People choose to portray themselves in a specific way to reach a specific audience. Because it’s the Internet and you can mostly do what you want, people can make themselves seem like whatever they want. I’ve seen people incredibly shy in face-to-face conversation, but then fill their Facebook feeds with strong opinions and politics and sports.

People influence people. It’s just basic human nature. Yes, advertisements drive our thinking visually, but it’s friends and coworkers that influence us based on their opinions. Many people see social media as a way of advancing their own agendas. This is where the rhetorical side of social media comes in. People seek to influence and persuade people, not too different from Socrates. In my opinion, I think that’s the whole point of social media — so people who have things in common can all talk about and share their opinions on whether that’s family, music, politics, or whatever else. The possibilities for rhetorical discourse in social media are endless.

There are some people in fervent opposition of social media, especially in regards to small children. In fact, an article posted in the New York Times back in April warns us of the dangers of social media. It states that children are losing the ability to self-reflect and that it takes away emotions that spark rational thinking and the capability to relate to people. They see this as being extremely dangerous for the next generation.

As with anything, power can be used for good or bad. The power in this case is the Internet. People can, for the most part, do what they want to with it. They can say what they want, when they want, and where they want. It’s a community all it’s own and the major place of rhetorical discourse still alive within our society. Social media can and does influence our thoughts and actions. Sometimes this is good, other times this can be bad. Whatever the case, social media is very likely to continue being a major rhetor within our world — it’s up to us as the audience to decipher from the rhetoric what we choose to believe.

*On a side note, please make an effort to unplug every now and again. The Internet is awesome, so is Facebook, but remember those friends actually making the profile accounts. They’re real people with real lives. Remember reality.