RIDE in a Nutshell: A Blog Content Review

The Rhetoric in Digital Environments (RIDE) blog has facilitated thoughtful discussions and critiques around rhetorical concepts in digital spaces over the course of this semester. A diverse range of topics have been covered across different categories.

This entry is a review of all the categories that summarize the correlational critical contents that have been submitted and engaged with this semester. All entries uploaded before Sunday, December 3, 2023, by 5 p.m. are accounted for, except for class/project prompts by Dr. Derek Mueller. Let’s ride on!

Categories at a glance: Artificiality; Attention; Avatar & Identity; Database & Narrative; Dataism; Digital Technology & Neuroscience; Rhetoric; and Hypertext & Hodology.

Authors at a glance (All of the posts that have been contributed by each author are available via the corresponding hyperlinks.): Shuvro Das, Patrick Greene, Andre Jones, Gideon Kwawukumey, Derek Mueller, Sahajiya Nath, Temitope Ojedele, Molly Ryan, Julia Unger, and Jenna Zan.

Artificiality

Fig. 1: A collage of the featured images in the “Artificiality” category

Artificiality in digital technology refers to digital tools, platforms, and environments that are human-made technological constructions that do not naturally occur.

Key features: digital interfaces and software, algorithms, user behavior through computation, social media applications, digital spaces, digital contents, AI, and digital data (numbers, texts, images, and sound).

Number of posts: 13

Authors in this category: Shuvro Das, Andre Jones, Temitope Ojedele, and Molly Ryan.

Central Idea: Together, the arguments raised in these posts address overarching issues of how artificial constructs in digital technologies influence human experience, often negatively, without full disclosure, transparency, or recourse. The central tension addressed is around consent, self-determination, privacy, and autonomy in an increasingly digitized and data-driven society.

Top ten most used terms: smart (26), homes (24), digital (23), surveillance (17), technology (16), humans (15), data (14), Han (13), reality (10), and AI (9)

Attention

Fig. 2: A collage of the featured images in the “Attention” category

Attention is a key concept in the study of digital environments because these spaces are intentionally designed to capture, commodify, and manipulate human attention. Studying attention highlights issues of power, autonomy, and platform politics at the heart of digital culture and technology in present times.

Key Features: design techniques, algorithmic filter, likes and comments, surveillance capitalism, ads, engagement metrics, and strategic interfaces.

Number of posts: 31

Authors in this category: Shuvro Das, Patrick Greene, Andre Jones, Sahajiya Nath, Temitope Ojedele, Molly Ryan, Julia Unger, and Jenna Zan.

Central Idea: Collectively, the arguments presented in these posts tackle broad concerns regarding the pervasive use of digital technology, as well as the topic of critical analysis, reflection, and introspection and how they relate to effects on social interactions, education, and identity development.

Top ten most used terms: repair (75), work (55), digital (51), community (50), attention (44), rhetoric (37), Odell (33), technology (28), context (27), and human (25).

Avatar and Identity

Fig. 3: A collage of the featured images in the “Avatar & Identity” category

An avatar refers to a user’s digital representation or embodiment in online environments like virtual worlds, gaming, and social platforms. Avatar and identity are important concepts in the study of digital environments because online spaces allow users to construct virtual representations of self that may differ from real-world identities.

Key Features: curated (as against real-world) identities, anonymity, roleplaying, hyperpersonal interactions (as against corporeality), and virtual selfhood.

Number of posts: 18

Authors in this category: Shuvro Das, Sahajiya Nath, Temitope Ojedele, Molly Ryan, and Jenna Zan.

Central Idea: Arguments across posts highlight the relationship between identity formation and digital technologies/environments. Themes include how digital environments prompt reconceptualization of personal and collective identity in light of tensions around authenticity, empathy, introspection, attention, and commodification; how identity formation through relating to others becomes challenged by digital mediation; as well as how intersections of identity and digitality illuminate the emerging dilemmas of digital existence and selfhood.

Top ten most used terms: repair (64), DJs (40), community (37), social (27), space (27), digital (27), technology (23), rhetorical (21), identity (20), Han (20).

Database and Narrative

Fig. 4: A collage of the featured images in the “Database & Narrative” category

A database refers to structured collections of data records that can be searched, filtered, and manipulated algorithmically. Their underlying architecture has implications for how knowledge is organized and accessed. On the other hand, narratives imply logical sequencing and causal relationships in presenting ideas and events with a beginning, middle, and end. They engage reader/viewer interpretation differently, just as the originator of a narrative is also influenced by their own vantage point(s) of view.

Key Features: structured organization, computational access, filter, algorithm, correlations, possibilities for rearrangements, logical sequencing, causal and consequential relationships, subjective interpretations, and layering.

Number of posts: 25

Authors in this category: Shuvro Das, Patrick Greene, Temitope Ojedele, Molly Ryan, Julia Unger, and Jenna Zan.

Central Idea: The posts unpack the complex give-and-take between the logics of databases and narratives in digital environments, including implications for culture, society, education, and commerce.

Top ten most used terms: digital (34), narrative (31), data (31), database (30), repair (28), space (25), Han (25), time (24), world (20), and way (20).

Dataism

Fig. 5: A collage of the featured images in the “Dataism” category

Dataism is a concept in the study of digital environments that posits that the entire universe and human existence operate as flows of data that can be measured, quantified, and optimized by algorithms.

Key Features: Both organisms (including humans) and machines are seen as informational systems; digital data and coordination are better than human judgments; fueled by growth in sensors, computing, AI, etc., risks include dehumanization, digital authoritarianism, and heightened commercial data exploitation.

Number of posts: 18

Authors in this category: Shuvro Das, Patrick Greene, Andre Jones, Sahajiya Nath, Temitope Ojedele, Molly Ryan, and Jenna Zan.

Central Idea: The posts explore the risks of the scientistic belief system that dataistic optimization should guide governance and individual decision-making. Concerns around dehumanization and erosion of free will if data-fueled networks steer all aspects of society are raised.

Top ten most used terms: digital (43), DJs (39), technology (32), homes (27), communicators (26), smart (26), rhetorical (19), Han (19), data (19), humans (18).

Digital Technology & Neuroscience

Fig. 6: The featured image in the “Digital Technology & Neuroscience” category

Digital technology refers to electronic tools, systems, devices, and resources that generate, store, or process data.

Key Features: computers, smartphones, the internet, AI, social media, information and data, design and regulations, and interdisciplinary

Number of posts: 1

Authors in this category: Shuvro Das

Central Idea: The central idea in this post revolves around how extensive usage of digital technologies is catalyzing shifts in modes of attention and cognition, especially among younger generations.

Top five most used terms: digital (25), attention (21), technology (13), deep (16), and brain (14).

Rhetoric

Fig. 7: The featured image in the “Rhetoric” category

Rhetoric represents the symbolic use of language to coordinate action and influence human choices—a central force that manifests through digital technology spaces in evolving ways that require renewed understanding and critiquing.

Key Features: Digital platforms deploy attention-directing design, interactivity, multimedia, algorithmic curation, rhetorical situations, and rhetorical agency to shape user attitudes and behaviors.

Number of posts: 1

Authors in this category: Sahajiya Nath

Central Idea: The central idea in this post is defining and tracing the origins and evolution of “hermeneutics” as the study of interpretation, especially in relation to rhetoric and human communication.

Top five most used terms: hermeneutics (6), interpretation (10), rhetoric (4), language (3), and Heidegger (2).

Hypertext and Hodology

Fig. 8: A collage of the featured images in the “Hypertext & Hodology” category

Hypertext and hodology are related concepts in the study of digital technology. Hypertext refers to digital text displayed on electronic devices that contains links to other text. While hodology derives from the ancient Greek term “hodos,” which means “paths,” referring to the study of paths, journeys, and routes of change and movement. The dynamics between hypertext implementation and hodological effects is an area of research around technologically mediated texts and ideas.

Key Features: Networked connections across bodies of information, paths of relationships, idea networks, circulation of information, and context-dependent intersections.

Number of posts: 22

Authors in this category: Shuvro Das, Derek Mueller, Sahajiya Nath, Temitope Ojedele, Julia Unger, and Jenna Zan.

Central Idea: The central idea in these posts explores hyperculture and hypertext as emerging concepts associated with digital environments and how they impact notions of identity, community, memory, diaspora, narratives, and heterogeneity. This is greatly influenced by Han’s theorization of hyperculture as referring to the dissolution of cultural borders and authenticities in an interconnected world.

Top ten most used terms: culture (59), digital (58), rhetoric (48), hyperculture (38), Han (34), space (32), world (21), chickens (20), Banks (18), and people (16).

Digital tools used for this project: Claude.ai, tagcrowd.com, voyant-tools.org, and photocollage.com

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