2,500 years ago Aristotle defined rhetoric as "the faculty of observing in any given situation the available means of persuasion" This means that any rhetorical situation requires a "call to action" or an exigence, a means of communication, and an audience to be influenced in some way.
Aristotle could never fathom the rhetorical situation we live in today. There are millions of exigences being addressed each day through mediums that reach a world wide audience within seconds. This is the rhetorical situation that is the driving force behind the protest movements in Tunisia, Egypt, and now possibly Sudan.
Social media such as Facebook and Twitter are powerful means of rhetorical exchange. You can keep tabs on old friends by reading your news feed on Facebook or following them on Twitter. You can invite numerous friends to an event in a matter of minutes instead of a few days. You can even start a revolution to oust a long-standing regime in your country...or at least that's what young people in the Middle East are discovering.
The people of Tunisia and Egypt identified their current government as oppressive and demanded change. The dissatisfaction with their government was their exigence, and they utilized social media such as Facebook as the best available means for addressing this problem.
Before Facebook, Twitter, and cellphones, the protesters' audience would have been small, centered around a central figure, and lacking the power to contest the current regime. However, the young group of protesters recognized Facebook as the best available means for delivering their message. Within days the protesters' audience had grown from a few hundred people to tens of thousands of citizens calling for a revolution. Facebook and social media has shifted the Rhetorical situation from a single sender/receiver relationship to a collective conversation and constant exchange of ideas.
This claim is supported by the countries in the Middle East who are participating in this rhetorical conversation. The situation in Tunisia compelled the receptive audience in Egypt to address their own exigence. The audience has become the senders, and the images of organized revolt are rapidly spreading to other countries in the Middle East craving freedom, and has alerted the world of the power of social media in the rhetorical situation.
Facebook and other social media has become the best available means for addressing a broad audience instantaneously. Hundreds of exigencies are addressed each minute and the world has been placed into a constant rhetorical conversation. With the proper purpose and means of persuasion, as exists in the Middle East, this collective conversation can become a cry for freedom, and spread to an audience ripe for revolution.
No comments:
Post a Comment