Brave New World (6): Now What?

This review of the literature, while limited in scope, does point out the general need for continued review and revision of rhetorical concepts based on new constellations of communication afforded by interactive, participatory, customizable Web 2.0 technologies. Careful examination of the rhetorical situation for each emerging new online communication medium is needed to determine applicable rhetorical concepts. Students have to be prepared for operating in the new communication media with adequate pedagogical strategies.

Brave New World (5): The Medium Matters

Throughout my review of the literature and my own daily experience, one theme has emerged as an umbrella over all the three aforementioned foci of research: the technology used to communicate plays a fundamental role when considering the rhetorical concept or theory to be applied.

Barbara Warnik (2005) calls for researchers in the field of new media rhetoric to propose new methods of study for the examination of electronic text rather than focus on methods that can be characterized as printcentric.

Brave New World (4): Pedagogical Considerations

The third concept I saw emerge in my review of the literature concerns the development and implementation of new or revised pedagogical considerations.

Stephanie Vie (2008) while not directly mentioning the rhetoric of social networking technologies, puts out a call to action with respect to changing how composition is taught in the classroom. The traditional approach using the academic essay as the central focus in the composition classroom, according to Vie, needs to be adapted to foster a technological literacy that is required to navigate and compose within and across the new Web 2.0 technologies. Shifts in the perception of authorship and audience and the extremely participatory nature of these technologies need to be addressed by instructors in order to remain relevant.

Brave New World (3): New Rhetorical Concepts

Throughout the history of rhetoric, traditional theories and concepts have been examined and reexamined many times to adapt to new communication media and technologies. With the strong emergence of Web 2.0 communication technologies and the immense popularity of social media the reexamination of traditional concepts naturally continues. This relatively small review of the literature strongly suggests the general agreement among theorists that traditional concepts have to be revisited, revised, and reconceptualized in light of the participatory Web 2.0 communication technologies and the associated rhetorical situations that make them sustainable.

Brave New World (2): The Rhetorical Situation

The emergence of a communicative need creates a more or less intense urgency to communicate, called a rhetorical situation. This situation calls for resolution by communication. If intense, pervasive, and universal enough a resolution is likely to be found or constructed. Reversely, if a medium or technology appears to be the resolution for a existent rhetorical situation it will be readily adopted and sustained.

Brave New World (1): Participatory, Interactive, I-Centered

Although still lacking one official definition, Web 2.0 technologies have conquered the online realm of communication. History has taught us that the conqueror is never quite satisfied with simply conquering. The conqueror reshapes and redefines. The conqueror makes new rules. This process can be a cruel and bloody one at times. But this is where this metaphor has to end.

The micro-blog: Fitting response to rhetorical exigence of virtual, social bonding

Organizations harbor a specific rhetorical context, rhetorical situations based on organizational culture, expectations, norms, processes, rules, and social environment. According to Bitzer (1986) a situation is rhetorical if rhetoric can at least in part mitigate the situation’s exigence by provoking action from the audience. Bitzer assumes the rhetorical situation to be one that is objective and real and calls for rhetorical solution, i.e. the situation precedes the rhetorical response. Vatz (1973), on the other hand, contends that there is no situation before rhetoric gives rise to one, i.e. rhetoric, by making it salient in a particular way, creates a situation. The fundamental difference between these views is the interpretation of rhetoric as a response to reality versus rhetoric as the creator of reality.

At this point, I will introduce an additional view regarding the birth of a rhetorical situation:

Corporate Blog and Micro-blog perpetuate social knowledge

“Context determines what we are willing to accept as knowledge” (Gregg, 1984).

Social knowledge is the result of the reciprocal relationship between rhetoric and the community in which it occurs. The blog and the micro-blog promulgate social knowledge by looping the rhetoric of the thought community, i.e. the organization, back to the community by providing the members of the community a forum to speak to one another.

A continuously strengthened common paradigm, one of the three dimensions of social capital, as defined for my research, will be reflected in the ongoing rhetorical activity, which, in turn, will strengthen the common paradigm. A contextual filter, based on the organizational culture and the existing common language and understanding of processes renders the rhetoric used in the blog and micro-blog comprehensible and meaningful. The blog, mainly controlled by the organization’s leadership and the micro-blog, predominantly controlled by the employees,

Micro-blogging: Motivations for Extreme Knowledge Sharing in the Cloud

Micro-blogging: Motivations for Extreme Knowledge Sharing in the

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Impact of the Corporate Blog on Social Capital

ATTW Presentation Abstract

Co-authored with Dr. Craig Baehr, Associate Professor, Texas Tech University

This study critically examines the results of a series of recent studies of corporate blog usage at Dell, Inc., a global computer manufacturer. The studies explore ways to assess the impact of blogs on organizational social capital. The corporate blog was introduced as one tool within a wider communication and collaboration-enabling Web 2.0 technology infrastructure, serving as a medium to capture and archive tacit knowledge, network, and share this collective knowledge, and to create a discussion-based community. Blog users were highly trained knowledge workers in geographically dispersed areas, including those in different time zones, remote employees, and those on frequent business travel. This kind of research is becoming increasingly important to organizations using participatory technologies to collect, share, and reuse information in innovative ways and to explore methods of measuring the social capital and the overall net value that these technologies create for organizations. To date, the impact of Web 2.0 technologies on internal organizational social capital has received little attention, possibly, because of the less evident connection to measurable, economic value for the organization. Our findings recommend innovative and practical ways of looking at measuring organizational social capital as a form of ROI. Defying easy measurement, social capital requires multiple indicators used and derived from the organizational context in which such a system operates. Measuring basic analytics such as page hits, time stamps, and number of posts only skims the surface of assessment and value of these products. Rather, this research advocates the use of a more holistic approach that considers this broad range of indicators, including structural, relational, and cognitive factors, which can lead to a more comprehensive assessment of social capital.