Orality and oral rhetoric in electronic and digital media

Abstract

Rhetoric, as a practice, is traditionally associated with oral delivery. Classical studies discuss techniques that are largely dependent on speech. From analysing how audiences are appealed to through the Aristotelian modes of ethos, logos, and pathos, to observing how one’s choice of language is dependent on the context, it is clear that the oral component of rhetoric is to a large degree, quite literally, the mouthpiece of rhetoric. Using various scenarios of American politics as case studies, this dissertation analyses this oral component of rhetoric by exploring its function and utilisation on electronic and digital media platforms. The emergence of such platforms result in a state of electronic and digital orality, which is a key point of focus here. Treating orality as the context of media environments that influence the manner in which people think and communicate, this dissertation notes that electronic and digital oralities affect the overall role and qualities of oral communication in rhetoric. However, this dissertation further argues that across states of orality, rhetoric has, in fact, never been a purely oral discipline, and that the oral has always been one essential mode of delivery amongst other modes. In consideration of this, the question then becomes the extent to which the oral remains necessary, from a rhetorical perspective, on such multimodal platforms. This dissertation argues that the oral quality of rhetoric does remain essential as a means through which a speaker establishes a humanised and authoritative presence. This is true both with regard to audio-visual media as well as text-based media, on which a sense of oral-ness can be emulated for the sake of rhetorical effect.