Writing in a what what

Barry Brummett wrote an article on the three meanings of epistemic rhetoric. A while yes the article itself is interesting, some may be struggling to see why it fits into a class called writing in a digital age. Regardless of what definition of rhetoric you believe in, rhetoric is important, especially on the internet. Because on the internet that is all you have. All you can use online if your own person rhetoric. When we look at social media, where yes you can post pictures but people don’t get to really see you or meet you, the chose to friend you or follow you based on the things you say. People chose to like you based on your choice of rhetoric. 

The way you present yourself means a lot online and can affect you for your entire life. There are some people who lose jobs because of things posted on the internet. 

So now that I've establish the importance of rhetoric online, it’s time to look at Brummett. Brummett describes three different types of rhetoric, the one I believe in and the one I think fits well with this class is Ontological. Brummett describes it as

“That rhetoric creates all of what there is to know. Discourse does not merely discover truth or make it effective. Discourse creates realities rather than truths about realities. Furthermore, no reality that humans experience exits apart from human values, perceptions, and meanings.”

When you apply this to writing in a digital age, you see that everything makes sense. Even just the use of the internet can be tied to the ontological belief. The internet could have been a passing trend, but no we gave it the power it has today. And on the same note, there is no one truth about the internet, there is no one purpose for it, the internet can be whatever the user needs it to be.

 It can be a safe haven for expression, a way to find new cake recipes or just a place to look for porn. It is whatever we want it to be, whatever we make it.