Computer & Technology // Analyzing Rhetorical Velocity in Social Media
Introduction
This paper aims to discuss about the relevance of analyzing a rhetorical velocity that is applied by social media. It seeks to find out the significance of composing for a recompositioning a certain existing piece of media that is being used to promote a social advocacy. The chosen social media platform is Facebook, which is the largest social media website in the world as based on the number of users who have been using the platform as part of their daily activities. The chosen piece is a post, which is taken from a direct link by a certain user that represents a print media. The article is presenting a social issue wherein it deals with the essentials of conservativism as well as a significant issue pointing towards biodiversity. The issue generated a viral attention due to its frightening impact to the society that is not expected by the general population.
The rhetoric piece is based on Ridolfo and DeVoss’ article on “Composing for Recomposition: Rhetorical Velocity and Delivery” . This concentrates the main news blog entitled as “Horrifying moment villages cut open a giant python and discover their missing friend inside who had been swallowed whole after being crushed to death ” (Karasin, n.p.). When the article posted by the author of the news article to Facebook, it immediately went viral. Since people started to react by clicking the reaction button, users also commented to express their horrendous reaction to the incident. It transforms how nature coincides a competition between wild animals with human settlements. The main argument presents the exigency, portraying the conflict between environmental ecosystems. What the article is trying to accomplish is all about the promotion of safety as well as increasing awareness regarding the impact of wild ecosystems to human habitats that could result into environmental conflict.
The article promotes in both search engines and through social media websites are regarding conservation of environmental ecosystem. The article was published on March 28 of 2017 by the dailymail publishing corporation. There is a print media produced by the company to selected areas around the world such as in London, Sydney, and New York. Since the article was published in social media, shocked Facebook users shared the post to groups and pages, citing that there are still environmental-related incidents that concerns safety towards humans. The advocacy piece is regarding the expansion of human habitat that disrupts the food supply of wild animals. Some wild animals are no longer choosy because they will devour everything in order to survive, such as human as their meals. Environmental advocacy groups and animal-related pages also posted the incident wherein it sparked a shocking scenario about an unsuspecting father who had fallen as prey to a large wild animal.
The author of the article along with the authorized personnel who published the article on their main page, they utilized link, directing to the main article. There are videos containing a graphic image of the scene. There are also photos showing the victim being dissected inside the stomach of the serpent, which shows how credible the news article is. As the quote goes “This is the sickening moment a dead man was cut out of a seven-metre long python’s stomach after being swallowed whole” (Karasin , n.p.), this was the reaction of the author as it compels about a shocking story of the situation. The quote was adopted by users who shared the post to their respective timeline in their profiles to increase awareness to other parts of the world that there are rare incidents where a wild animal is still capable of risking human safety by preying them alive.
As for the transformation, there are users who inserted a photo of their most ridiculed political figure, stating that corrupt officials should be the ones who were devoured by the animal instead of an innocent person that makes it as a meme. As a genre, the usual transformations were based on politically motivated issues that users want the scenario to be translated into a form of punishment for public officials who committed a grave misconduct. The memes were not generally credited to the owner because it distorted the original photo of the article. But generally, changing the content of the photo even a portion of it totally changes the whole context of the photo against the original. The rewrites come from random citizens who use their graphic skills to express their frustrations against their corrupt government officials involved in several scandalous ethical practices.
It has been learned that the rhetorical velocity in social media using the main article represents a role modeling advantage for individuals to relate about the real scenario of the scene. Users quickly created memes and graphical changes to the photo of the article just minutes after the article was posted in social media, representing how creative online users are. All graphics such as videos, photos and the main article generated a second line of duplicates, allowing users to create their version of the story while others wants to distort the photos to portray their expression towards a certain individual or group. People who rewrite the article from the original wants to help the author by increasing public’s awareness regarding the essentials of environmental conservation, which is the main theme of the original article’s content. This means that the rewriters and graphical artists respect the author for publishing the main content of the article posted in social media (Gao, et al., p. 784).
Works Cited
Gao, F.; Luo, T. & Zhang, K. (2012). “Tweeting for learning: A critical analysis of research on microblogging in education published in 2008– 2011”. British Journal of Educational Technology. 43 (5): 783–801.
Karasin, Ekin. Horrifying moment villagers cut open a giant python and discover their missing friend inside who had been swallowed whole after being crushed to death. Accessed: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4356866/Villagers-man-swallowed-inside-giant-python.html. 2017. Print.
Rodolfo, Jim & De Voss, Danielle Nicole. Composing for Recomposition: Rhetorical Velocity and Delivery. Accessed: http://kairos.technorhetoric.net/13.2/topoi/ridolfo_devoss/intro.html. 2009. Print.
2017/1095
