Digital Rhetoric, a basic breakdown- but no definition.

Zappen's article basically picked apart aspects of the different characteristics of digital rhetoric as it is seen through the eyes of scholars (including Gurak, Fogg, Warnich, Welch and more) and suggests and discusses the concept of our traditional rhetoric transforming into digital spaces, through digital media and becoming/posing/acting as digital rhetoric.

As I was reading, the first though that came to mind was realizing and accepting that theories from greats such as Aristotle, Plato, Socrates and the Sophists, which have been studied for hundreds and thousands of years, have found (or infiltrated) their way onto the internet- like everything else in this world. Except, these theories and strategies are, in a sense, evolutionizing? They are being rearranged, reapplied, and transformed. The old rhetoric of persuasion has grown some new arms that encourage self-expression, participation and collaboration.

Gurak, gets down to the fingers of some of these new arms, expressing that these new aspects include, speech, reach, anonymity and interactivity, each having pros and cons as follows:

Speed- oral and casual style but can get repetitive and redundant
Reach- multiple participants in various media and development of communities but no gatekeeping
Anonymity- encourages authorship/ownership but  look out for "flaming"
Interactivity- there's discussion and feedback but has personal privacy issues

Manovich has a more technical/mathematical perspective of new media and the concept of digital rhetoric which entails his questioning of the words "digital" and "interactivity" (honestly.. I just don't really understand what he's getting at..help?)

After Zappen discusses the characteristics of new media he starts getting into the formation of identities and communities, aka the interesting stuff. I find the study of the formation of identities in online spaces and relating them with our real life identities very interesting and compelling because it's so much a part of our lives, it's who we are. And what I'm starting to see is that back in the day rhetoric and persuasion were just used to persuade people into an action or belief, but now, it's almost as if our society is beginning to use (digital) rhetoric to persuade us into who we are, who we should be and how we are supposed to identify ourselves. It's almost creepy.