Rhetorical Criticism of Public Discourse

Many rhetorical scholars are trying to look at the rhetoric of the digital sphere the same way that they do traditional texts. This is mainly because they have no other knowledge of how to approach this. Warnick's article argues that while this can work well, it most likely will not. They believe that critical work and critical theory will be changed to suit the new communication environments, but this can not happen. Authors can not be evaluated because the author of a text online usually gets lost within a group of commentators.

Traditional aspects of rhetorical criticism can be used in some aspects, however, on the basis of communication practices. The communicators still support some sort of value and ideology and try to influence others. They still take a standpoint to try to appeal to reader.

The identity of the audience is also difficult to determine in an online environment. While devices can measure the attendance coming to a website, it can not always determine who that person is that is visiting. (Although, as I am researching, data mining is becoming more and more accurate with this). Also, Warnick mentions that the web is a cluster of pseudo-environments. It is difficult to judge the credibility of a certain website or candidate because there are so many impostors trying to pretend that they are that person with fake websites.