Calculating the Rhetorical Velocity of Public Figures

Ridolfo and Rife presented an interesting case about a girl named Maggie and her experience with having her photograph being used on Michigan State University’s website out of context without her permission. Through tracing this case, they used specific terminology to help question issues of copyright and the nuances of intellectual property.

The term “rhetorical velocity” is an interesting term that is used to describe the “strategic concept of delivery in which a rhetor theorizes the possibilities for the recomposition of a text” and has to consider the various ways the media could change the message (229). This term is useful because it describes how a person might need to consider how their intellectual property might be manipulated or remixed by others who engage with their property. Consider, memes or remixed youtube videos, this one is of Obama and Mitt Romney singing Hot and Cold by Katy Perry; I’m sure Obama and Mitt Romney had advisors who had to consider their rhetorical velocity and concede that the internet was too large of an entity for such public figures to stress out about (in regards to being turned into memes and joke videos).  Which is where appropriation and recomposition come into play.

“Appropriation” is using something for something it isn’t supposed to be used for or using it without permission. “Recompostition” is taking something and remixing it, or creating something new. Often times this means appropriating something and turning it into something else, publishing through a different media or platform. Another good example of this is the song “Tip Toe Wing In My Jawwdinz” by RiFF RAFF, which has turned into a popular vine of people creating their own variations of vines with this song playing in the background. These can be found here or by searching the hashtag #tiptoeinginmyjordans (which interesting isn’t spelled the same way as the song – appropriation?)

I think rhetorical velocity functions the most importantly because of how nuanced this idea is. There are so many facets that Maggie would have had to consider before attending the protest, and I’m sure she had no idea that her “ethos” would have been “affected” or that her “agency [would be] undermined, inverted, and her image [would take] a life of its own” (231; 233). Rhetorical velocity is so easily out of one’s control and it’s important to explore how little control there is over our intellectual property in certain settings and particular circumstances. Her picture was taken at a public protest with press taking photos in a public setting, but it’s still her image.

- Joelle