Rhetorical Velocity

Whenever one creates a text, no matter the genre or form, the audience is given the role of interpreting it. The debate over perception is vast and cannot be discussed in a short blog post, thus we are concerned with what the audience does after interpreting a text. For most mediums, such as print, audience interaction is limited. However, the Internet and technology have given access to interact with media like never before. It is common knowledge that if you post something online, it may be altered or appropriated by someone else with ease. That is almost the nature of the Internet. Ridolfo and Rife recognize this issue and ask, “How should one anticipate the rhetorical appropriation of their work?” (Ridolfo, Rife 230). The answer is simply that one is unable to imagine all possible ways their production can be tweaked. To battle the remixers who seek to misconstrue an artist’s true intention, authors employ a strategy of delivery in their work called rhetorical velocity (Ridolfo, Rife 229).

            This idea is very interesting; one that assumes a creator knows that their work will be used differently in the future. It may not sound very revolutionary to us but I think a classical novelist intended for his work to be read in a book and that’s about that. Nowadays, a shortened version of everything from books to news is available as well as an extensive version if hunted down. The sharing of information by modern society is remarkable but the issue of rhetorical velocity seems overarching. As I stated, there seems like there is no way to theorize all possible recompositions of a work.

            Carolyn Miller proposes that genre is pivotal in rhetorical delivery and interpretation. Now her conception of genre relies on a set of recurrent rhetorical situations and it “embodies an aspect of cultural rationality” (Miller 155, 165). The notion of recurrence “is implied by our understanding of situations as somehow comparable, similar or analogous to other situations” (Miller 156). To me this is a very sociological perspective and Lockean, in regard to his notion of seriality.

            This conception of genre is directly related to rhetorical velocity. I believe that when a text is recomposed in a different or objective situation, interpretation by the audience moves far from the true author’s intention. When an author employs rhetorical velocity it is hard to imagine their work in a new social situation. Maggie thought her pictures where going to be used in a protest situation, against the university, she never anticipated the reversal of the rhetorical situation.