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Taking Facebook at Face ValueLearning to read the rhetorical landscape of social networking sites

Maybe you’ve heard of this social networking site called Facebook; it’s pretty popular. In fact, it’s so popular, that in 2011 alone, more than 500 million people across the globe registered to use the application to update and share content with those they care about. But far from being only a social tool through which former high school pals relive the glory days and families keep in touch, Facebook is also used as a teaching tool, a tool uniquely adept at helping students learn how to rhetorically analyze texts. The aim in developing one’s ability to critically analyze the rhetoric that pervades social networking sites is not to determine whether one social site is better than another, but rather, to study the rhetorical choices available to an “author” and to consider how those choices inform the “author’s” use of the site to speak to and persuade others.

We’ll use Facebook as our example of a social networking site (SNS) because it is the best known, though Facebook is but one of several sites that enables users to create public personas and form connections with users of the same service. Sites like Pinterest, LinkedIn, FourSquare, and Twitter also use a combination of post and reply features that encourage users to share personal, real-time information and media in an effort to build and nurture digital relationships. Because social networking sites operate through an exchange of information or texts shared between one “author” and another, they offer a wealth of material that can be rhetorically deconstructed.

One of the more powerful aspects of a social networking site is its ability to allow users to “peek” into the interior lives of others. But how do we make sense of what we “see” and read during these visits to one’s Facebook page or Timeline? When someone posts a provocative photo, how do we know this image hasn’t been edited for effect? And if it has been edited for effect, that’s a rhetorical choice that suggests interesting possibilities for analysis. Who do we trust in these virtual communities and how do we arrive at such decisions based merely on a combination of self-reflective texts and images? Further, how do the clipped, quick exchanges that we call “posts” affect our attitudes about what counts as “writing” and thus those who are considered “writers”?

For our purposes, we’re going to consider Facebook posts and responses “texts” and Facebook users “authors,” even though there is evidence that suggests some user/writers, especially teens, do not consider posts real “writing” or themselves “writers.”

The Aristotelian appeals of “logos,” “ethos,” and “pathos” are evident in social networking site communications and can easily be deconstructed and critically analyzed to reveal persuasive elements and overarching user motivations. The aim in developing a critical consciousness about the rhetoric that pervades social networking sites is not to determine whether one social site is better than another, but rather, to study the rhetorical choices available to an author and to study how those strategies inform the user’s use of the site to speak to and persuade others.

The very nature of networking sites makes them particularly powerful rhetorical tools (Parents of Holly Grogan, 15, blame Facebook for teen’s suicide) and, to paraphrase Voltaire: where there is great power, there is also great responsibility.

Posts and comments, the most used features of communication, do not encourage long arguments, making the traditional Aristotelian cannons of invention, style, arrangement, memory and delivery only indirectly applicable. Historically, social networking status updates and comments were short—no more than 420 characters for Facebook, for example, acting more like tweets or text messages. This limited space made it difficult to develop and support a thesis, body and conclusion, assuming a writer was inclined to write in this way. But as recently as 2011, Facebook increased the size of status updates to exactly 63,206 characters, which is equivalent to 451 full character tweets or the first 20 Chapters in the Bible’s Book of Genesis (Buck). Extending the length of posts allows a writer to use more essay-like features.

Let’s be clear: status updates and responses are usually not written as an essay. And yet, almost all social networking site communications demonstrate at least one Aristotelian appeal. In the above example, the author manages several appeals: logos—facts as referenced by the Gage article); pathos—the provocative use of language; and ethos—using both personal experience as evidence and using the “group” lingo like “GBTL” and “smack down” thereby building trust among readers as an “insider.”

LogosMost Facebook profiles are considered a representation of the self. It’s not a stretch to consider these representations arguments, for they use many of the same rhetorical elements one might also find in a traditional argumentative essay.

The standard profile on Facebook is an appeal to logos because it lists facts about the user’s life. This user’s profile states she’s an eLearning Developer at the University of South Florida, studied Creative Writing at Lancaster University, lives in Florida and is in a relationship. This is who the user is (logos). Later, we see other posts that better reflect what she cares about and who she wants to be (pathos).

PathosTaking a look at one user’s recent posts, we see that this user’s intentional use of rhetoric begins to shape her public personae, a concept talked about in depth later in this article. It seems clear that this user wants to be considered a hard-working, conscientious student.

This post uses logos—evidence—to prove she is a good student (the screenshot of her actual transcript). It also employs a bit of pathos (emotion). Her tone and word choice suggest she’s subtly seeking recognition for her accomplishments, but doesn’t want to appear arrogant or too self-congratulatory.

For a more overt use of pathos we can turn to the following post.

Here the author again carefully gauges her audience, measuring her words such that she introduces what she believes is an important political happening to her network to, presumably, gauge their knowledge of, reaction to and interest in the topic.

The writer uses powerfully pathos-laden words like disturbing, reluctantly, and controversial to engage her audience in conversation about a difficult political subject. Because her post is rather restrained and because she also includes bits of logos (the name of the movie, the name of the violent LRA leader), her post reads more credible than a post that excluded this information or was riddled with generalities, which speaks to the user’s ethos.

In talking about a subject like the conscription of children into war, the writing could have easily been reduced to a series of logical fallacies. Indeed, the author nearly commits a fallacy by describing the African Leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army, Joseph Kony, as evil.

EthosEthos can be tricky business online. It is impossible to use a social networking site without a persona, or one aspect of your full character publicly presented. The amalgamation of posts, comments, and links creates a user’s personae, which also reflects his or her ethos.

Traditionally defined, ethos is character. In rhetorical terms, ethos describes the guiding beliefs or ideas that can characterize a person or group. A single user can have an ethos of, say, posting only positive Christian messages. A group can also have an ethos like The Open Source community, which is driven by a clear ethos that could be described as technological access for all.

PersonasThough most users have some control over how their audience perceives them, all reading and analysis happens through an interpretive frame, which can make maintaining public personae difficult and time-consuming.

Taken at face value, a parent or employer who sees the following photo and post might make certain assumptions about the user. Certainly, this image stands in contrast to the image of the conscientious student projected above.

Certainly, the audience for this photo was not the user’s parents or employers. Still, by publicly posting the image, the user is betting that all audiences will allot equal time to the user’s page to “prove” she is more than this image might suggest.

It is common practice for employers to view the public Facebook pages of potential employees. They are not just checking out the pages, but rhetorically analyzing the pages, and often “read” one or two posts as evidence that confirms a particular claim or assumption made about the person, sometimes erroneously (Job Candidates Getting Tripped Up By Facebook).

Consider too that this one photograph “read” out of context or through a particular lens could have hurt the user’s ethos had she then also posted a legitimate plea for money to fund a program to curb student binge drinking.

New Landscapes for Rhetorical AnalysisCompositionally, fascinating landscapes continue to develop within social networking sites that are well suited to composition and rhetorical analysis. Autobiographies, journals and monuments or memorials like 1000Memories.com are increasingly popular compositional projects that demand analysis and consideration as valid environments of public discourse.

Cowbird.com is a social networking site built to collect stories or the sagas that define the human experience. Users can read, enjoy, vote on, and contribute to the site, but Cowbird’s About page suggests that the experience is less about what users link to and like and more about writing and sharing what life is really like. Cowbird’s lush stories and non-linear organization suggest a particular community ethos that stands in contrast to the Facebooks of the social networking world. It is interesting to consider the implications of such conscientious distancing from traditional social networking site rhetoric.

For example, the rhetoric of Facebook is that it connects, but rhetorically, user/writers use the space more for self-reflection rather than narrative collaboration. Some might even consider Facebook self-indulgent whereas, the story telling that happens on Cowbird is reflective, but the theme is what connects users.

The rhetoric of community and connection drives Cowbird and Facebook, but in different ways. Facebook is a community with the user/writer at the center; Cowbird puts the narrative or theme at the center and surrounds it with writer/users who are now connected by their shared experience. Both Facebook and Cowbird act like types of journals but they catalogue the human experience very differently and the wisdom that is accumulated on these sites lives on as part of the human commons but it is collected and catalogued in vastly different ways.

One is not better than the other, but they are both spaces where rhetoric happens, where writers make conscious choices that affect how readers respond, react and remix words.

ConclusionRhetorically analyzing and studying social networking sites makes explicit a user’s awareness of rhetorical concepts. It encourages a more critical stance toward popular literacy and develops in users an appreciation of the complexity of digital environments. Digital literacy, which includes new sub-literacies like texting are sometimes dismissed, but to great disadvantage because critically and rhetorically analyzing these new literacies is a path to understanding the forces at work in the world of 21st century rhetoric.

Works Cited

"Aristotle's Rhetoric." (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). Web. 20 May 2012.<http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-rhetoric/>.

Buck, Stephanie. "Featured in Social Media." Mashable. N.p., 12 Jan. 2012. Web. 28 June2012. <http://mashable.com/2012/01/04/facebook-character-limit/>.

Du, Wei, and Msnbc.com. "Job Candidates Getting Tripped up by Facebook." Msnbc.com.Msnbc Digital Network, 14 Aug. 2007. Web. 20 May 2012.<http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20202935/ns/business-school_inc_/t/jobcandidates-getting-tripped-facebook/>.

"Newsroom." Key Facts. Web. 20 May 2012.<http://newsroom.fb.com/content/default.aspx?NewsAreaId=22>.

"Parents of Holly Grogan, 15, Blame Facebook for Teen's Suicide." New York Daily News.Web. 20 May 2012. <http://articles.nydailynews.com/2009-0921/news/17933131_1_facebook-social-networking-bully>.

Turkle, Sherry. Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from EachOther. New York: Basic, 2011. Print.