Monday, September 9, 2013

A Rhetorical Lexicon (ENG 454 Assignment #1) - Jake Smith

Kairos:

Kairos is definted as “the opportune moment for a speech” according to BYU. This moment could be a single minute as evidenced by Marc  Antony’s soliloquy in Julius Caesar as well as a lengthier time in history as evidenced by Martin Luther King Jr.’s I Have a Dream speech. The kairos is dependent upon several different factors including time, place, and circumstance, and it is the combination of these elements a well as other smaller factors that ultimately determine the perfect moment to make a speech.
Kairos has, for centuries, always relied on certain people being in certain places, at certain times, under certain circumstances. However, this has begun to change in the 21st century with the advent of social media. The rise of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and a number of other popular social media websites has, in a sense, nullified the importance of time, place, and circumstance as they relate to making speeches and writing rhetorical arguments.
Through avenues like Twitter and, more obviously, Facebook, the contemporary individual is able to say whatever he or she wants whenever he or she wants. No longer is what they have to say dependent upon them being in a certain location at a certain time with a certain circumstance at the forefront of the public’s mind. Instead, any random person is able to spout off whatever argument, anecdote, or soliloquy they wish at whichever hour they deem it most appropriate.
The time matters significantly less since websites preserve any information that is put into them. Therefore, someone may not be online when a friend of theirs makes a bold statement about the state of their fledgling relationship, but they can see exactly what their friend said and see the moment they said it whenever it is convenient for that person to log on to their own account.
This also leads into the decline of the importance of place. Instead of everyone gathering in a specific location in order to hear what someone has to say about a particular topic, it is entirely possible for an individual to log on to Twitter or YouTube and catch up on all of the latest news stories and speeches in a matter of minutes from the comfort of their own home.
Additionally, circumstance has declined in importance in all except the actual rhetors themselves. No longer must a blogger worry about enough people being in a furor at once in a single location. Instead, that rhetor must simply feel passionately about a subject on his or her own and feel compelled to blog about it.

However, all of this is not to say that the decline of kairos is a negative aspect of contemporary rhetoric. Instead, it is merely to suggest that the barriers to exploring the world of rhetoric are diminishing in size and number. By allowing greater access to rhetorical tools, social media may, in fact, be creating a whole new breed of rhetoric which could determine the future of the world over the next decades.

An example of timing being irrelevant to a speech's success:


Audience:

Audience has changed drastically over the centuries in dozens of different ways. For example, an audience in ancient Greece might have consisted of a couple dozen senators in a small meeting hall. However, an audience for Barack Obama’s inaugural address numbered in the thousands. Size, composition, and importance of audience have all changed over the course of the centuries, and they are now changing yet again thanks to the advent of social media.
Due mostly to the globe-spanning reach of websites like Twitter and Facebook, the sheer size of the audience of a speech now has the capability to be astronomical. In fact, it is only limited in the case of a platform such as YouTube by how many views one can get on a video. However, this could also be seen as a limiting factor since the size of audience is no longer directly controllable by the rhetor of a speech, rant, or discussion. Still, once a video goes viral and gets as many views as something like Ashton Kutcher’s Teen Choice Awards speech, it is possible for a speech to reach the eyes and ears a millions more listeners than may have originally heard it.
The composition of the audience has also changed drastically in recent years. Namely, the composition can include literally anyone on the planet. In the past, a speech would be heard only by those in the location of the speech itself or by those who had access to a transcript of the speech after it was delivered. However, as social media forums begin to rise and video virility continues to escalate, the diversity of viewing audiences continues to grow. Now, it is entirely possible for someone in Kenya to know of the same speeches and viral videos as someone in Fiji.
This, of course, also changes to role and the importance of the audience. Now, an audience is not used for immediate feedback as the speech is delivered as it would have been in ancient times. Instead, viewers utilize the comment sections of webpages to indirectly respond to whatever they are seeing or hearing. This can lead both to a surplus of positive criticism and feedback or to a thread full of flame wars and derailed conversation. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to have one without the other. Still, many audience members prefer this system thanks to the anonymity it provides. In classical times, if one wished to address concerns one had to a rhetor, that person had to do it directly to their face or via mail with their personal information stamped onto it. Now, though, anyone can type off a brief, fiery response to whatever they wish and never let the rhetor know who they are. This allows, perhaps, more honest feedback at the expense of emotional and mental well-being.
All in all, the changes in audience have not become better or worse than the old system. Instead, it merely represents a shift in the social consciousness of the world towards a more inclusive and anonymous system of communication.

An example of an ever-expanding viral and global audience:

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