Rhetoric, Community, and Cyberspace

Traditional notions of the rhetorical community as the locus of shared beliefs and values have been challenged increasingly and from several directions--from radical and post-liberal democratic political theory, from cultural studies and cultural criticism, and, most recently, from the perspective of the ill-defined and elusive 'place' called cyberspace. At the heart of these challenges is the problem of the relationship of the community to those outside it or on its margins, an uneasy relationship that is variously characterized as a tension between communitarianism and liberalism, between ourselves and Others, between a culture and its marginalized individuals, and as a complex relationship between the One and the Many. Contemporary notions of the rhetorical community characterize this community less as the locus of shared beliefs and values than as a public space or forum within which diverse and sometimes conflicting beliefs and values can be articulated and negotiated. We believe that new computer-mediated communication environments have the potential to become contemporary rhetorical communities--public spaces or forums--within which limited or local communities and individuals can develop mutual respect and understanding via dialogue and discussion. We recently tested our belief in a colloquium at Diversity University MOO, an electronic 'place' or cyberspace where individuals can 'meet' and 'chat' in real time.2 Our colloquium revealed to us a kind of rhetoric and a kind of community that seems quite unlike anything that we have seen before--seventeen 'voices' from different places all 'speaking' at once in the same 'place' and 'speaking' in fragments rather than complete discourses.

Zappen, James P., Laura J. Gurak and Stephen Doheny-Farina. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Articles>Cyberculture>Rhetoric>Online