Event Title

SSM01 - Packaging Hashtags for (re)Composition: Rhetorical Velocity and Topoii in the Invention of Hashtags

Presenter Information

Nicholas DeArmas

Location

CB1-120

Streaming Media

Start Date

4-11-2017 8:15 AM

Description

In a recent interview for HASTAC's Interview Collections, Dr. Moya Bailey discussed how she values social media as a research utility, because it gives her "access to what people are thinking and feeling in real time" along with "very immediate 'audience studies'" (Sperrazza para. 14). Bailey's acknowledgment of the contributions that social media can provide academia hits close to home for the digital humanities, as it is a nexus between digital technology and humanities research. Social media can provide bridges between disciplines, scholars, and distances that could have never before been possible. One of the most effective facilitators for discourse and research made through social media is the hashtag. When used as rhetorical tools, hashtags unite research, make topical associations, spark discourse communities, organize activism, and spread awareness. I agree with Dr. Bailey and believe that, in the future, the discourse we conduct in the digital humanities will increasingly take place not housed in buildings spread out across campuses, but across digital space housed in metadata like hashtags. Considering the research of Bruns (2015), Caleffi (2015), Marwick and boyd (2011), Ridolfo and Divoss (2009), and Zappavinga (2015), my roundtable discussion will consider how hashtags enable the formation of ad-hoc discourse communities, ones whose discourse are often signified by the actual hashtag name itself. My research will draw upon the intersection between linguistics and rhetoric, in order to look at how the selection of a hashtag name often signals the topoii of the discourse that takes place by its participants. The dataset I'll use will be a monthlong sample of the trending terms from ten major American cities (which is also one of the focal points of my dissertation). I'll be using a Grounded Theory Methodology for my research performed on Twitter. Through considering the linguistic aspects of hashtag names, and the dataset of what trends over the course of a month across America, my discussion will point to how certain linguistic patterns are more effective for hashtags; these rhetorical conventions should be recommended when inventing hashtags whose intent include increased rhetorical velocity. Said in a less academic voice, my roundtable discussion will use my data from trending terms on Twitter to argue for how hashtags can be better packaged for increased exposure. If the future of the digital humanities includes interdisciplinary conversations, and if those conversations are going to take place by employing metadata like hashtags, then the digital humanities needs to continue to perform research, like this, on the rhetorical tools they use to communicate their research. In this way, the communication of knowledge through digital means will be more effective, making the interdisciplinary conversations that take place in the digital humanities more productive.