Keywords

Rhetoric; Online Education; Rhetoric Education

Abstract

This project demonstrates a multimodal education for online audiences through the creation of a YouTube video, What is Rhetoric?   The literature from composition, education, and media asserts that online multimodal media is useful for idea production, civic discussion, and learning. This project follows the idea that online multimodal digital media are valuable forms for meeting audiences with access to rhetorical knowledge, both within academic institutions and in the education of public audiences. In Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture, Henry Jenkins highlights the challenge online participants face in recognizing the ways media shapes perceptions of the world (xii). Rhetoric is the use of communication to shape perception, and scholars of rhetoric have an opportunity to meet this challenge by bringing a lesson about rhetoric to the public online. What is Rhetoric? explores how communication shapes perception and uses methods learned from an analysis of existing educational content creators. It presents rhetoric as “the active process of using communication to shape perception,” and it features discussions of Gorgias, Michel Foucault, Kenneth Burke, George Kennedy, rhetorics of indigenous nations, rhetoric in modern cultural bubbles, and more. It aims to show scholars in the field of rhetoric a way to make rhetorical theory accessible through multimodal projects.

Thesis Completion Year

2026

Thesis Completion Semester

Summer

Thesis Chair

Velez, Meghan

College

College of Arts and Humanities

Department

Writing and Rhetoric

Thesis Discipline

Writing and Rhetoric

Language

English

Access Status

Open Access

Length of Campus Access

None

Campus Location

Orlando (Main) Campus

Additional Files
DREFOA FINAL COPY.docx (578 kB)
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Rhetoric Commons

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Accessibility Statement

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