Network-Emergent Rhetorical Invention

Abstract

This article argues that rhetorical invention in social media environments includes key differences from invention in other spaces and thus demands its own specific consideration that foregrounds its contributing elements. When invention occurs on social media, a variety of forces come together to participate in that act of invention. These forces, which include a varied array of humans, hardware, interfaces, online communities, digital cultures, discourses, moderators, code, algorithms, and infrastructures, all contribute toward processes of rhetorical invention. This article offers a theory of network-emergent rhetorical invention that accounts for the array of actants that converge to make rhetorical invention in social media environments possible. Rather than considering humans as sole agents who autonomously act alone on other forces, network-emergent rhetorical invention considers how humans act with other actants to engage in rhetorical invention on social media.