RHETORIC & WRITING

Web Rhetorics for a Digital Age: The Medium AND the Message

By Jason Snart, College of Dupage

Exercises

The following exercises are designed to get you thinking about the many different "writing situations" on the Web. You will also have the opportunity to write in these situations yourself.

• Situations   • Facebook Rhetorics   • Wiki, Twitter, Blog Rhetorics   • Choice   • Autobiography And Medium   • Interactivity   • Rhetoric Of "Community"   • Customizing   • Dynamic Content

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Social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace have grown tremendously in popularity over the last few years. It seems that many people like the sense of community and belonging that social networking sites enable. We might observe, though, that the rhetoric of “community” has carried over into many other kinds of Web sites as well.

For example, visit http://espn.go.com/ and follow the SportsNation link.

1.
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What "social networking" features can you find as part of the SportsNation?
2.
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Now explore five Web sites other than traditional social networking sites. You might choose some commercial, some nonprofit, and some educational sites.
3.
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Do these sites all make use of social networking features? What benefit do you think the Web site providers derive from offering users such features?

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