After the Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age, Industrial Age, each one a revolutionary technological development for humankind, we have arrived at the Computer Age. This new age consists of an immediate access to information, so much as to be information overload; a devaluation of authority; an equalization of information, i.e., a celebrity gossip page, a newspaper article, a conspiracy blog, a governmental report , a Wikipedia paragraph, are all treated as having the same value, whether skeptically or whole-heartedly. This new age is value-neutral. Rhetoric, in its traditional definition as the art of persuasion with its studies in oration and writing has been devalued through advertising, politics and lies, to its second meaning, of empty verbiage.  This second definition is Rhetoric’s currency in the Computer Age.  Moreover, communication in this information age has become one of instant text message and abbreviation to better accommodate instantaneous nature of the computer.  No extraneous verbiage, there is too much information to assimilate. The visual—movies, pictures, animation, computer graphics; the aural—music, sound bites, background ambiance, verbal communication; combine: they are far more effective than written or spoken word alone. In so far as the amorphous nature of Internet is arranging itself, it is coalescing into social clusters, such as “Facebook” or “MySpace.” The interaction of these social clusters provides the most effective means of persuasion. Individuals are persuaded by effective action, sight/sound, their social group, not by Rhetoric. The traditional rhetoric is dead.

Shall we redefine Rhetoric? If Rhetoric = Persuasion, and persuasion in the Computer Age= effective action, sight and sound, peer group pressure/advocacy, then the new rhetoric must equal those things. Aristotle divided Rhetoric into two groups, Non-artistic proofs and Artistic proofs. They were further subdivided into Contracts, Testimony, Enthymeme, Example, and Maxim. Classically, everything was grouped into hierarchical structures. The king was on the top, the slave was on the bottom. The Rose was on the top of the flower chain, the milkweed was on the bottom. In contrast, the Internet is an organic and nebulous entity. Search engines assist in searching, finding is another matter, since there is no organizational arrangement. Everything is the same linear plane in hyperspace. How would one use persuasion/rhetoric in this new age? We would presumably need only the flashiest images, a popular song in the background, and a direct link to the most popular person in MySpace. However, Coke or some other major corporation has probably done this already, and won’t want to share their secret private confidential classified hush-hush data. (It must work, or else they wouldn’t be able to sell a little bottle of tap water or flavored sugar water for over a buck.) Nonetheless, this commentary posits that in the Computer Age, the old paradigms have ceased to function; they must redefine themselves or risk obsolescence. The old Rhetoric, through misuse, is valueless. The new Rhetoric must use the computer effective forms to persuade. An examination of the old, the new, the effective and ineffective will follow.