ENGL 801: Entry #2

Interface as Exordium: The Rhetoric of Interface

 

Carnegie, T.A.M. (2009). Interface as exordium: The rhetoric of interface. Computers and Composition, 26, 164-173. doi: 10.1016/j.compcom.2009.05.005

In this article, Carnegie responds to Manovich’s concerns for the decline of rhetoric in the face of new media and addresses questions regarding the relationship between rhetoric, composition, and new media. Carnegie uses these concerns as a rhetorical technique to introduce the concept of exordium—“a rhetorical means for ensuring the audience becomes and remains susceptible to persuasion” (p. 165). Carnegie argues that the interface in new media serves a rhetorical purpose and considering interface as the exordium of new media rhetoric and proposes three modes of interactivity as an approach to talking about and analyzing interface.

Before explaining the modes, Carnegie offers varied definitions of interface that range from physical arrangement to user interaction (p. 165). Broadly defined, “The interface facilitates and defines interaction, and it takes both concrete and abstract form” (p. 165). To illustrate this interaction, Carnegie offers the example of the printed text wherein the page acts as the point of contact.

In computer-mediated communication, however, the interface has become more pervasive and, therefore, more complicated. Carnegie defines interface “as the place of interaction whether the interactions are between user and computer, user and software, computer and software, user and content, software and content, user and culture, and the user and other users” (p. 165). The interface as the common meeting point for technological, human, cultural, and social aspects, Carnegie argues, situates it as the exordium of new media and foregrounds a need for identifying and discussing the interactivity of new media and its rhetorical implications.

 This need, Carnegie proposes, can be addressed by the “rhetorical modes” of the interface in new media: multidirectionality, manipulability, and presence.

Multidirectionality: Often associated with hypertextuality, multidirectionality is the extent to which a user can exploit the direction of communication. It refers to the various roles that a user can play in a network (receiver, sender, or both receiver and sender) and the messages used to communicate. The two primary characteristics of multidirectionality that create interactivity are 1) the permitted roles of the receiver in the network, and 2) the referential and intertextual nature of the messages (p. 167).

Manipulability: Carnegie explains that in new media, the media can be dematerialized and subject to “algorithmic manipulation” that frees the interface from fixity. The level of interactivity is the degree to which the user can change, or manipulate, the interface. On the lowest level of interactivity, users cannot change the form or create content. At the highest level of interactivity, users request information and customize the interface (p. 168-169).

Presence: Carnegie cites McMillan’s definition of presence to explain it as a mode of interactivity that illustrates the degree to which users perceive being connected both socially and spatially. On a continuum of interactivity, immersion represents the lowest level of presence while engagement represents the highest level. Flow, Carnegie explains, “constitutes an intermediary state” between immersion and engagement wherein an individual “loses a sense of self and time and becomes intensely focused on the task at hand” (p. 170).

Carnegie reasserts that the modes of interactivity are not modes of argumentation—they are modes of the exordium. In new media, however, the exordium of the communication is the interface; it is ever-present and works to continuously engage the user in interaction. She concludes by arguing that increased interactivity increases attentiveness, empowerment, and control and therefore succeeds in making the user susceptible to persuasion.

Carnegie’s article furthers our class’s attempts to define how texts function in a digital environment. While we have not explicitly discussed rhetorical theory in relation to digital texts, Carnegie offers a way for us to examine how the interface functions rhetorically. Additionally, the modes of interactivity, especially multidirectionality, could offer an interesting approach to discussing authorship.

Finally, Carnegie’s article has been especially helpful for my own research project on Black Board. The modes help me understand not only how the interface of the discussion board might encourage or constrain the interactivity to make the forum more or less appealing to teachers and students but they also help me consider Selfe and Selfe and Feenberg’s arguments of democracy through a more concrete approach.