#3. Composing With Rhetorical Velocity

Prompt: In the chapter, the authors offer an approach–a set of guiding questions–for analyzing circulating text. Discuss their approach and how it might be applied to our rhetorical analysis. What does this approach bring to light that Wysocki’s approach does not? 

The approach discussed in this reading is more focused on how different audiences may perceive, and possibly misconstrue a composition, and focuses more on the perspective of the creator rather than the observer (as Wysocki’s approach does). This approach can be applied to our rhetorical analysis by allowing us insight into what goes on behind the scenes of creating a composition, what is the thought process behind what the author chooses to incorporate into their composition? One question in this approach talks about how rhetoric can be misconstrued and poses the question “how can we limit misappropriations?”, which is an example of how we can analyze rhetoric from the eyes of the composer.

• The author makes a point of saying that rhetors should expect the audience to not only absorb and look at their rhetorical compositions but for them to repurpose and revise the rhetoric 
• Rhetorical Velocity– The way rhetors strategize about the potential recomposition and redistribution of a text.
• “We want them to think of their composition as a falling Tetris block: Someone else may turn it sideways or upsidedown and fit it into a new combination,”(79). This quote is referring to the idea of reconfiguring and revising rhetoric made by other people. Creators of rhetoric should look at their work as something that can be changed and repurposed for another project.
• This work has informed me of the common practice of reusing rhetoric. I didn’t consider rhetoric to be something that’s commonly sampled such as in the music industry. It will be interesting to see if I begin to notice any commonalities among the rhetoric we analyze in class.

 Case Study: The D Brand

• The author is saying that the image of Detroit has been tarnished, and aims to fix the “scary, empty and valueless” view of Detroit and promote tourism
• The D Brand- “A sustained attempt to transform Detroit’s ‘image’”
• “The D Brand is an instance of ‘applied storytelling’,”(164) here the author is talking about how all of the components used in the media created to revamp Detroit’s image go along with a particular narrative that they’re trying to get across. In the case of ‘Blind Date’, the story being shown is helping to show Detroit in a certain light. 
• This case study showed me that digital rhetoric is not always a company trying to sell me something. In this case, it’s an organization using rhetoric in an attempt to change the publics’ view of the city of Detroit.