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• Many organizations use social media to spread incorrect information.
• Social media has become a large part of our lives and has shifted to become the main way information is shared.
• Social media and technology issues include ethical beliefs, government, misinformation, and psychology.
• In digital communication, it's important to understand the purpose, ethics, and effectiveness of writing.
• Social media is a powerful form of media to address.

Digital Writing

• Digital writing involves writing content like websites, apps and online platforms on the internet and social media.
• Digital writing combines skills like graphic design, computer science, psychology, philosophy, and rhetoric.
• Digital writers use rhetoric which involves persuasive writing or speaking.
• Proficient digital writers deeply understand the tools and technologies they use.
• They know how to target specific audiences on platforms like Facebook and can create viral content like memes.
• Ethical digital writers understand the underlying technologies to avoid misusing them.
• As a writer, you need technological skills, writing abilities, and an analytical approach guided by rhetoric.
• Rhetoric deals with effective communication and truth.
• Speakers must pursue truth through philosophy.
• Powerful speakers who deceive or don't consider their arguments can lead to negative consequences.
• Digital writers consider their audience, using comprehensive language, shorter sentences, and examples to enhance understandability.

Rhetoric Framework for Digital Writing

• Analyze the situation to identify the audience and the most effective way to deliver the message.
• Purpose: Determine project goals and whether you're persuading to buy or increase engagement.
• Media Object: Decide the type of content, its appearance, publishing location, and intended audience.
• Technology: Identify the technology for creating media, including software and file types.
• Deadline: Know the time available to create the media object and the deadline.
• Process: Plan for review and revision, including feedback from others.
• Ethics: Address potential ethical concerns within the organization.
• Benchmarks and Review: Define how success will be measured.
• Value and Data: Determine the media object's value to the organization and how data can be used in the future.
• Optimization/Reflection: Learn and improve for future projects based on findings and audience response.

Rhetorical, Audience, and Technology

• Rhetoric traces back to ancient Greece with Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, whose texts established its foundations.
• Rhetoric studies the art of persuasion.
• Aristotle said rhetoric observes the available means of persuasion.
• On the web and social media, persuasion includes language, visuals, evidence, emotions, speech, appeals to authority, and endorsements.
• Rhetoric provides a framework to analyze digital media.
• Media can persuade to buy products, sign up for newsletters, desire lifestyles, plan trips, or purchase experiences.
• Communications contain ideological messages and instruct what should be valued.
• A primary concept of rhetoric is audience.
• Consider the audience to be the intended recipient of a message.
• Consider the audience's age, socioeconomic status, education level, and familiarity with the product.

Demographics and Business Decisions

• Understand the audience's occupations and politics.
• Audience is extremely important when looking at social media.
• In social media, the audience takes on a meaning in which we can analyze data.
• Marketing terms call this audience data demographics describing populations.
• Rhetoric and audience are powerful, demographic data drives business decisions.
• Companies use tools like Facebook Ads Manager to target specific population segments with messages.

Ethos, Pathos, and Logos

• Human beings make many irrational decisions based on emotions rather than logic.
• Advertising relies heavily on emotions
• Rhetorical analysis of advertisements and marketing unveils persuasive tactics.
• Aristotle proposed the rhetorical appeals of ethos, pathos, and logos.
• It can analyze advertisements, marketing, media, speeches, texts, product designs, reflection and meditation.
• Rhetorical analysis is a powerful tool.
• Ethos appeals based on the credibility and character of the speaker/author.
• Pathos appeals to the emotions of the audience.
• Logos appeals to logic and reason.
• Analyzing those appeals helps understand strategies and make rational consumer decisions.

Ethos Breakdown

• Ethos refers to a person's character and credibility; Aristotle considered it the most crucial element of rhetoric.
• We rely on trust to evaluate a message.
• Appeals to ethos are appeals to credibility.
• Ethos applies to influential figures when establishing brands and individuals.
• It is closely tied to values and beliefs, communicated through writing, speaking, credentials, appearance, gender, and communication medium.
• Ethos is closely attached to respect and trust.
• The number of followers can indicate credibility but be cautious as social media is a “pay-to-play” game.

Pathos Breakdown

• Appeals to emotion are called pathos.
• Humans experience a range of emotions.
• Advertisers know that universal themes like food, animals, and sexuality evoke emotions due to basic needs and drives.
• A Subaru is used as an example of violent car crashes showing the driver survives.
• Critics argue such footage can cause post traumatic stress.
• The conclusion is that all language can make a pathetic appeal and evoke an appeal to pathos or emotion.

Logos Breakdown

• Logos refers to appeals to logic.
• Humans consider themselves rational beings but often are not.
• People frequently make ill-informed decisions with negative impacts, with panic-selling in the stock market.
• Logical arguments rarely appear as pure logic.
• Appeals to logos work on multiple levels.
• Finding a pub in Savannah by picking the highest-rated one seems logical, but potential data skews must be considered.
• Proper data collected should be neutral but data has to be wielded like a weapon.
• Recognizing science's importance is needed for progress and democracy; the US's failure to control COVID-19's first wave in the Summer of 2020.
• However, logic alone does not always persuade.
• Ads seem to rely primarily on logical appeals, while dimensions matter, buyers imagine living there.
• Decisions have underlying emotional logics we don't recognize.