Incorporating Killingsworth's Idea of Virtual Appeals to Place with Handa's Multimediated Rhetoric

In her article “The Multimediated Rhetoric of the Internet”, Carolyn Handa is pushing the idea that students need to be taught how to compose using rhetorical skills “that translate to the digital” (Handa 151). Web sites today incorporate more than just the written word. Web sites have transformed rhetoric into a “fusion” of writing and everything that is “remediated” into the web sites. As I understand it, Handa is telling us that so much goes into the creation of a website in order capture the interest of a reader that the definition of rhetoric has been altered and broadened. And because of the analytic nature of Web-based businesses, Handa thinks it’s not only important for business people to understand the nature of this rhetoric, but also students, so they may “analyze multimodal texts they encounter” (151).

Meanwhile, M. Jimmie Killingsworth in his article “Appeals to Place” says that the Web has allowed writers, or makers of web sites, the ability to create a text that is not connected to any one place in particular. Killingsworth says the website is “a claim to empower the individual in new and extraordinary ways, to make us the masters of worlds formerly inaccessible because of their diffusion” (Killingsworth 66).

This idea of appeals to place in the virtual world is something that could be incorporated into Handa’s ideas of a multimediated rhetoric. Handa wants students to understand what it is about web sites that

credit www.thatericalper.com

draws the readers in and grabs their attention. Killingsworth is emphasizing the importance of an appeal to place in any form of writing, and in particular how the Internet allows the writer to appeal to many places at once, yet at the same time none at all. Understanding the nature of appeals to place on the Web is equally important as understanding the little intricacies that compose a web site. This doesn’t mean that appeals to place on web sites falls under the definition of multimediated rhetoric. But, appeals to place are the driving ideas behind multimediated rhetoric. The different visuals on websites - images, textboxes, hyperlinks, etc. - are all composed with the idea that the reader doesn’t have to be confined to one space or associated with a particular place.

This is why, Killingsworth says, “virtuality is one of several components in a utopian vision” (67). The web allows web site creators the ability to grant readers a release from any particular place, while offering them a connection to multiple places at once. Each singular website can hold a link to some other website, creating a giant web of interconnected places. This concept is something that students should keep in mind when analyzing the make-up of web sites and the significance of multimediated rhetoric. Multimediated rhetoric is the tool that allows web site creators to create a text that isn’t associated with any one place in particular, yet is connected to a huge web of other sites or “places”.

But does this mean the appeal to place becomes stronger or weaker? I wonder if writing 2-dimensionally, as Handa would describe purely written word in a book or magazine, is better suited to appeal to a reader through place. Could writing 3-dimensionally result in a disassociation with any place, and a failure to fully capture the audience?