This digital rhetoric portfolio presents my work with messaging and audience across digital platforms. Its purpose is to show how I design communication that does more than inform, but content that persuades, directs behavior, and builds credibility in ever-changing digital spaces. Across these pieces, I focus on timing and execution because those are the variables that determine whether a message lands or gets ignored.

Digital rhetoric is persuasion in digital spaces. It looks at how messages are created, sent out, and interpreted across platforms like social media, websites, email, and apps, and more. At its core, it still pulls from basic rhetorical concepts like ethos, pathos, and logos, but the way it is presented changes everything. The audience is no longer face-to-face, living in the moment. They scroll, click, comment, share, and leave in seconds. That means the structure of a message has to be tighter, more visual, and more immediate. Timing and design matter more than ever. The algorithms become part of the rhetorical situation because they decide what actually gets seen.

Digital rhetoric also forces a shift in credibility. Authority is no longer just about credentials. It is about consistency, tone, and how well you understand the platform you are using. A well-designed Instagram post can carry more persuasive weight than a long formal statement if it reaches the right audience at the right time. The medium shapes the message in a very interesting way. A tweet, a graphic, and a long form article can all say the same thing, but sit with the user in a completely different way. So digital rhetoric is really about aligning the message with the audience in an online space that is wildly unpredictable. It’s truly madness.

For me, digital rhetoric is essential. It comes up every time I send out a tournament email, post on social media, or design a graphic for Quaker Classic. I am not just sharing information, but rather trying to show why we’re the best, most organized tournament in Western New York. It was the only way a nineteen-year-old was able to manufacture a ridiculous 184 teams to come out.

It also changes how I think about credibility. Nobody these days is reading a long explanation about why a tournament is the best. They want to see the event in action. Using clean graphics, organized schedules, and consistent communication builds trust faster than words ever could. Each post and email is a way of showing that.

Digital rhetoric is a fantastic tool that can be used to make-or-break certain situations. Advertising, networking, and so much more can now be done in these digital spaces. Taking advantage of this opportunity can propel people to new heights. I’m looking forward to analyzing these spaces in the course!

This course provided a great foundation of what digital rhetoric was all about, but also dug deep into where it could go. Discussing the history of rhetoric and communication, from the first written languages to artificial intelligence, really helped contextualize why the concept of rhetoric has evolved the way it has. The discussions of memetics were a little confusing to me, but it makes sense to study why trends evolve the way they do. However, I also feel there is a sense of randomness to what becomes popular, an opinion of mine that changed from the beginning of the semester. As the class moved towards analyzing online words, such as ragebait, I found the dumb stuff that users come up with online to be fascinating. Like, why do words such as “mog” carry any meaning? Analyzing the history and uses of these words can assist in the understanding of why they’re used so much. I found that the word “ragebait” has evolved to mean “antagonize,” but it’s just cleaner off the tongue. The same goes for the trends that we studied. Most of the ones we discussed were very niche, showing how personalized the internet can become. Closing out the semester with discussions of AI was insightful. These machines are so controversial as they pave the way into our society, and no one really knows what the future holds. Analyzing the way it helped me develop my Quaker Classic baseball tournament brought to life how helpful it can be as an assistant, but also how it can’t totally replace human creativity. Overall, this class reshaped my view of digital spaces; what I used to think was random, I now think of as strategic.

Talking to peers, especially from different backgrounds, helped my understanding of digital rhetoric because it exposed gaps in how messages are received. What feels persuasive to me might not land the same way for someone with a different experience, platform preference, or set of expectations. Those conversations force me to think less about what I want to say and more about how it will actually be interpreted. My meetings with Professor Ristow have been especially useful in this process. He is very honest, which helped me cut right to the chase and improve my writing. Peer review doesn’t really do that for me, as no one wants to be too critical.

What I didn’t enjoy in this class were some of the conversations. I thought that some of my peers' comments, especially regarding hatred for men, were examples of how hate can easily spread on the internet. However, overall, I really enjoyed taking this course. I’d recommend it to anyone who is considering enrolling.