PWR 1CAA: Influencers, Filters, and Algorithms: Rhetorics of Online Persuasion
If you're like most people, you find yourself online multiple times a day – whether through your phone, your tablet, or your computer. Sometimes we log on to find information (to Google something, to check our calendar, to check someone’s location, etc.), and sometimes we jump online in response to push notifications, whether that be a new message, a news alert, or a new post on one of our favorite sites.
What might not be evident as we navigate our favorite online spaces is the way they operate as what Stanford professor and social scientist BJ Fogg has called “persuasive technologies”, that is, how they have been deliberately constructed to encourage certain behaviors, usage trends, and, sometimes, even ways of thinking. You already know how this works: Amazon recommends products based on your past purchases; influencers promote a particular look or lifestyle; Netflix promotes new shows and films based on what you’ve watched before; Apple music suggests songs based on its understanding of your listening history; Instagram – and now even the supposedly more “authentic” BeReal – generously seeds your feed with ads; Tiktok boosts reel after reel “For You”. The list goes on and on. Beneath each of these processes lie algorithms that are specifically designed to curate your online experience for you based on your past selections and, occasionally, your inputted preferences.
In this class, we’ll look at the rhetorics of online persuasion, namely how online content creators promote a particular behavior or pattern of thinking in their audience through strategic design. Along the way, we’ll ask some key questions: How do we maintain a sense of our agency and free will in this environment? How do we know the difference between our own personal taste and the sense of “taste” that our online practice cultivates for us? How do we know when we’re in “filter bubble” (or are those even real)? How can we discern between what’s “authentic” or “true” in online spaces?
Together, our goal isn’t to judge these spaces but instead to analyze and research the rhetorical structures at work in these environments and the larger implications of their persuasive design. Along the way, we’ll explore key issues related to the way the online media we engage with everyday not just reflect but also in fact construct our understanding of culture and of ourselves.
As part of the class, students will conduct an in-depth research project related to the course theme. Some possible research topics that you might pursue include:
instapoets and 21st century poetry (i.e., focusing on Rupi Kaur or others)
the rise of Booktok and changes in novel-reading and -writing
the recent push by some states to regulate teens’ social media usage
Tiktok and privacy concerns
the attention ecologies on social media sites
the spread of gamification (i.e., through fitness apps)
social media and political campaigning
online activism
algorithmic bias (for instance, related to race or gender)
influencer culture (could focus on fashion, travel, lifestyle, fitness, etc.)
the rise (and fall?) of cancel culture
generative AI (could focus on effects on creativity, on art, on the homogenization of language, or on ethics, for example).
Major Assignments
Rhetorical Analysis
(1500-1800 words; 5-6 pages) This assignment asks you to analyze the rhetorical strategies at work in a text or set of short persuasive online texts of your choice, for instance, political campaign or social advocacy posts; viral online advertising for a film or video game; influencer product promotion or lifestyle reels; university website design for potential applicants; etc.
Texts in Conversation Essay
(1800-2400 words; 6-8 pages): This assignment marks the beginning of your research project. Having chosen a topic related to online persuasion (see sample research topics above), you’ll write an essay through which you examine how the different sources, voices, and perspectives inform the larger conversation about the issue you are exploring.
Research-Based Argument
(3600-4500 words; 12-15 pages): For this assignment, you’ll build on the work you began with the Texts in Conversation assignment and integrate a variety of sources (primary and secondary; scholarly and non-academic) to produce a complex, provocative argument about your topic.