Creating campaigns and campaign pieces are far more complex than trying to reach the audience with some sort of message, information, etc. We learned how to write in such a way that was easy for an audience to follow. Now, writing for the public has become more complex when considering how the audience can recreate the information. For campaigns such as we are writing, rhetorical velocity should be kept in mind. Ridolfo and DeVoss describe rhetorical velocity as “a conscious rhetorical concern for distance, travel, speed, and time pertaining specifically to theorizing instances of strategic appropriation by a third party”. The importance of designing the campaign pieces in such a way that the audience can “recompose” the information is due to the fact that we want the information to reach farther than we can achieve ourselves. If the campaign pieces and information contained in them are readily “recomposable”, secondary audiences can be reached. This is a desired effect of many campaigns. Specifically for my group, one of the goals of our campaign is to raise awareness regarding mental health in teens. If our campaign pieces are being used by our audience to recreate the information, our goal is being met.
One of my campaign pieces is a Facebook page that is primarily concerned with awareness of mental health. The page will include a post of blackout poetry submissions that are focused around mental health. Something like this can easily be recreated or used by third parties. Any high school can run their own campaign around this idea; have students submit blackout poetry, or any sort of poetry in general, of what they think mental health is, what it means to live with a mental health issue, or any sort of topic under mental health. Schools could hang up the submissions around the school or make the submissions accessible to the students. Not only does this raise awareness but it also can get students talking about mental health.
Not every campaign piece can easily be recomposed such as the piece discussed above. Something such as a speech might prove to be more difficult. For my first campaign piece, I wrote a letter that was intended for the parents of high school students of Pittsburgh Technology Academy that detailed what programs and resources were in place for those students. I also included statistics regarding the programs and created an infographic that highlighted some of the statistics. How would I go about revising this information while keeping in mind rhetorical velocity? I think revising the infographic would be the most beneficial because this information is arguably the most important; of course, it’s important parents know about the programs, but it is even more so that they know how the program works and how well it works. While this information can be found in the letter as well, the infographic puts the information in an easy-to-read format that doesn’t require a lot of time reading a letter. My infographic does need revised to make it easier to understand by itself and to better explain the statistics. Doing so will make the information more accessible.
Design and accessibility influence rhetorical velocity. If a campaign piece isn’t accessible to the audience, it will be harder for those third parties to recompose the information. However, just because the campaign piece is designed well and accessible, it does not mean the piece is recomposable. Balancing design, accessibility, and rhetorical velocity is difficult. However, the campaign will be more impactful if this can be done successfully. Rhetorical velocity has a direct relationship with the delivery of the campaign pieces. Keeping in mind rhetorical velocity will help me ensure that the audience can engage with the pieces. DeVoss and Porter argue that rhetorical velocity is like “a strategic type of ‘plagiarism’”. When considering awareness, the farther reach the information from the pieces get to, the better. I think we have to ask ourselves if this is something that other people would want to copy. If the answer is yes, the next question is how easily can others understand and reuse the information? If the answer is no to the first question, then revisions are in order.
4 thoughts on “Using Rhetorical Velocity”
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Sorry guys, it won’t let me indent or put spaces for each paragraph. “One of my” is a new paragraph as well as “not every campaign piece”, and “design and accessibility”.
I’m so glad you brought up recomposition because I think it’s one of those topics that most of us somehow already know without really actively thinking about it. And it is something that we need to take into consideration, especially because “secondary audiences can be reached” through recomposition, as you stated in your blog post.
Your primary audience should always be your first concern when drafting any sort of composition, but secondary and tertiary audiences should also be on your radar. You have to consider how your piece might reach someone in a secondary or tertiary audience. Will you be expanding on your own piece? Will someone else recompose your piece to fit a narrative that they are trying to share with their own audience? In either case, recomposition requires that the original document your produce be comprehensive. You wouldn’t want to write a history book so ambiguously that it is misinterpreted. The facts you provide need to be accurate, and the narrative you tell needs to make sense to a multitude of people. You cannot always control who your secondary and tertiary audiences might be, but by taking steps in your initial writing to make sure that your writing is understandable to everyone early on will ensure that there are less complications in the understanding of your piece later.
I really like the idea of the blackout poetry. It is a great way to reach a younger audience. It is also a different approach than a lot of campaigns would take. That makes it more attention getting than an average flyer.
Most of our writing is done with an audience in mind. We put in all the time and effort to get a point across to a specific group, without realizing that the audience could be larger than you intended.
Even though the piece is written with a group in mind, there is an importance put on who else may see it. This is where the lessons of our last post comes into play, making the piece accessibly for whoever may read it. If our goal is to reach a specific audience, but it extends further, then we have exceeded our goals and expectations.
I second, hrz4. That poetry idea sounds really cool, and would work really well with a high school environment where students might be interested on their own via social media or within a more formal setting of a class assignment. Really cool idea!