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As I'm presently engrossed in my dissertation, there isn't much "in progress" aside from research and writing for that; however, one of my chapters, which has evolved from various presentations and papers I've written as a Ph.D. student, is currently in progress as both a chapter and an article. Visual rhetoric, parody, and politics collide frequently in courtrooms, and this chapter is a key element of my argument that can stand alone based just on current research.
"The Rhetor Behind the Curtain" addresses the changing role of the visual in rhetoric, from documentary image, used as evidence or as example of an instance, to an individual artifact that persuades as much as it serves as evidence or as an instantiation of a phenomenon. Images, like any other digital artifact, are completely under the control of the rhetor, with each individual pixel subject to mannipulation. One of the most obvious examples of this is within digital parodies, especially political parodies, in which rhetors can create a complete parodic environment, a world unto itself that is both itself an individual information environment and a criticism of another's product.
To examine this topic, I'm looking at the award-winning parodies at Whitehouse.org [ Link ] and The People's Cube [ Link ]. Using the visuals from each site, I discuss in-depth the changes to this troublesome genre that are taking place in the digital age.
