Abstract

One of the concepts that has increasingly dominated discussions of computers and writing over the last several years is the idea of electracy, the notion that writing electronically involves a discursive shift analogous to the shift from orality to literacy begun in ancient Greece. If indeed electracy represents a distinct stage in our relationship to language, then society must be prepared both to understand that change and to shape it in productive ways, both theoretically and practically. ;The following dissertation explores the implications of electracy, particularly as it might impact upon ideas of identity, language, and technology. Just as orality and literacy are heterogenous concepts, general terms that allow a great deal of variety within the space that they articulate, this dissertation claims that electracy is similarly multiple. It asserts a conception of electracy characterized by a network of relationships, among which rhetoric, subjectivity, and technology are mutually constitutive nodes. ;This dissertation takes each of the five canons of classical rhetoric, and redescribes them in terms of contemporary information technology, focusing primarily upon hypertext and text-based virtual realities. In addition to articulating the insights that the rhetorical canons bring to a study of technology, the following study demonstrates that the canons themselves are transformed in the process. Building upon the metaphor of the interface , this dissertation strives for a model of rhetoric, identity, and technology that is capable of providing distinctions among them without resorting to hierarchies or homogeneity to do so