Digital Rhetoric and Science

Rhetoric has been defined historically as the use of symbols, including language, in the act of persuasion. It can be argued that all communication is rhetorical in that it seeks to change belief or influence action. Some people think that science is not rhetorical, or in other words, that scientists simply uncover facts and present these facts [Page 225]plainly without needing to persuade. However, many scientists and researchers in the fields of communication studies, English, and rhetoric argue that when scientists present the results of their research, they are not just reporting facts, but are instead making arguments about how findings should be interpreted, establishing their own credibility, and attempting to create confidence in and enthusiasm for their work. Lawrence Prelli argues that scientific discourse aims to persuade others to attach particular meanings to particular phenomena and that, like all rhetoric, scientific rhetoric is greatly influenced by the intended audience and the geographic and cultural environment in which it takes place. Thus, scientific rhetoric in England in the 17th century was different from that in the United States in the 19th century; likewise, an argument made by a geologist is different from one made by an astrophysicist or a molecular geneticist. Similarly, we might expect that scientific rhetoric is affected by the medium of communication: oral discussion at a scientific conference, publication in a print journal, and various forms of electronic digital media, especially on the Internet and the World Wide Web.

If rhetoric is the art of persuasion, then digital rhetoric is the art of persuasion in digital media such as Web sites, Weblogs (or blogs), wikis, and e-mail. Scientists who work at some distance from each other have traditionally communicated at professional conferences, by mail, and by writing articles in scientific journals. Scientists still communicate in these ways, but much of their communication is now taking place online. Many scientists, especially those employed at universities, keep professional Web sites with information about their research. Scientists also use e-mail to communicate with each other one-on-one, and they use e-mail Listservs to communicate with groups of scientists with interests similar to theirs. Some of this activity may result from the rise in what is called “Big Science”—beginning with the Manhattan Project—in which many researchers from all over the country or the world work together on large projects, especially in fields such as high-energy particle physics, which requires the use of enormous, highly specialized facilities such as the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) on the border between France and Switzerland. Many of the scientists who work on projects that use the LHC work on site, but others work far away. Digital media allow scientists working far from each other to communicate quickly.

Regardless of whether a small group of scientists work together in a laboratory at a single institution or hundreds of scientists collaborate across the globe, the results of a research program must be periodically reported. When scientists have research results to report, they often publish research articles in online journals. Some of these journals let readers comment on these articles online, giving scientists a new way to discuss the latest research findings. Also, most major funding agencies now require grant proposals to be submitted through electronic systems, such as http://grants.gov and the National Science Foundation's FastLane system. Many scientists also write about science in blogs for other scientists, for the general public, or for both, and they contribute to wikis, which are Web sites that can be edited or modified by readers.

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