A study of the rhetorical situation created in synchronous conferencing

Abstract

Synchronous conferencing creates a unique rhetorical situation in the English computer classroom. As they maintain an immediate, spontaneous conversation through the computer, students are forced to balance simultaneously the roles of author and audience. Therefore, a rhetorical situation is created that has characteristics of both traditional oral and written rhetorical situations. It resembles the situation described by Aristotle by placing author and audience together in one rhetorical setting and by using a text (although written) as the means of communication between the two, recreating the spontaneous element of oral rhetoric. Synchronous conferencing challenges the concept proposed by Walter C)Ong of audience as a fiction created by an author during the production of a text. Audience and author work together to create a spontaneous text as a record of their communication. Synchronous conferencing does provide an alternative perspective to Peter Elbow's view of the audience as self. Students are forced to act as their own audience when evaluating other students' responses to their messages in the conference and when composing their own return responses. The theory of audience addressed/audience invoked developed by Ede and Lunsford best describes the situation created in synchronous conferencing. Students use what they know of their audience as a basis for developing a mental picture of this audience. In synchronous conferencing, however, they can test this mental picture against the audience itself and expand their knowledge of the opinions, beliefs, attitudes, and personalities of their audience. They can address their audience directly in the conference and invoke a picture of their audience based on first-hand knowledge outside the conference.