Programming in Network Exchanges

This article asks whether or not Manuel Castells's (2009) programming, or the act of setting the goals and values of a network, influences the rhetorical and compositional potential of networked writing. The author argues that as networked writing becomes more prevalent, researchers must investigate not only the ways in which traditional rhetoric and writing present themselves within networks, but also the particular features of networks that uniquely determine the rhetorical impact of the form, or, as Ian Bogost (2007) put it, “how inscription works” within networks (p. 24). The case study for answering this question is a network exchange that occurred on Twitter in July 2008 after a sitting U.S. congressman stated that the leadership of the House of Representatives was attempting to censor the use of social media by House members. The author examines the over 1,700 messages in this exchange to determine both the nature of this network's program as well as if this program affected the rhetorical and compositional features of the exchange.