User:Julyattitude/Digital rhetoric

Software
Coding and software engineering are not often recognized as rhetorical writing practices, but in the process of writing code, people instruct machines to "make arguments and judgments and address audiences both machinic and human." Technologies themselves can be viewed as rhetorical genres, simultaneously guiding users' experiences and communication with each other and being shaped and improved through humans use. In other words, choices baked into software that are invisible to users impact the user experience and reveal information about the priorities of software engineers. For instance, while Facebook allows users to choose over 50 gender identities to display on their public profile, an investigation into the social media’s software revealed that users are filtered into the male-female gender binary within the software for targeted advertising purposes. In another example, pieces of software called bittorrent trackers facilitate the massive distribution of information on Wikipedia. Software facilitates the collective rhetorical action of encyclopedia.

The field of software studies encourages the investigation into and recognition of software's impacts on people and culture.

Social media
Social media makes human connection formal, manageable, and profitable to social media companies. The technology that allows this human connection is not human, but automated. As people use social media and form their experience on the platform to meet their interests, so too does the technology affect how users interact with each other and the world.