The Rhetoric of Trust: Perceptions of Identity and Credibility in an Online Community

The Rhetoric of TrustPerceptions of Identity and Credibilityin an Online Community Quinn Warnick (@warnick) St. Edward’s University IR 12.0 | October 12, 2011

3three deﬁnitions

1one website

4four paradoxes

ήθος

essence spiritcredibility personalitycharacter

essence customs haunts spiritcredibility habitats places personalitycharacter habits

“Persuasion is achieved by the speaker’spersonal character when the speech is sospoken as to make us think him credible.…This kind of persuasion, like the others,should be achieved by what the speakersays, not by what people think of thischaracter before he begins to speak.” —Aristotle (Rhetoric,1356a)

“The man who wishes to persuade people will not benegligent as to the matter of character; no, on the contrary,he will apply himself above all to establish a most honorablename among his fellow-citizens; for who does not knowthat words carry greater conviction when spoken by men ofgood repute than when spoken by men who live under acloud, and that the argument which is made by a man’s lifeis more weight than that which is furnished by words?” —Isocrates (Antidosis, 278)

“All this species of eloquence, however, requires thespeaker to be a man of good character and of pleasingmanners. The virtues which he ought to praise, if possible,in his client, he should possess or be thought to possesshimself. Thus he will be a great support to the causes thathe undertakes, to which he will bring credit by his ownexcellent qualities. But he who, while he speaks, is thoughta bad man, must certainly speak ineffectively, for he will notbe thought to speak sincerely; if he did, his ethos orcharacter would appear.” —Quintilian (Institutes of Oratory, VI.ii.18)

vir bonus

“Persuasion is achieved by the speaker’spersonal character when the speech is sospoken as to make us think him credible.…This kind of persuasion, like the others,should be achieved by what the speakersays, not by what people think of thischaracter before he begins to speak.” —Aristotle (Rhetoric,1356a)

Aristotle “directs our attention away from anunderstanding of ethos as a person’s well-lived existence and toward an understandingof ethos as an artistic accomplishment.” —Michael J. Hyde

textual element

“The most concrete meaning given for theterm in the Greek lexicon is ‘a habitualgathering place,’ and I suspect that it isupon this image of people gatheringtogether in a public place, sharingexperiences and ideas, that its meaning ascharacter rests. To have ethos is to manifestthe virtues most valued by the culture to andfor which one speaks.” —S. Michael Halloran

gathering place

‣ “It’s like the core members of the debate team getting together after a meet in a bar somewhere to hash out what they did well, what they did poorly, why they responded in a particular manner, and to accuse their teammates of unsportsmanlike conduct at the event.”‣ “MetaTalk is the place where you can walk around without your pants.”‣ “Its the police blotter of the site.”‣ “It’s almost like the lunch table at work. People aren’t fully removed from the business of things, but they are a bit less inhibited.”‣ “MetaTalk is kind of like the back alley behind the bar, where people go after the bouncers tell them to take it outside. It’s much dirtier and more personal.”‣ “...sort of a gathering place.”

User participation in each of MetaFilter’s three main sections for 200916,000 14,86114,000 12,21912,00010,000 9,337 9,019 8,5008,0006,000 3,9064,000 2,2952,000 813 0 All Sections Combined MetaFilter Ask MetaFilter MetaTalk Dark columns indicate users making at least one comment. Light columns indicate users making at least one post.

MetaTalk posts by category for 2009 MeFi Podcast: 18 Bugs: 110 (1.22%) (7.47%) MetaFilter Gatherings: 324 Feature Requests: (22%) 177 (12.02%) Etiquette/Policy: 269 (18.26%)MetaFilter-related: 568 Uptime: 7 (38.56%) (1.22%)

Average number of comments per post for each MetaTalk category180 160.10160140120100 87.71 83.5580 71.5860 51.33 45.4840 26.4520 0 Bugs Feature Etiquette/ Uptime MetaFilter- MetaFilter MeFi Podcast Requests Policy related Gatherings Average number of comments per post across all MetaTalk categories: 83.04

Average length of MetaTalk comments for each MetaTalk category450 410.22400 339.08350 302.54300 253.34250 223.89 190.73 198.7820015010050 0 Bugs Feature Etiquette/ Uptime MetaFilter- MetaFilter MeFi Podcast Requests Policy related Gatherings Average length of all MetaTalk comments: 328.9

Number of comments per user for all users who made more than 100 MetaTalk comments 3500 3000 2500 2000 1500 1000 500 0

Number of comments made by moderators in each of MetaFilter’s three main sections3500 3,02430002500 2,0322000 1,52015001000 888 598 554 420 500 216 234 237 116 84 132 6 8 0 mathowie jessamyn cortex pb vacapinta MetaFilter Ask MetaFilter MetaTalk

4four paradoxes

Ethos resides in thetext—except when it doesn’t.

Collective ethos isthe work of a few.

The best dictators have no rules.

Serious communities are powered by silliness.

“Virtual communities are social aggregationsthat emerge from the [Internet] when enoughpeople carry on those public discussionslong enough, with sufﬁcient human feeling,to form webs of personal relationships incyberspace.” —Howard Rheingold, The Virtual Community

The Rhetoric of TrustPerceptions of Identity and Credibilityin an Online Community Questions? Comments? quinnwarnick@gmail.com | quinnwarnick.com | @warnick

The Rhetoric of Trust: Perceptions of Identity and Credibility in an Online Community

by Quinn Warnick on Nov 18, 2011

Accessibility

Categories

Tags

Upload Details

Usage Rights

Statistics

The Rhetoric of Trust: Perceptions of Identity and Credibility in an Online Community — Presentation Transcript