Digital Oratory as Discursive Practice: From the Podium to the Screen 3031189833, 9783031189838

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POSTDISCIPLINARY STUDIES IN DISCOURSE SERIES EDITOR: JOHANNES ANGERMULLER

Digital Oratory as Discursive Practice From the Podium to the Screen Fiona Rossette-Crake

Postdisciplinary Studies in Discourse

Series Editor Johannes Angermuller School of Languages and Applied Linguistics The Open University Milton Keynes, UK

Postdisciplinary Studies in Discourse engages in the exchange between discourse theory and analysis while putting emphasis on the intellectual challenges in discourse research. Moving beyond disciplinary divisions in today’s social sciences, the contributions deal with critical issues at the intersections between language and society. Edited by Johannes Angermuller together with members of DiscourseNet, the series welcomes high-quality manuscripts in discourse research from all disciplinary and geographical backgrounds. DiscourseNet is an international and interdisciplinary network of researchers which is open to discourse analysts and theorists from all backgrounds. Editorial board Cristina Arancibia Aurora Fragonara Péter Furkó Jens Maesse Eduardo Chávez Herrera Benno Herzog Michael Kranert Jan Krasni Yannik Porsché Luciana Radut-Gaghi Jan Zienkowski

Fiona Rossette-Crake

Digital Oratory as Discursive Practice From the Podium to the Screen

Fiona Rossette-Crake Department of Applied Languages Université Paris Nanterre Nanterre, France

ISSN 2946-5990     ISSN 2946-6008 (electronic) Postdisciplinary Studies in Discourse ISBN 978-3-031-18983-8    ISBN 978-3-031-18984-5 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18984-5 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

For Francesca and Giulia, who have helped me grasp so many new aspects of the digital medium, and have taught me so much more besides

Contents

1 Approaching  Oratory in the Twenty-­First Century  1 1.1 From Podium to Screen: An Overview   1 A Renewal of Formats and a Public Speaking Revival    1 Some Examples of Contemporary Public Speaking Practices  10 On the Heterogeneous Nature of the Object of the Present Study  18 1.2 A Discourse Analytical Perspective  22 Literature Review  22 Research Questions and Organisation of This Book   31 References 34 2 Oratory  as Communication Setup (I): Definitions 41 2.1 “Speech,” “Public Speaking,” “Oratory,” “Digital Oratory” 41 “Podium Talk,” Speech, Public Speaking, Oratory   42 Oratory in the Electronic and Digital Eras   47 2.2 The Specificity of Oratory Compared to Dialogic Speech 54 Oratory as “Spoken Monologic” Discourse   54 vii

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Oratory and the Asymmetrical Speaker-Addressee Relation  59 References 64 3 Oratory  as Communication Setup (II): Towards a Typology That Incorporates Technological Mediation 67 3.1 When Oratory Combines with Electronic and Digital Media 67 New Setups and New Frameworks of Categorisation   67 The “Filter” Effect: Challenges Posed by Digital Communication  73 3.2 Participant Frameworks  81 Composite Audiences  81 Remote Speakers  87 Feedback and the Complexity of Social Media   88 3.3 Summary: Oratory as Communication Setup  92 Oratory as Communication Setup   92 Main Categories of Oratory Distinguished Here   93 References 97 4 Oratory  as Rhetorical Practice: The Renewal of Memoria and Actio103 4.1 Oratory Minus the Lectern: The Move to a More Embodied Rhetoric 103 4.2 Mode of Production … and Memoria106 Modelling Memoria: Different Modes of Production  106 Actio: The Body on the Stage—And Off  116 References122 5 M  ultimodality and Technology125 5.1 The Slideshow 125 The Slideshow as a Multimodal Resource  125 Negotiating More Complex Temporal and Spatial Thresholds 130

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5.2 Other Technological, Multimodal Resources 132 An Ambiguous Relationship with Technology  132 Multiple Screens and the Projection of the Image of the Speaker  133 Immersive Experiences and Holograms  139 Use of “Captions” in Social Media Oratory  143 5.3 Filming 145 The New Oratory  146 Fully Digitalised and Social Media Oratory, and the Contraction of Social Space  147 References150 6 Oratory  as Social Practice (I): Discursive Genre, Culture, and Power153 6.1 Oratory and the Question of Discursive Genre 153 Genre and the Heritage of Classical Rhetoric  153 A Discourse-Analysis Framework for Modelling Genre  158 6.2 Culture, Power, and Diversity (Or Lack of It) 171 Oratory and Culture  171 Power and Diversity  175 References182 7 Oratory  as Social Practice (II): Presentation of the Self in a Digital, Neoliberal Age187 7.1 Promotion and Exaltation of the Self 187 The New Economy and Reputation  187 The New Work Order and the Self as Enterprise  189 Digital Oratory and Corporate and Personal Branding  191 7.2 The Collapse of the Public/Private Divide 193 “Public” Speaking Gone “Private”?  193 Speaking from the Backstage  196 7.3 Digital Oratory and Other Economic Stakes 202 An Economics of Attention … And Speed  202 “Showledge” 205 References207

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8 Ethos,  or the Discursive Enactment of the Presentation of the Self211 8.1 The Weight of Discursive Ethos—And “Interdiscursive Ethos” 211 8.2 The Generic Ethos of the Digital Speaker 215 8.3 Argument by Personal Example, and Storytelling 224 References233 9 The  Move from Rhetorical to Dialogic Staging237 9.1 Rhetorical Staging 238 A “Superspeaker” and a “Superaddressee”  238 The Gettysburg Address and the Staging of the Signifier 241 Rhetorical Staging and Oratory Today  243 9.2 Dialogic Staging 246 The Example of Two Instagram Posts  246 A Renegotiation of the One-to-Many Relation  248 Staging an Interaction  249 Linguistic Markers of Dialogic Staging  251 References256 10 TED  Talks: A Case Study259 10.1 Branding 260 The Intensive Formatting That Underscores the TED Brand  260 The Self-branding of Speakers  262 The Speaker: From Scientist to Guru  264 10.2 Two TED Talks, a Decade Apart 265 10.3 Showledge and Empowerment: TED Under the Critical Lens 271 Showledge and Form Versus Science and Substance  271 Change as a Discursive Construct  273 10.4 TED Talks Through the COVID-19 Pandemic 276 References281

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11 Enacting  Oratory on Social Media283 11.1 Numerous Orators, Numerous Enclosing Scenes 284 Media and Corporate Enclosing Scenes  286 Other Professional Enclosing Scenes  290 11.2 Social Media Oratory and the Political Enclosing Scene299 Social Media as an Alternative to Podium Oratory  299 Volodymyr Zelensky, or a War Waged Via Social Media Oratory  301 References315 I ndex317

About the Author

Fiona  Rossette-Crake is a professor in the Department of Applied Languages at Université Paris Nanterre, France. Her research explores specialised communication, particularly new forms of public speaking. She has previously written Public Speaking and the New Oratory: A Guide for Non-native Speakers (Palgrave Macmillan) and COVID-19, Communication and Culture: Beyond the Global Workplace (co-edited), and is the author of numerous journal articles.

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List of Figures

Fig. 3.1 Modes of communication according to the cline of spatial or interpersonal distance (adapted from Eggins, 2004, p. 91) Fig. 3.2 Participation framework in YouTube interaction (adapted from Dynel, 2014) Fig. 3.3 Oratory as communication setup

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1 Approaching Oratory in the Twenty-­First Century

1.1 From Podium to Screen: An Overview A Renewal of Formats and a Public Speaking Revival At the time of writing this introductory chapter, among the many notifications I received on my Instagram feed, there was one specific publication that particularly caught my attention. The then British Prime Minister Boris Johnson had just published a “selfie video” (a video that he had filmed himself using his mobile phone), recorded on his flight to Munich to attend international talks, in the week preceding the beginning of the war between Russia and Ukraine.1 The 34-second video conforms to the format of a “short” (short videos posted to social media):  Post on Instagram account “borisjohnsonuk,” Feb. 19, 2022, https://www.instagram.com/tv/ CaJ0t6SAqQU/ [accessed 19.2.22]. This account is distinct from the account “10downingstreet,” the official account of the British prime minister. A number of videos (and other types of content) are posted simultaneously to both accounts, including selfie videos, but not this selfie video. 1

I thank Cornelius Crowley for reading parts of this manuscript, and for his input, insightful as always. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 F. Rossette-Crake, Digital Oratory as Discursive Practice, Postdisciplinary Studies in Discourse, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18984-5_1

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it is filmed from a very close angle, Boris Johnson’s face takes up most of the screen, and behind him, we can make out elements of the aircraft cabin. The tight framing, the noise of the plane in the background, and the instability of the camera create a sense of urgency. As Boris Johnson speaks, the text of what he says appears in caption form at the bottom of the screen, allowing his audience, in conformity with trends in social media usage, to follow, if they so wish, the video without activating the sound. The post allows the Prime Minister to address a direct message to potentially any user of Instagram, but his aim is most likely to project to the British people the image of a national leader who plays an active role in attempting to resolve an international crisis.2 In the video, he explains the purpose of his trip to the Munich Security Conference, which is also made explicit in the video’s paratext. The paratext is posted at the top of the comments column, to the right of the screen, and also serves to tag the post to the conference (“The message I am taking to @munsecconf today is that allies must speak with one voice to stress to President Putin the high price he will pay for any further Russian invasion of Ukraine […]”). The video triggers, moreover, a number of comments, from encouraging and empathic (e.g. “Good luck with your meeting”; “Boris …. You look so tired mate …. Have a rest”), to critical (e.g. “Nobody trusts your [sic] the man for the job”). Less than one week later, the evening after Russia launched its military offensive, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky posted to social media his first, now world-famous, selfie video, the first of many such videos, and the first of many formats of digital public address in which he engaged over the following months, in order to harness international support and defend his country in the context of war. While commentators around the world focused on the way Zelensky revolutionised political communication—which is indeed true at a number of levels—it can be underlined that he was not the first national leader to film and post selfie videos.

 According to a subtext of this video (the sound of engines of a small British plane flying over Central Europe, dangerous missions in central Europe, etc.), some would say that Johnson styles himself here as heir to the Churchillian mantle. 2

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A decade earlier, and even up until several years ago, it would have been difficult to predict the speed at which the digital medium has transformed communication practice. By this I refer to spoken communication, notably that performed by politicians and other public figures. The selfie videos by Boris Johnson and Volodymyr Zelensky are far removed from the formal staging and style of delivery that have traditionally been adopted by politicians and world leaders when they take the floor—that described 40 years ago by Peggy Noonan, speech-writer to U.S. President Ronald Reagan, who spoke of the proverbial “man [sic] on a bare stage”: A speech is a soliloquy, one man on a bare stage with a big spotlight. […] A speech is part theatre and part political declaration; it is personal communication between a leader and his people; it is art […] A speech is poetry: cadence, rhythm, imagery, sweep! (Quoted in MacArthur, 1996, p. xiii)

When Zelenksy and Johnson speak in their selfie videos, there is literally no “floor” or “podium” (albeit that of the silent streets of Kiev, or that of an aircraft cabin). The speaking floor is a metaphorical one. And when Johnson begins his video with “Good morning, folks,” his discourse hardly qualifies as “soliloquy.” At the same time, however, the videos are not without certain elements mentioned by Noonan, such as “theatre,” “imagery,” and even “sweep” (i.e. movement, action). The selfie videos raise a number of questions. First of all, do they qualify as “oratory” or “public address”? “Oratory,” “public address” and “public speaking” are terms that no longer necessarily go without saying. While they are treated as quasi-synonyms here, preference has been given, as indicated in the title of this book, to the term “oratory,” notably because it engenders an explicit link with a recognised practice and a field of scholarship which both date back to ancient times. It thus create an explicit link between digital and pre-digital formats. The reality to which it refers—that is, spoken discourse which is monologic (produced by one speaker, as opposed to dialogue), and which corresponds to formal, presentation mode—has taken many forms over the centuries, from the speeches given in the Athenian agora, to the political addresses of modern times; from sermons, eulogies, and toasts to digitally mediated keynote

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addresses, 3MT presentations, and TED talks. And, if we choose to go so far, in its most recent formats, it extends to practices such as the above-­ quoted selfie videos, as well as to a considerable portion of the video content that is uploaded to the Internet and thus disseminated digitally, including content posted to social networks (YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, etc.). As a broad category that encompasses all of these various instances, oratory provides an opportune door into the study of discourse as social practice. Inscribed at the heart of social action, it plays a key role in informing multiple and wide-ranging sectors of activity (e.g. political, corporate, academic, social). It hence offers an almost textbook-perfect illustration of the intrinsic interplay between discourse and social context, as well as that which articulates linguistic and rhetorical choices, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, communication setup and medium. And speech-giving affords a relatively unexplored object of study by which to further our understanding of the “digital turn” and the tremendous impact it has had on the way we communicate, advocate for a cause and, more generally, the way we forge our identities, assess our self-worth and live our lives. As the digital medium has become an “ambient condition” encompassing almost all aspects of our everyday lives (Boyle et al., 2018), so too has the technologised delivery of content long become a presupposed part of studies within the fields of communication and rhetoric—to the extent that “[a]t this point, announcing the inter-imbrication of technology and rhetoricity seems almost a truism in our field” (Rhodes & Alexander, 2014, p.  30). In the case of public address, the new technologies are “remediating” conventional modes and giving rise to new genres, in a context where oral communication is “returning to the centre of public life” (Kennerly & Smith Pfister, 2018): Even public speech—for millennia the mode that separated public address from all the other fixed, more stable forms of writing and visual imagery— is no longer beyond the realm of the digital. Speeches are recorded; sliced and diced and mixed; uploaded to Facebook and YouTube; streamed in chunks or snippets on news sites and blogs; and bounced on waves via broadcasts or satellites. (Gurak & Antonijevic, 2009, p. 497)

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Since the advent of online video and the subsequent streaming services in the wake of the birth of Web 2.0, speakers have been offered an ever-­ expanding number of opportunities to take to the screen—that is, to the metaphorical, dematerialised “digital floor.” The digital floor constitutes a new space whereby the articulation between speaker and audience is no longer materialised by the physical stage or podium but by a screen. According to this alternative articulation, the speaker-addressee relation is informed by participatory culture and the social impetus that define Web 2.0. These have set in motion a new “digital eloquence”—that of the “digital speaker,”3 who practises “digital oratory” (Lind, 2012; Jaffe, 2016), or “New Oratory” (Rossette-Crake, 2019)—of which many examples, such as Steve Jobs’ keynote presentations, pre-date the emblematic selfie videos, which therefore need to be considered as part of a far wider trend. The phenomenon has been accelerated by the growing preference on social media for content that is video-based, as observed for instance in marketing research.4 And it has also been accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which saw online video come into its own (Jones & Hafner, 2021), as well as the generalisation of “online events.” Digital speakers are being viewed by a global, exponentially increasing audience, and this is amplifying the “public” dimension of public address. At the same time, these new possibilities have contributed to a “cultural revolution” and “a renewed confidence in the spoken word” (Atkinson, 2004, p. 369), or a “talk renaissance” (Anderson, 2016), according to the head of TED talks, which have for instance “somehow made the idea of simply talking to a crowd seem hip. Indeed the act of going to see someone stand up and speak at length about something cerebral is now more popular than it’s ever been.”5 Such a revival is a global phenomenon, and is noted by media from around the world. For instance, a 2018 headline  A. Hickman, “Conference Speakers and the Digital Revolution,” April 19, 2017, https://www.jla. co.uk/conference-speakers-digital-revolution/#.XFvzCc17lPb 4  In 2022, 54% of social media users expressed the wish to see more video content, according to market research that also highlights the way mainstream media are adapting to the change: for instance, Newsweek moved more resources from written to video-based content. Source: M. An, “Content Trends: Preferences emerge along generational fault lines,” originally published Nov. 6, 2017, updated May 06, 2022, https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/content-trends-preferences 5  A. Hickman, cited supra. 3

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in a French weekly announced “The comeback of oratory.”6 Within rhetorical studies, Kennerly and Smith Pfister (2018) refer to an “oratory boom,” whereby the activity of public address has been transformed into an object around which further transactional and communication practices (e.g. sharing, comments) are based: Despite the early concern that the advent of digital mediation portended further marginalisation of public address, digital media technologies appear at least partially responsible for an oratory boom. Millions of people around the world tune in to livestreams of speeches, watch archived versions of speeches on video sharing sites, embed and share speeches through digital social networks, remix and mash-up speeches, and even annotate speeches with their own commentary. (Kennerly & Smith Pfister, 2018, p. 4)

The status posited for “public speech” as the last bastion to undergo digital transformation may explain the relatively small amount of scholarly attention it has received. For Gurak and Antonijevic (2009, p. 505), “we have 100 years or more of literature of public address and discourse, but we have little research on public discourse in digital settings.” A similar remark is made by Losh (2009, pp. 63–64), who argues for the application within digital contexts of “classical rhetoric that focuses on public oratory, the appearance and projection of the speaker, and delivery in indoor or outdoor spaces,” and notes that such a study “may be remarkably relevant.” Rather surprisingly, little has changed in the decade since these calls were launched. While digital communication is the focus of attention within many disciplinary fields, there has been relatively little work on digitalised speech. One of the purposes of this book is to provide a description of some of the multiple formats of public address that we now encounter—and/or practise ourselves—, and analyse their specific functions. The aim is to move beyond typical categorisations presented in

 L. Rezzoug, “Retour en force de l’art oratoire,” L’Express (French weekly), Feb. 5, 2018.

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public speaking manuals, which to date do not seem to have taken account of the move to the digital medium.7 * * * Significantly, the digitally driven revival of public speaking practice is closely associated with “Generation Z,” the generation born as of 1997, as underlined by an article published in The Guardian in 2018: From podcasts and vlogs to pop-up feminist salon nights where anyone can take the mike, Generation Z is developing new ways to speak, debate, argue and raise professional profiles.8

According to one blog, titled “How public speaking has changed due to digital and social media,” social platforms “help to bring ideas to global audiences and encourage participation”; this results in not only “a competitive atmosphere for streamed public speaking,” but also its democratisation, in that now, “everyone has a voice.”9 Indeed, because of the new digital formats, public speaking is no longer limited to public figures. More and more individuals are laying claim to a public voice. This applies particularly to members of the younger generations—as echoed by teenage actress-turned-United Nations spokesperson Millie Bobby Brown, during a speech that she gave in front of the United Nations in her capacity as youth ambassador: “today, young people don’t want to be talked about. We want to do the talking.”10 And, significantly, a public voice is no longer reserved for the proverbial “man” on the bare stage that reflected the reality of the time of Peggy Noonan. Digital forms of public speaking  For instance, one of the most widely used manuals in U.S. tertiary programs, The Art of Public Speaking, by Stephan Lucas, of which the 13th edition was published in 2022, remains based on the (traditional) categorisation of speeches into “informative,” “persuasive,” and “speeches for special occasions”. 8  G. Hinsliff, “How to be heard: the art of public speaking,” Oct. 21, 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/oct/21/art-of-speaking-up-for-yourself 9  A.  Winstead, “How digital public speaking has changed due to social media,” Aug. 13, 2021, https://speakerhubhq.medium.com/how-digital-public-speaking-has-changed-due-tosocial-media-9fb94ef3ef89 10   Available on United Nations YouTube channel at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v= pErOmCSx8pU [accessed 23.01.2022]. 7

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are arguably playing a key role in granting access to a public voice to female speakers who otherwise might have been forced to remain silent. If a more diverse range of social actors are “doing the talking,” they do so notably as a form of action and participation in public debate. The digital medium is a new “public space for building resistance” (Araüna et  al., 2021). It is a resource that informs “digital citizenship” (Third et al., 2019) and “digital activism,”11 as exemplified for instance by the strong hold of YouTube videos in the areas of civic engagement, grassroots activism, and participatory culture (Androutsopoulos & Tereick, 2016). Instead of “rage against the machine,” it is now “rage through the machine.” Digital activism enacted through video content is the object of growing scholarship (e.g. George & Leidner, 2019; Tortajada et al., 2021; Harding & Day, 2021). In the case of social media, a mutation occurred with the COVID-19 pandemic, according to another article from The Guardian, titled “The ‘green influencers’ targeting the TikTok generation.” The article quotes British YouTuber and climate activist Jack Harries, who argues that “[s]ocial media platforms are no longer just for selfies and blogs but a place ‘to organise and educate’ people about the climate crisis.”12 An important question, of course, concerns the effect of such talk and the long-term impact of this new agora of public voices. Like much digital communication, digital activism has its critics, who notably qualify it as “clicktivism” or “slacktivism” (George & Leidner, 2019). Such criticism may be compounded when activism takes the form of digitalised speech as opposed to writing, with the former providing a contemporary version of the “theatrical hysteria” that Roland Barthes ascribed to the spoken word and contrasted with the stability and reliability of the written word.13 * * *  For instance, the term “digital activism” yielded 176,000,000 search results on Google (conducted 25.01.2022). 12   T.  Conlan, June 15 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jun/15/ the-green-influencers-targeting-the-tiktok-generation 13  “As far as I am concerned, I much prefer writing to speaking. Speech bothers me because I am afraid of its theatre: I am afraid of being too theatrical when I speak, I am afraid of what is called hysteria,” R. Barthes, Œuvres complètes, vol. III, Paris: Seuil 1995, p. 355 (my translation). 11

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Whatever their long-term social impact when they espouse an agenda of activism, these digital formats mark a move away from the (traditional) podium, and are changing the practice of deliberative rhetoric, and public address more generally. “Public” voices are inclining more and more towards the “social.” Rather than “just ‘public’ speaking,” we are now dealing with a form of “active dialogue”—one that results in a “global discussion,” according to the blog quoted above: [O]ne of the ways that it [social media] has had the greatest impact is in supporting a true open discourse. While with other forms of media, public speaking has been, primarily, a one-sided affair, social media makes it much more of an active global discussion.14 (My emphasis)

Indeed, social media (and Web 2.0 more generally) constitute a “hyper-­ discursive” public space that is based on a “culture in which these videos are seen and shared, where themes fade in and out of popularity, and consumers take up popular subjects to remake them” (Maddox & Creech, 2020, p.  2). This space transforms political debate and argument into “affective statements that mix fact with opinion, and with emotion, in a manner that simulates the way that we politically react” (Papacharissi, 2015, p. 27). In turn, non-digital podium oratory is also undergoing transformation. Its function and values are being redistributed due to the new digital speaking formats, according to a well-established mechanism by which each new trend triggers a counter-trend designed to compensate it, “as if the medium was one step ahead of users” (Debray, 2004, p.  283). In contrast to the online formats, face-to-face public address is being invested with new values. As noted by one actor within the public speaking industry,15 the digital revolution could have posed a potential threat to the “speaker industry”: due to the fact that people have access to everything in a click, why would they still be willing to travel to live events? However, face-to-face oratory is providing “necessary” and “unfiltered moments” of “bonding”: 14 15

 A. Winstead, cited supra.  A. Hickman, cited supra.

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In a world where we experience so many of our interactions via the tablet/ smartphone and social media feed, a need for something “real” and tangible has developed. […] We have become so removed from reality, that those occasions when we do sit in a room with hundreds or thousands of others watching a speaker have become all the more powerful, potent and necessary. We think we are in a more socially connected world, able to “share” every nugget of interest we stumble upon online, yet this is no substitute for the atmosphere and sense of bonding that comes with a funny, poignant, insightful or (crucially) unfiltered moment at a crowded live performance.16 (Original emphasis)

This remark, which predates the COVID-19 pandemic and its lockdowns and measures of social distancing, rings perhaps even more true after the weariness and difficulties encountered by the imposed switch to online communication for remote events and remote work (see for instance Koester, 2022).

 ome Examples of Contemporary Public Speaking S Practices To grasp the extent of the variety of practices with which this book is concerned, as well as the issues that are at stake, let us review a handful of specific instances of public speaking that are drawn from the contemporary context. These examples will be analysed in detail in different sections of this book. For sake of comparison, they all advocate for causes that are particularly occupying the public debate as we move towards the end of the first quarter of the new century. They have been grouped into four categories (defined in detail in Chap. 3).

“Social Media Oratory” • Example 1: TikToker Charli D’Amelio speaks about the Black Lives Matter movement, video posted to TikTok, June 30, 202017  Ibid.   Also available on YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/CcH_RUrFAwc [accessed 11.02.2022] 16 17

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Charli D’Amelio is described as “TikTok’s biggest star,” having been the first person on the TikTok application to reach 50 million followers, and then 100 million.18 Unlike the speakers in the other examples presented in this chapter, D’Amelio is a social actor who does not belong to a specific professional sector (political, academic); rather, she is an iconic example of a social media influencer, having gained fame (together with revenue, influence status and a public voice) directly due to her activities on social media. Her account, like all accounts quoted in this book, is a “public” as opposed to a “private” account: in other words, access is not restricted to a private circle of people whose “invitation” needs to be accepted; rather, any user can subscribe (“follow”) and/or view the content. D’Amelio was 16  years old when she posted this short video of under one minute in duration, a little more than one year after she began posting TikTok videos. The video is tagged with the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter.19 Like all content posted to social media, the technology provides the possibility to like, comment, and so on, and by 2022, this video had received 19.7 million “likes.” The content of the video contrasts with what we generally associate with the TikTok format, including D’Amelio’s iconic dance videos. The video, produced by a member of the young generation who clearly “wants to do the talking,” is embedded within the emblematic context of the TikTok ecosystem, and has been posted to an account that is constituted mainly of music and dance videos. But in this specific video, there is no music, no dancing, in fact no body movement at all. The unique point of focus is the speaker’s face as she speaks (with none of the characteristic TikTok lip syncing). The video is a selfie video, framed vertically and from a close angle. The speaker’s face fills up the entire screen, as well as her neck (we catch a glimpse of the casual sports top she is wearing). And unlike many of her other videos, in this post, Charli D’Amelio wears no makeup, has her hair tied back, and fosters a particularly natural, informal look.  T.M. Andrews, “Charli D’Amelio is TikTok’s biggest star. She has no idea why,” May 26, 2020, The Washington Post. 19  D’Amelio’s video contributed to the public debate that followed the death of George Floyd in 2020. However, the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter corresponds to a much wider movement that began in 2013 (Anderson et al., 2018). 18

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Another striking feature is that the text that underscores the spoken discourse cannot be compared with that of typical casual speech. In fact, despite the informality of the format, it could be mistaken for the script of a speech delivered in a more formal setting, such as from a podium, according to the tone set as of its opening lines: As a person who has been given the platform to be an influencer, I’ve realised that with that title, I have a job to inform people of the racial inequalities in the world right now. How come when it comes to the colour of a person’s skin they are treated differently? A man was killed, his life was ended. “Don’t kill me” George Floyd says as his last words.20

These lines include several elements that are typical of the discourse of oratory, such as a rhetorical question (“How come when it comes to the colour of a person’s skin they are treated differently?”), syntactic parallelism (“A man was killed, his life was ended”) and the staging of direct speech (in the present tense). The effect is polished and professional, and is enhanced by a relatively slow pace of delivery. • Example 2: Michelle Obama speaks about education for girls in a video posted to her Instagram account, June 3, 202121 The account of Michelle Obama is the highest-ranking account of a political figure on Instagram, and is located in 85th position in terms of the number of subscribers (behind accounts representing actors, pop stars, football players and football clubs, a corporate group (Marvel) and a government institution (Nasa)).22 Like most accounts, the format and the content of her posts vary, from visuals, to short videos (called “reels” on Instagram) and longer videos. Some are light in tone and play on  Text transcribed from the video, which does not include subtitles.  Post on Instagram account “michelleobama,” June 3, 2021, available at: https://www.instagram. com/tv/CPqwUqeARU9/ [accessed 13.01.2022]. 22   According to the ranking at https://socialbook.io/instagram-channel-rank/top-100-­ instagrammers [accessed 18.02.2022]. Michelle Obama’s Instagram account has 48.7 million followers, well in front of her husband and former U.S. President Barack Obama, who has 35.3 million followers. For sake of comparison, Boris Johnson’s Instagram account has 1.8 million, Volodymyr Zelensky 17 million (according to numbers in June 2022). 20 21

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humour, others are more serious, but most serve to defend the causes for which Michelle Obama works. In this particular video, she makes a 90-second address about girls’ education. Unlike the previous example, this is not a selfie video. Michelle Obama appears in a medium shot that takes in her upper body; she is sitting on a sofa, possibly in her home, and a number of domestic elements can be seen (curtains, sofa cushions, a side table with a photo in a frame). The discourse could be mistaken for an excerpt from a traditional political speech delivered from a podium, with the exception of the casual opening (“Hello everyone”). Pace of delivery is relatively slow. The speaker ends with the following call to action: We believe that the millions of girls around the world who aren’t in school today can make a profound difference for their families, their communities, and our entire world, but only if they have the opportunity, and the education, to do it. So I’m asking everyone, in every corner of the globe, to come together and support this issue. Join us, and raise your hand for girls’ education. Because the future of our world truly is as bright as our girls.

“New Oratory” • Example 3: Kotchakorn Voraakhom, urban landscape architect, delivers a TED talk titled “How to transform sinking cities into landscapes that fight floods” at the TEDWomen conference, November 201823 TED talks belong to the “New Oratory” (Rossette-Crake, 2019), a category that brings together public speaking formats which developed in the first years of online video, and depend upon a characteristic two-tier audience setup: they are delivered face-to-face, in front of a physically present audience, but are also filmed and uploaded to the Internet. In addition, they share a number of features which have transformed public speaking practice. For instance, there is no podium, the speaker stands with his/her body in full view of the audience, and this is rendered in the  https://www.ted.com/talks/kotchakorn_voraakhom_how_to_transform_sinking_cities_into_ landscapes_that_fight_floods (1.9 million views by February 10, 2022) [accessed 10.02.2022]. 23

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video of the live delivery that is based on sophisticated editing that mixes close, middle and long shots. TED talks are showcased on the TED website and can also be accessed directly via YouTube. This speech was delivered at an official TED conference and is linked to the issue of climate change. The speaker speaks in her capacity as “urban architect” but also, it can be argued, in a personal capacity, which is construed within the speech itself, notably via personal storytelling. For instance, at minute 2 of her speech, the speaker, who grew up in Bangkok, recounts a childhood experience which she considers a determining factor in her future choice of career: There is no coincidence that I am here as a landscape architect. As a child, I grew up in a row house next to the busy road always filled with traffic. In front of my house, there was a concrete parking lot, and that was my playground. The only living creature I would find, and had fun with, were these sneaky little plants trying to grow through the crack of the concrete pavement. My favourite game with friends was to dig a bigger and bigger hole through this crack to let this little plant creep out, sneak out, more and more. And yes, landscape architecture gives me the opportunity to continue my cracking ambition.

The speaker wears a traditional blouse that serves as a visual reminder of her origin and contributes to the staging of the personal storytelling. Humour is introduced due to the play-on-words (“cracking”) at the end of the extract. The tone is serious but also allows for informality.

“Fully Digitalised Oratory” • Example 4: Sophie Howe, Future Generations Commissioner for Wales, delivers an online TED talk titled “Lessons on leaving the world better than you found it” at the online TED “Countdown” conference, November 202024

 https://www.ted.com/talks/sophie_howe_lessons_on_leaving_the_world_better_than_you_ found_it?referrer=playlist-countdown_session_1_urgency [accessed 03.02.2022]. 24

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During the COVID-19 pandemic, New Oratory formats, which characteristically integrated face-to-face delivery within an online setup, were forced to move their events to a fully digitalised format. Foregoing the live audience coincided with changes at many levels (e.g. scenography, dress code, linguistic choices). In terms of staging for instance, the speaker’s body is rarely in full view; instead, only the speaker’s face, and at most the top half of his/her body, appear before the camera. TED organised a number of fully digitalised events during the pandemic, including the first of this “Countdown” series devoted to the issue of climate change. The conference is made up of previously recorded performances which were streamed on a specific day. The speaker of this talk holds an official position in Wales (and holds a title that takes the form of a neologism). TED’s characteristic personal storytelling carries over into the new format (cf. “And so as a mum of five and the world’s only future generations commissioner, I want to share with you today some of the lessons we’ve learned about how we’re trying to leave the world better than we found it”). However, choices in staging contrast with TED talks pre-pandemic: the speaker is visibly speaking from her home. She is filmed frontally, and is filmed from close and middle angles. A sense of performance is construed by the fact that she is standing, and that she gestures with both hands throughout the speech. Such a format, which results from the compulsory adoption of a fully digital setup, reminds us of the “talking heads” configuration typical of the era of television.

Contemporary “Podium, Lectern Oratory” • Example 5: United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres addresses world leaders at the opening ceremony of the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland, November 1, 202125 Antonio Guterres is the second leader to speak during the COP26 opening ceremony. He speaks for nine minutes during the ceremony that runs  This speech can be viewed as of minute 45 in the following video: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=oofxDQQKE7M&t=2636s [accessed 01.02.2022]. 25

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for a total of one hour and 20 minutes. Delivery is face-to-face, in front of an audience that is notably made up of world leaders, ambassadors, and royalty. The speaker draws his legitimacy from his status as elected leader of a world-recognised institution. The United Nations logo appears behind him, as well as the British flag (flag of the host country of the conference). In a number of ways, this address resembles traditional public speaking practice. It exemplifies podium, lectern oratory: the speaker speaks from a podium, in an elevated position with respect to his audience (who are seated at a distance, no doubt partly due to the sanitary measures of the time). He stands behind a lectern, which bears the name of the conference, its logo and again the United Nations logo, and upon which are placed two microphones. The setup is overtly formal. Mr. Guterres is wearing a suit and tie. The speech opens via formal terms of address (“Your Royal Highnesses, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen”), is elaborately written and exploits a number of rhetorical figures (e.g. parallelism and anaphora). Delivery is declamatory and slow, with regular pausing. However, at the same time, this address cannot be dissociated from the contemporary digital context. Like the TED talk (Example 3), it does not only target the physically present audience, but is filmed, to be disseminated (in part) on subsequent television news bulletins, as well as livestreamed on the United Nations Climate YouTube channel. The YouTube video provides Internet viewers with the possibility to add a live comment in the chat box, or to post a comment later. A number of live comments are predominantly interpersonal (e.g. “Good speech, Boris”; “The arrogance of these people thinking they can Save the earth!!”), but also allow users to add their voice and engage in digital activism (e.g. “ride a bike”; “Forests are the source of life for living things [followed by three lines of emojis]”—a message re-posted at regular intervals by one user, to which another user responds with the comment “How many CO2 sending all those emojis hum [sic]?”). In addition, the speech delivered by Guterres is part of a sophisticated show. The ceremony includes not only speeches but other types of performances: for instance, it begins with the performance by a Scottish piper, and then a poetry reading. Music plays as each speaker walks up to the podium. Spotlights are used, together with six large screens (three placed

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either side of the stage) that project pre-recorded content during the ceremony and during certain speeches. For instance, these screens are used to project three pre-recorded addresses by climate activists from three different countries (Chili, Egypt, South Africa). These speakers, together with several other speakers who are physically present, contrast with the world leaders who are also part of the speaker line-up: the former are young in age, and literally embody grassroots activism, as announced by the voice-over (“bringing voices from earth into COP26”) when for instance the indigenous activists Brianna Fruean (from Samoa) and Txai Surui (from the Amazon) come to the stage in traditional costume. • Example 6: Activist and scholar Angela Davis addresses the Women’s March on Washington, in Washington D.C., January 21, 201726 Angela Davis was among a diverse line-up of more than 20 speakers (activists, political and religious figures, writers and actors) who addressed a crowd of reportedly 470,000 people, in what went down in history as the biggest single-day protest in the history of the United States. The event, organised the day after the inauguration of Donald Trump, has been compared with the 1963 civil rights rally whose name (“the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom”) it purposely mirrors. The 1963 rally is remembered notably because it was where Martin Luther King delivered his famous “I have a dream” speech, one of the most memorable examples of modern-day public address. In both cases, delivery is face-to-­ face, but unlike the COP26 speeches, the speech is performed outside, at a street rally. At both the 1963 and the 2017 rallies, speakers speak from a podium, surrounded by supporters, and stand behind a lectern, upon which rests a script from which some speakers visibly read. The speech of Angela Davis can be likened to that of Martin Luther King in its use of rhetorical figures (e.g. parallelism, metaphor), its declamatory delivery style (slow, with regular pausing), and its overall stirring effect, serving as a reminder within the contemporary context of the enduring power of podium, lectern oratory.  This speech can be viewed on the independent YouTube news channel “Democracy Now,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSGPGNJpaE0&t=236s [accessed 02.02.2022]. 26

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However, like the COP26 speeches, the address made by Angela Davis is also a product of the contemporary digital context. In addition to the twentieth-century technology exploited in the context of King’s speech (microphones, cameras), digital technology allows for livestreaming, this time not only on YouTube but also on Facebook and Twitter. Unlike King’s speech, which stands alone (at least in collective memory),  the speech by Davis, like that of Guterres, feature as part of a line-up of speakers (and other types of performances). It hence draws its legitimacy not only from the individual legitimacy of the speaker, but also from the fact that the speaker belongs to a wider group, a group that extends, moreover, beyond the podium and the event itself. Like COP26, Women’s March on Washington functioned as a flagship event for a global movement, which included 673 marches on seven different continents on the same day, and has been repeated every year since. The movement reportedly went viral on Facebook, exemplifying the globalised world brought together via social media platforms, participatory culture and collective action. In the run-up to January 2017, it was promoted via an official website, and continues to be so today (and much website content celebrates the decisive 2017 Washington march).27 Interestingly, in the soundbite most quoted from her speech, Davis makes a deprecatory reference to the ephemeral nature of the Internet— “We recognise that we are collective agents of history and that history cannot be deleted like web pages”—and hence indirectly contrasts pre-­ digital and digital practices of information-sharing and communication.

 n the Heterogeneous Nature of the Object O of the Present Study The above examples represent variations in communication practice that beg examination on a number of levels, from the status of the social actors they engage and the functions they fulfil, to their formatting, in terms of the way they are staged and the linguistic and multimodal choices they involve. Other key issues concern discursive genre, as well as the question  https://www.womensmarch.com/

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of the very general discursive category to which these examples possibly belong and which justifies bringing them together here. After all, can we really compare for instance an address made by a U.N. Secretary-General, or a speech by Martin Luther King, with the content of a video posted by a teenage TikToker? Up to this point, terms such as “speech,” “public address” or “oratory” have not necessarily been used for certain types of examples presented above. However, this book is based on the premise that it is indeed pertinent to bring them all together in association with such concepts, provided that the latter are redefined in the contemporary context (cf. Chap. 2). For instance, from both linguistic and discourse analysis perspectives, the six examples presented above share the following characteristics: 1. They are all instances of spoken monologue; 2. They all involve language which constitutes the unique social process within the context, as opposed to language that accompanies another social process—that is, they enact “language as reflection” (Eggins, 2004, p. 91). 3. Among the various social functions that they fulfil, they all set out to foster serious content and reflection, and qualify as valued social practice. In regard to the third point, it should be emphasised that this book is not concerned with all forms of digitalised speech that abound within online video, which make up an even more heterogeneous collection of formats and content, some serious and some less serious. These find themselves juxtaposed within the same ecosystem. The description provided by Hautea et al. (2021, p. 2) of the TikTok platform as “a complex social media ecosystem in which earnest activists compete with mocking satirists, playful attention-seekers, and bored time-killers for visibility and clout” can be extended to the digital realm more generally. Much social media video content is associated with leisure, entertainment, and light relief. Some of the most popular YouTubers and Instagrammers are gamers and makeup artists, and this book is not concerned a priori with their productions. Even though the distinction between “serious” and “less serious” or “light” is not clear-cut (e.g. humour can be used to help

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the promotion of a cause, particularly on social media), we are interested here in digital formats that are located at the “serious” end of the scale and allow social actors to take up a public voice on serious topics, in a similar way to what podium oratory did before the advent of digital technology—either because they “build resistance” as a form of political action or because they seek to inform, according to the modern-day concept of information-sharing (cf. Chap. 6).28 The heterogeneity, or “leap” represented by the comparison between examples like those presented above (e.g. face-to-face podium, lectern oratory, and online formats) testifies to the constantly evolving nature of communication practice, whereby new discursive formats or genres develop next to previously established ones. As the previously established ones compete with new media, we are forced to reassess the functions and status of the range of communication practices from which social actors can now choose (Jenkins, 2006, p. 14). The digital medium in particular is redistributing communication practices and their underpinning discourse communities. For instance, academics and other professionals have taken to digital oratory (e.g. TED talks) to share their knowledge and make a name for themselves. Similarly, politicians and world leaders are now present not only on the podium but also on social networks, whether it be to connect with their fellow citizens or to wage a communication campaign in times of war. And during her time as U.S.  First Lady, Michelle Obama performed numerous examples of podium, lectern oratory, but now her main speaking activities take place on the social networks. The Web is “a place in which new forms of genericity are at stake,” one that “transforms the conditions of communication”—notably the way we consider genre, with the result that the classical conception of discursive genre “cannot really be applied to Web productions” (Maingueneau, 2010, pp. 34, 39). However, among the burgeoning new communication practices that are being ushered in by the digital medium, some are establishing themselves as recurrent and recognisable formats, and are bearing  Conversely, this book will not deal specifically with two categories of oratory: religious oratory, and legal (forensic) oratory. Due to lack of space, examples of more traditional, podium oratory are limited to the political sphere, which notably bear the closest comparison with the digital examples under examination. 28

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up to the scrutiny of discourse analysts (e.g. science YouTube videos, makeup tutorials, stay-at-home mum vlogs (Riboni, 2020); “un-boxing” of merchandise by influencers (Attruia, 2021)). Interestingly, at one point of her study of YouTuber “monologues,” Riboni (2020) likens science YouTubers—and even makeup YouTubers—to lecturers and political orators: What makeup artists realise in front of their cameras are performances which have much in common with lectures or political speeches, although they are delivered adopting a conversational register. (Riboni, 2020, p. 121)

The author is interested in the way such speakers construct authority and “expert” status. Importantly, the “conversational register” she identifies in her corpus does not fully equate with the registers of the spoken discourse that underscore the social media content with which this book is concerned. Another reason for offering up for the sake of comparison both face-­ to-­face (e.g. podium) and online practices is that the latter are influencing the former, which are integrating certain norms that were first imposed online (e.g. the move towards concision, or more informality). But perhaps more importantly, the former no longer escape technological mediation in one form or another—as demonstrated in the discussion of the two examples of podium oratory above. In this day and age, whatever the speech-giving context, it is difficult to rule out the possibility that the speech will be filmed, uploaded (albeit surreptitiously) to the Internet (to public or private social accounts), commented upon, liked, tweeted, and so on. If the examples from social media are particularly emblematic of “native digital discourse” in which “technolinguistic forms are co-­ constructed via technically-determined factors” (Paveau, 2017, p. 11),29 all of the instances that were previewed above reflect a specific interplay of the technological, social, and contextual factors that shape computer-­ mediated communication (Herring & Androutsopoulos, 2015). Each attests to the intrinsic way “technology is shaped by human expression

29

 My translation. Quoted in Vicari (2021).

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both about and through the technology itself ” (Hess, 2018, p. 2). In this, every speaker, every orator, is potentially a digital speaker. A number of critical issues are located at the interface of the technological, social, and contextual dimensions. These issues lend themselves to investigation from a discourse analytical perspective, according to theoretical frameworks that are presented in the following section.

1.2 A Discourse Analytical Perspective Literature Review Linguistics Despite the growing body of scholarship on computer-mediated communication, social media participatory culture, and digital discourses, digital speaking formats have received relatively little attention, whatever the disciplinary field. If, more generally, the study of public address in its many forms holds stakes in many disciplines—notably, anthropology, history, sociology, communication studies, linguistics—, it has tended to remain the property of rhetorical studies, a formidable and perhaps daunting tradition that spans more than two millennia and which, in the contemporary American context, has given rise to a “virtual industry devoted to rhetorical studies of presidential communication” (Wilson, 2015, p. 3). This may explain why public address has remained relatively neglected as an object of study per se in the fields of linguistics and discourse analysis. Indeed, when it comes to spoken discourse, the fields of discourse analysis and linguistics have tended to focus on the most prototypical form it takes: that is, conversation, which is dialogic (produced by at least two speakers), as opposed to monologic (produced by only one speaker). Within the field of linguistics, studies in phonology overlook “speech as performance,” a domain of study bookmarked as “an interest which has been rather eclipsed in recent years by a focus on natural, spontaneous speech in everyday settings” (Wichmann, 2014). More generally, speeches (in the sense of texts that are the object of public speaking) provide

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objects of study not for the sake of the communication practice per se but for phenomena relating to lexico-grammar or textual organisation. For instance, Halliday and Webster (2014) devote the third and final part of their book to case studies of the texts of various speeches (e.g. a U.S. presidential inaugural, a commencement address, a church address).30 Discussions on the distinction drawn traditionally between spoken and written language (Halliday, 1985; Biber et al., 1999; Tannen, 1985) have tended to bypass the case of speech-giving—despite, or perhaps due to, the fact that the practice of public address challenged such dichotomies well before they were called into question by the emerging multimodal, electronic, and digital discourses of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. And engagement with monologic speech is also relatively absent from the field of applied linguistics, a point observed two decades ago by Ventola (2002, p. 17) who, in a volume on scientific conferencing, underlines that the fields of rhetoric and public speaking have “turned out numerous instruction books aimed at the general audience on how to construct speeches effectively according to the Aristotelian parameters,” but that linguistic analysis is absent.31

Discourse Analysis Similarly, within the field of discourse studies, emphasis has bent towards either written discourse, on the one hand, or, on the other hand, conversational analysis—at least in the Anglo-American context, where “discourse is in many cases understood as organised turn taking, for example as conversations and interactions” (Angermuller, 2014, p.  7). Specific appraisal of monologic speech is also absent from Gee and Handford’s (2012) edited volume, in which the section dedicated to “Developments in spoken discourse” focuses on conversation. Van Dijk (2008, pp. 162–3)  A more recent example concerns work by Deroey (e.g. Deroey, 2021), who draws on a corpus of university lectures in order to study forms of metadiscourse. 31  Moreover, applied linguists working in the field of L2 speaking competency tend to focus on conversation competence. This may change, however, (at least in the European context) due to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, which identifies different spoken monologic activities for each level of competency, extending from “relating your weekend” and “presenting a project” at level A1, through to debates and round tables at level C1. 30

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underlines the focus placed in discourse studies on interaction—at the expense for instance of multimodal analysis: “[m]ost work in linguistics, sociolinguistics and ethnography focuses on spoken language use, specifically on natural conversation, and hence has tended to favor an analysis of sound structures rather than of visual structures.” However, the attention paid to conversation is at the expense of not only multimodal studies, but also monologic speech. Interestingly, the latter receives no specific mention by van Dijk, who draws the distinction between “(written) text or (spoken) talk-in-interaction” (my emphasis), even though he analyses (but without placing the focus on the monologic setup per se) long segments of monologic speech during a parliamentary debate (an address given by Tony Blair during the debate at the House of Commons in 2003 prior to the military action taken against Iraq). Specific examples of political oratory have always been objects of study in discourse analysis and pragmatics, particularly in critical discourse analysis (e.g. Wodak, 2001), just as instances of monologic speech are taken up in order to study specific discursive phenomena, as exemplified by the recent study of discourse markers in TED talks by Crible et al. (2019). All of these studies focus on speeches as “archive texts,” that is, the textual products which “remain” after the event (Maingueneau, 2014, p. 34), rather than speech-­ giving as an activity, to be considered in all its interactive complexity and in light of the various forms it takes. Similar observations can be made within the more specialised field of digital discourse studies (Bou-Franch & Garcés-Conejos Blitvich, 2019) which, if it focuses on “linguistic, sociolinguistic and discursive phenomena in new/social media,” tends to concentrate on written formats (such as blogs, websites, Twitter posts, etc.), as opposed to speech (e.g. Darics, 2016; Bou-Franch & Garcés-Conejos Blitvich, 2019). This point is underlined by Koester (2022).32 Whether we are dealing with digital or  Similarly, the majority of articles in the journal Language@Internet deal with the online interaction of discussions/chats, blogs, consumer reviews, and written content posted on Facebook, Twitter, and so on. One exception is Pihlaja (2011), who studies language choices in relation to one specific device, metaphor, in YouTube videos. The absence of work on spoken digital communication was also a point taken up at the panel convened by A. Koester, “Spoken business communication in the digital age: Face-to-face and computer-mediated communication in dialogue,” organised during the conference of the Association of Business Communication, Vienna University of Economics and Business, August 26–28, 2021. 32

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non-digital communication, exceptions can be found outside AngloAmerican scholarship in Maingueneau’s (e.g. 2010, 2017, 2018) work on dispositifs, which includes analysis of the specific discursive setups that inform sermons or political speeches, in comparison for instance with digital formats such as websites or blogs.33 Similarly, Kerbrat-­Orrechioni (2005, 2017) analyses the participant setups specific to electronic media in the form of “staged” broadcast interactions such as television interviews or presidential debates, for which she develops the concept of “trilogue.” This book rests on the premise that public address constitutes a discursive category in its own right. And because public address holds stakes in a number of disciplines, it particularly lends itself to a study within the framework of discourse analysis, itself a disciplinary meeting ground, characterised “by the variety of theoretical frameworks and disciplinary fields […] and intellectual traditions (Furkó et al., 2019, p. 2). Public speaking qualifies as “discourse,” according to the definition of the latter, which “articulates disjointed spaces” and implies multiple levels of analysis (e.g. sociological, linguistic, psychological) (Maingueneau, 2014, p. 25). For instance, it begs analysis by virtue of the specific interactional dynamic it brings into play. I use “interactional” here in the general sense, to refer to the way speaker and addressee are brought into contact, be it in a monologic context or a dialogic context (i.e. conversation). Public address combines the spoken monologic medium with a specific participant structure, specific mode of preparation, delivery, and so on. These aspects are taken up by Goffman (1981) in his discussion of “platform skills” or “podium events.” As discourse, public speaking also represents “systems of meaning embedded in certain institutions, which in turn are determined by ideologies in response to larger social structures” (Kress, 1985, p. 31). Thanks to the many forms it takes, it offers an opportunity to investigate the two-directional mappings between the discursive and the social realms, together with the paradigm of variation according to context. The  The French term dispositif is not used here in the sense developed by Michel Foucault, which would point to heterogeneous factors, but in the sense of a systematic association of various components to produce a specific effect. 33

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discourse/contextual interface begs exploration not only in terms of social context (e.g. political, institutional, economic)—for which, moreover, a critical approach proves particularly pertinent—but also in regard to the technological context (itself a product of the social—e.g. economic— context) and the issue of technologically mediated change: that is, the technical means that are placed at the speaker’s disposal depending on the context/period. And here, the “digital interface” is two-fold: a distinction can be made between the digital interface proper—that which brings together the user and the technology (Herring & Androutsopoulos, 2015; Paveau, 2017)—, and the additional “interface” established with the wider, social context—which we commonly refer to as the “digital era”—a “catch-all term” whose history “is rarely questioned” (Bouquillion, 2016, p. 6)—which is itself embedded in and achieved by the technology, and conditions communication practice. In fact, the digital revolution is the latest in a long list of technological developments which each renewed the practice of speech-giving. For instance, the electronic age allowed for the broadcasting of speeches, and hence saw the beginning of a potentially two-tiered audience structure— that composed of a face-to-face audience, and an audience of radio listeners and/or television viewers. It also ushered in a new era of “electronic eloquence” (Hall Jamieson, 1984). And before that, the advent of the telegraph is said to have played a role in the fostering of the novel, streamlined language exemplified for instance by Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 Gettysburg address (Wills, 1992), which is considered to have marked a turning point in English-language oratorical practice. However, while this book contains a diachronic dimension, it does not attempt to present a comprehensive study of public address since classical times. Such a project would be too ambitious, and would no doubt better befit rhetorical studies. Rather, the aim here is to question new practices in light of former ones, and develop a theoretical framework and a number of discursive tools to assess contemporary public speaking. The new digital speech formats force a reappraisal and a clearer conceptualisation of a number of categories that have been used in relation to the podium oratory of the past. In this respect, the line of enquiry adopted here is not unlike the “transhistorical” or “new-to-old” approach that is considered relatively unexplored and is advocated by Seargeant and Tagg (2014) and

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Evans and Tagg (2020). As the authors explain: “what is often missing […] is an interrogation of earlier practices and phenomena against which claims about digital linguistic novelty can be made. […] What is really ‘new’?” (Evans & Tagg, 2020). The authors explore “situated uses as new media within sociohistorical contexts and wider media ecologies,” and highlight the shift in focus from “the technology per se to social and linguistic practice,” that is, from identifying technological varieties of language, such as the language of email, towards “a focus on user-generated change.” The transhistorical approach is one of the points of focus of current digital discourse studies. For instance, Thurlow (2018) affirms that new/ social media are forcing language scholars to “rethink the foundations and boundaries of their work” in regard to discourse, multimodality, and ideology. Similarly, Jones et al. (2015, p. 3) explain how digital technologies “make possible new kinds of social practices and alter the way people engage in old ones.” The latter authors develop the concept of “digital practices,” which they define as these “assemblages” of actions involving tools associated with digital technologies, which have come to be recognised by specific groups of people as ways of attaining particular social goals, enacting particular social i­ dentities, and reproducing particular social relationships. (Jones et al., 2015, p. 3)34

This book takes up the work of Jones (e.g. 2004, 2020, 2021), particularly the research agenda he sets in terms of online video (e.g. TikTok), in relation to issues such as embodiment, mobility, space, and contextualisation, as outlined for instance in the latest edition of Understanding Digital Literacies (Jones & Hafner, 2021), which includes a new chapter titled “Mobility and Materiality” that focuses on online video.

 Similar lines of investigation inform the current landscape of rhetorical studies. In Lingua Fracta: Towards a Rhetoric of New Media (2009) Brooke makes the case that “the canons can help us understand new media, which add to our understanding of the canons as they have evolved with contemporary technologies” (Brooke, 2009, p. 201). Kennerly and Smith Pfister (2018, p. 7) underline that “[h]istorical analogy is a refreshing antidote to the ahistorical, often breathless, awe in which “new” digital practices are held”. 34

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(Digital) Rhetoric and Computer-Mediated Communication The issues explored in digital discourse studies find an echo in studies devoted to “digital rhetoric,” a term coined notably by Lanham (1993), which is “perhaps most simply defined as the application of rhetorical theory (as analytic method or heuristic for production) to digital texts and performances” (Eyman, 2015, p.  44).35 These issues relate to the multiple potentials borne out of Web 2.0 that are emblematic of “the ecological age, in principle an age of total interconnectedness” (Ong, quoted in Walter, 2005). As underlined by Zappen (2005), Walter Ong, known for his theory of “first” and “second” orality (Ong, 1982), was one of the first to develop the ecology metaphor; scholars of rhetoric went on to talk about it in regard to written communication, before using it to focus on the complex, interconnected relationships that inform the digital context, as underscored by issues of accessibility and circulation, participatory culture and collective intelligence (e.g. Warnick, 2007; Losh, 2009; Eyman, 2015; Hodgson & Barnett, 2016; Boyle et al., 2018).36 Within discourse analysis studies that focus on computer-mediated communication (CMC),37 participation is considered one of the most ­significant characteristics of Web 2.0 (Herring, 2010). Web 2.0 is characterised by the user-generated content and social interaction that it incorporates (Herring, 2015) and warrants investigation in terms of: (i) new types of content; (ii) new contexts; (iii) new usage patterns (such as multiauthorship), and (iv) user adaptations to circumvent the constraints of

 If Eyman refers here to texts and performances, studies of digital rhetoric tend to focus on written content, and little has been written about spoken content, and/or content that could qualify as digital oratory. Even Welch’s (1999) study of “electric rhetoric” (a concept very close to that of digital rhetoric), notwithstanding her focus on video, concentrates on “print literacy”. 36  The theory of Walter Ong can be seen to reflect his Jesuit background, and the positive recognition of rhetoric that characterises the Jesuit tradition, in contrast, for instance, to the Puritan abhorrence of rhetorical construct and preference, instead, for the self-evidence of “truth”. 37  The term “computer mediated communication” corresponds to a well-established field of study that predates devices such as the mobile phone or the tablet. If it has since been replaced by the more general terms “technology-mediated” or “digitally mediated” communication, I will continue to use it here when reviewing the earlier, corresponding literature. 35

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Web 2.0 (Herring, 2013, p. 6). Participation and connection are epitomised by social network sites,38 defined by the following criteria: [Social network sites] allow individuals to (1) construct a public or semi-­ public profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system. (Boyd & Ellison, 2007, p. 210, quoted in Vicari, 2021) (my emphasis)

Social network sites therefore serve to “share connections” within a public space (cf. “public or semi-public profile”). Importantly, the “ecology” described here presupposes a “bounded system” that is structured around “lists of connections” that themselves become objects (to be “viewed,” “traversed”).

Workplace Discourse and Critical Discourse Analysis Because the workplace and the corporate sector particularly experiment with new communication formats, another body of research pertinent to this book concerns workplace discourse (e.g. Koester, 2010; Breeze, 2013; Darics & Koller, 2018). Digital communication has blurred the distinction between the traditional categories of speech and writing (and subsequently between dialogic and monologic discourses), yielding pragmatic effects that have considerable impact in the professional context (Darics, 2016; Darics & Koller, 2018). In addition, some of the presentation modes that interest us here, such as corporate keynotes, belong to the numerous “branding discourses” that are indicative of the “promotional turn” taken in corporate communication (Breeze, 2013). These discourses beg a critical analysis, notably in relation to the concept of the new work order (Gee et  al., 1996), as well as neoliberal ideology (Holborow, 2015; Heller, 2003; Duchêne & Heller, 2012) and its linguistic and discursive construal via the “technologisation of discourse” (Fairclough, 1993, 1994).  The terms “social media,” “social media platforms” and “social network sites” are used as synonyms in this book. 38

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An appraisal of these digital speech practices in terms of the ways they inform and are informed by neoliberal ideology goes hand in hand with a critical assessment of social media generally (cf. “clicktivism”). As noted by Vicari (2021), it is now commonly recognised that many digital discourses have undermined authority, and that Web 2.0 accelerated the crisis of authority that began during the twentieth century, following the decline of relationships based on authority and the rise of more “horizontal” relations (Fairclough, 1993). In this respect, the role of Instagram posts like that of Boris Johnson raises a number of questions as part of the wider changes within political communication which have undoubtedly contributed to the current crisis of our modern democracies. Another aspect to be taken into account within the critical approach developed here concerns questions of power and domination on the linguistic and cultural levels. In his Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student published back before the turn of the new century, Corbett predicted a “rhetoric for the twenty-first century” that would transcend cultures: Undoubtedly, there will be a “new rhetoric” for the twenty-first century, a rhetoric that will be more comprehensive than any that has been devised so far, an international rhetoric that will be congenial for people of many nations and cultures. (Corbett, 1990, p. viii)

The author has been proven right in his prediction of a global rhetoric, which is upheld by the global Internet. Among the English-language speech examples presented in the previous section, two were delivered by non-native speakers of English (U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and TED speaker Kotchakorn Voraakhom). If English is used as a vernacular language, it brings with it, in these specific cases, Anglo-American communication norms which leave very little room for variation, be it on the cultural or the individual level. Again, a link can be established between the hegemony of a certain type of communication culture and economic stakes. As will be discussed in Chap. 6, many of the new speaking practices are heavily formatted. They provide examples of the commodification of language (Heller & Duchêne, 2016), whereby “individualist voices are also trampled upon and coerced into ‘finessed’

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formulations […] [and] presentations” (O’Regan, 2021, p.  204), confirming, more generally, the link between the English language and Anglo-American culture and the current political economy (O’Regan, 2021).

Research Questions and Organisation of This Book This book aims to model oratory as discursive practice by providing some answers to the following research questions: 1. What are the specific interactional variables of monologic speech, and how are they modified and/or reconstrued within the digital interface? For instance, how does monologic speech differ pragmatically from dialogic speech? What is the relation between speaker and addressees? How have these differences been affected by digital media? Have digital (and electronic) media transformed some of the anthropological functions ascribed to speech generally (i.e. both monologic and dialogic), as opposed to those ascribed to writing? And does the combination of spoken discourse and the digital medium present somewhat of a contradiction? For example, when speech is relayed via the digital medium, does it loose some of its traditionally defining features, in terms of synchronicity or contextualisation, for instance? How can the online formats recreate a sense of physical presence and immediateness that is intrinsic to face-to-­ face public address? And what other problems are engendered by the online formats (e.g. cognitive overload)? 2. How can oratory be modelled as social practice? How can we map the activity of speech-giving with respect to social actors and institutions? In what fields of contemporary social life does this activity come into play? Can we make the quantum leap from the agora of Ancient Greece, through the ages and up to the contemporary context? How have certain domains of social life contributed to the “speech renaissance” of the twenty-first century? Can connections be

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made between specific social actors and the types of public speaking formats from which they can now choose? What can be made of the identity of new “social actors” such as YouTubers, Instagrammers, or TikTokers, whose status depends on the very medium that they invest in? And what are the particular models of advocacy and activism which are now played out via the digital medium? 3. How is meaning construed by the ever-growing list of multimodal resources that is brought into play by oratory? In addition to the “text” or “script” (i.e. linguistic and rhetorical resources), multimodal resources pertain to both traditional aspects of delivery, irrespective of mode of transmission, such as vocal variation, facial expressions, body language and setting/staging, as well as to specific modalities that are incumbent on the technology. Use of slideshows, subtitles, music, and lighting constitutes further resources. Other levels of construction of meaning are introduced when the formats are filmed (e.g. editing). For instance, the interplay between these different resources construes the “speaker personality,” as well as the specific relation with the addressee, both of which are the objects of other important questions. 4. From the point of view of the speaker, how does the discourse enact a presentation of the self? And how does it legitimate the speaker? Does the digital speaker adopt a specific “speaker personality” (Goffman, 1981)? For instance, does the speaker come across as friendly and accessible, or solemn and distant? How does the speaker embody the text of his/her speech so that it appears natural, sincere? And what makes us want to listen to him/her? How is a sense of presence created? In other words, what gives him/her access to the status of “speaker”?—how does the speaker create a sense of “preferential contact with an entity held to be of value” (Goffman, 1981, p. 187), particularly if the speaker fosters the image of someone “just like us,” to whom people (e.g. social media subscribers) can easily relate?

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5. Similarly, what characterises the speaker-addressee relation that underscores monologic speech, and how may this relation currently be evolving under the influence of technological mediation? This question is closely related to the previous one. Unlike dialogic speech (typically, conversation), the public speaking setup is intrinsically asymmetrical, as only one participant holds the role of speaker. However, social networks are based on the construal of a community. As summed up eloquently by Senft (2008, pp. 350, 350; quoted in Jones & Hafner, 2021), who coined the term “microcelebrity,” “[a]udiences desire someone to speak at them, communities desire someone to speak with them” (original emphasis); clearly, the speaker-addressee relation finds itself considerably modified. 6. How do the new speaking formats negotiate the collapse of the public/private divide? Again, this question is linked to Questions 4 and 5. The negotiation of “intimacy at a distance” (Horton & Wohl, 1956) has perhaps never been as complex as it is in the digital age. A number of the new speaking formats are part of the wider trend towards “everyday life as a public performance” (Gamson, 2011, p. 1068), as exemplified for instance by reality television. The phenomenon was compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic, with the incursion of the camera into the private sphere, as speakers sat in the privacy of their own homes in front of their webcams. To provide answers to these questions, this book is organised in the following way. The following two chapters examine oratory as communication setup: Chap. 2 provides a working definition of oratory, while Chap. 3 provides a typology that accommodates both face-to-face and online formats. The following two chapters relate to the multimodal dimension: Chap. 4 examines delivery and staging, Chap. 5 various types of technological mediation. Oratory is then discussed in terms of social practice. Chapter 6 addresses the question of discursive genre, as well as issues of culture and power, and Chap. 7 identifies trends that can be explained in the light of neoliberal economic values. Chapters 8 and 9 focus on linguistic resources (which inform meaning and combine with

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resources at other levels): Chap. 8 identifies various components of the discursive ethos of the digital speaker, while Chap. 9 draws on a distinction between two discursive setups, “Rhetorical Staging” and “Dialogic Staging.” The final chapters examine specific examples in the digital context: Chap. 10 presents a case study of TED talks, and Chap. 11 focuses on a number of instances of social media oratory, including examples of Volodymyr Zelensky’s online oratory, delivered in the context of a war that also proved a digital war.

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2 Oratory as Communication Setup (I): Definitions

This chapter reviews various terminology in order to redefine oratory within the contemporary context. In addition, it examines the specific status of oratory as monologic speech, and the asymmetrical speaker-­ addressee relation upon which it is founded. Drawing principally on theory from linguistics, pragmatics, and the communication sciences, I discuss the intrinsic values and interactional variables of speech, some of which are shared by oratory. The chapter deals with oratory generally, and lays the ground work for a more specific discussion of digital formats in the chapter to follow.

2.1 “Speech,” “Public Speaking,” “Oratory,” “Digital Oratory” A number of terms are available to refer to the communication practice whereby one speaker speaks to multiple addressees. As noted in the first chapter of this book, “oratory,” “public speaking,” and “public address” are treated as quasi-synonyms here, although each has specific connotations that will now be reviewed. In addition, Goffman (1981) refers, for © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 F. Rossette-Crake, Digital Oratory as Discursive Practice, Postdisciplinary Studies in Discourse, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18984-5_2

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instance, to “podium talk.” “Speeches,” the objects of “speech-giving,” provide another alternative. Significantly, the conceptors of TED talks prefer the more informal connotations associated with the term “talk.”1 Internet search results reveal that the term “public speaking” is used twice as often as “oratory,” both of which are far more frequent than the term “public address.”2 These results may well be skewed by the types of content available on the Internet, as “public speaking” is the preferred term in pedagogical contexts, such as professional training, communication blogs, and tertiary-level courses and manuals. On the other hand, “oratory” corresponds to a practice which is backed up by a field of scholarship dating back to ancient times. It thus creates an explicit link between past and present practice, as well as between past and present scholarship. In addition, thanks to its etymology, which highlights an intrinsic link with ritual and custom—it has been traced back to the Indo-European root “to pronounce a ritual formula”3 (my emphasis)—it is particularly compatible with the notion of institutionalised social practice that is developed in this study. These are the main reasons why it is the preferred term for this book.

“Podium Talk,” Speech, Public Speaking, Oratory “Podium Talk” Goffman’s (1981) description of “podium talk,” as one of a number of “platform arrangements,” highlights the use of the spoken word in connection to performance. Podium talk involves an audience; it ranges from political addresses and lectures to stand-up comedy routines, dramatic recitations, and poetry readings, and “can (in modern society) take the form of a platform monologue.” These different formats are  The degree of formality is also used as a criterion to distinguish between the quasi-synonyms “speech” and “address,” the latter tending to denote “a higher degree of formality and/or consensuality” (Reisigl, 2008, p. 251). 2  A Google search of the term “public speaking” produced 85,700,000 results, “oratory” produced 36,900,000 results, and “public address” produced 13,200,000 results (search conducted 11 March 2021). 3  This led to the Latin verb orare—“to speak” or “to plead.” 1

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“entertainments” which “occur at the town podium,” and “involve long stretches of words coming from a single speaker who has been given a relatively large set of listeners and exclusive claim to the floor.” In his focus on the academic lecture, Goffman notes that what distinguishes it (and no doubt also the political address) from the other types of podium talk is that it constitutes “an institutionalised extended holding of the floor” (Goffman, 1981, p. 165) (my emphasis). Goffman speaks of the “precarious ideal” whereby “the listeners are to be carried away so that time slips by, but because of the speaker’s subject matter, not his antics” (p. 166). Like the examples cited in Chap. 1, the lecture is based on serious content and reflection: it constitutes “organised talk” and is designed to “come to grips with the real world” (Goffman, 1981, pp. 194–195). It is based on the premise that “a meaningful picture of some part of the world can be conveyed, that the talker can have access to a picture worth conveying.” The lecturer and the audience “join in affirming that organised talking can reflect, express, delineate, portray—if not come to grips with—the real world, and that, finally, there is a real, structured, somewhat unitary world out there to comprehend.” However, this does not mean that such practices can forgo the “special effects” which are a necessary part of the “ritual of performance” and which allow the audience to “come away with […] an experience” (p. 168). Goffman even talks about the speaker’s “shenanigans” (p. 194) in order to maintain the attention of the audience (a term that may come to mind when we think of certain social media content, even if it is not delivered from a podium).

Speech The term “speech” is used in this section to refer to the object delivered in the context of public address and not in the general sense as the antonym for writing (cf. following section). In his comprehensive study of political speeches,4 Reisigl (2008, p.  243) provides a detailed definition of the term: a speech “is a structured verbal chain of coherent speech acts uttered  Speeches are one of the most widely studies objects of political communication (Carp & Okulska, 2013, p. 7). 4

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on a special social occasion for a specific purpose by a single person, and addressed to a more or less specific audience.” Generally, speeches ­correspond to “texts,” in the sense of “materially durable products of linguistic actions” (ibid., p. 243). The author advocates a functional pragmatic view which coincides with the approach adopted here: even if they are not based on the turn-taking of conversation, speeches cannot be considered as “monological linguistic events” but rather as “complex realisations of conventionalised linguistic action patterns with a clear interaction structure” (p. 254).

Public Speaking Public speaking, a term used in teaching and communication training, is “a way of making your ideas public—of sharing them with other people and of influencing other people” (Lucas, 2015, p.  4). According to another textbook, it is “a special kind of communication event and is generally more formal, planned, and organised than most other communication exchanges” (Kearney & Plax, 1996, p. 6). The latter authors note that “[h]istorically, public speaking has been studied apart from communication, as if it were so different from normal everyday interactions that it could not or, perhaps, should not be guided by some of the same principles.” (p. 3). Dictionary definitions highlight the “public” component and insist on its status as a form of mass communication. For instance, it is “the art or practice of making speeches to large audiences” (my emphasis).5 Derived from the Latin populous (“people”), the adjective “public” carries a number of meanings in contemporary English, including the closely related “of or relating to people in general,” and “exposed to general view.”6 This latter sense is close to one of the meanings ascribed to the noun, “in a place where people can see you” (antonym: “private”).”7 The “public” in “public speaking” hence highlights the spotlight placed on a speaker who is in full view of an extensive audience. Indeed, as noted in her study of YouTube videos, Lange (2008, p.  364), drawing on  Collins English Dictionary.  Merriam-Webster Dictionary. 7  Cambridge English Dictionary. 5 6

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Weintraub (1997), notes that “how ‘public’ a video is” depends not only on “how much information in a video is accessed and meaningful to many people, as opposed to a select few,” but also on “how much information a person yields about their identity.” The notion of exposure, which implies that the speaker occupies a special space from which s/he can be seen, brings us back to the “floor,” materialised typically by the podium, but now also by the digital interface that is the screen, and that provides access to the World Wide Web, and notably, the social networks. Social network sites allow individuals “to construct a public or semi-­ public profile” (cf. Chap. 1). Moreover, owners of social network accounts choose to make their account “private” or “public.” By making their account public, they forego any filter of pre-selection and make their content available to an audience that is potentially unlimited. Let us pause for a moment and reconsider the notion of “social.”8 Arguably, public speaking is a crucial social practice and provides a means to engage and connect with people on a grand scale. The “public” component (taken in its etymological sense of “people”) is a precondition for anything “social” (cf. “of or relating to people or society in general”; “liking to be with and talk to people”; “relating to or involving activities in which people spend time talking to each other or doing enjoyable things with each other”;9 “needing companionship and therefore best suited to living in communities”10). The impetus placed on community is particularly brought to the fore by social networks, which are underpinned by their “digital” or “online” communities (Herring, 2004). Due to the enforcement of sanitary measures, the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the stakes of our social lives, precisely because we lacked the social contact to which we were generally accustomed. Interestingly, the “social distancing” that was an inherent part of the pandemic experience led to an explosion in social media usage and saw the development of a number of the formats under study here.  “Social media” is the most common collocation in current usage which involves the adjective “social” (an Internet search for the term produced 14 trillion results—search conducted 25 February 2022). 9  Merriam-Webster Dictionary. 10  Oxford English Dictionary. 8

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Oratory The term “oratory” denotes not only formality—it is defined as “the art or practice of formal speaking in public”11—but also expertise and skill (cf. “skilful and effective public speaking”12). It therefore points to a self-­ conscious activity in which participants actively engage. Similar connotations are attached to “orator,” defined as “someone who is good at public speaking,”13 or “a public speaker, especially one who is eloquent or skilled” (my emphasis),14 where eloquence is defined as “fluent or persuasive speaking or writing,” the “art of using language with fluency and aptness.”15 Oratory is therefore a heavily loaded notion, an “art” that is exemplified by highly acclaimed speeches, those that have their place within a cultural heritage and belong to the body of “highly valued texts” identified by Halliday and Matthiessen (2014), as part of speech anthologies, for example. In his introduction to The Penguin Book of Historic Speeches, MacArthur (1996, p. xv) refers to speeches which are “spoken nobly and with eloquence” and display the hallmarks of “the poetry and beauty of great literature.” He places orators “alongside artists, poets and priests,” following the position of Philip Magnus, the biography of nineteenth-­ century British Prime Minister William Gladstone, whose speeches he describes in the following way: The mood which Gladstone kindled was one which priests, orators, poets and artists have sought to kindle throughout the ages. It is the mood in which mortal men are made to feel that they are somehow “greater than they know.” (Philip Magnus, quoted in MacArthur, 1996, p. xxi)

Set in this light, oratory corresponds to a noble, epic calling, a practice which transcends everyday life.  Oxford English Dictionary. All italics in the definitions quoted in this section are my own emphasis. 12  Cambridge English Dictionary. 13  Ibid. 14  Oxford English Dictionary. 15  Ibid. 11

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Oratory in the Electronic and Digital Eras A “Declining Art”? For MacArthur, for instance, the practice of oratory typically pre-dates the electronic and digital eras. He writes: “As we read the speeches in this anthology, we go back to the days when orators addressed their audiences directly, without the restraining intervention of radio and television, and attracted thousands to walk miles to hear them” (MacArthur, 1996, p. xx). And he describes this practice as now “mourned”: Even as global television magnifies the power of oratory and propels contemporary speakers to audiences undreamt of in the days of Chatham and Fox, Webster and Lincoln, Disraeli and Gladstone—audiences counted in hundreds of millions—contemporary wisdom mourns the decline of oratory. (MacArthur, 1996, p. xv)

A similar view is shared by the American rhetorician Herbert Wichelns in his introduction to oratorical scholarship, published at a time when new formats had already begun to fulfil similar social functions to oratory and were thus supplanting it: Oratory—the waning influence of which is often discussed in current periodicals—has definitely lost the established place in literature that it once had. […] It is true that other ways of influencing opinion have long been practiced, that oratory is no longer the chief means of communicating ideas to the masses. (Wichelns, 1925, pp. 5–7)16

However, the position of MacArthur (presented in the penultimate quote above) is ambiguous. He seems to be confronted with a paradox: if he considers that oratory is a thing of the past, he affirms that its power is “magnified” by that of the electronic media, and therefore indirectly recognises the potential of technology to renew earlier practice.  Quoted by Benson (2008, p. 413) in a discussion of the way scholarship in rhetorical criticism switched its attention from oratory to other forms of persuasion (the visual arts, the electronic media, etc.). 16

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It can indeed be posited that a renewal of oratory is spurred on by new forms of technology—and even that, in some respects, the new formats may bear closer resemblance to ancient ones. For instance, the advent of television marked a return to the visual medium after a period marked by radio oratory. As regards the digital medium, the first generation of digital oratory, the “New Oratory” (e.g. TED talks—cf. Chap. 1), marks in many ways a return to the essence of oratory as it had first developed within the classical canon of rhetoric: the New Oratory initiated a move away from the reading of a written script posed on a lectern, and revived the classical practice of memoria, of speaking from memory, or learning the script off by heart. It also renewed the full repertoire of actio, as the speaker’s body is no longer hidden behind a lectern but appears in full view of the audience. Unlike the political orators of the previous centuries (such as those included in MacArthur’s anthology), the digital speaker of the New Oratory is visually far less removed from classical representations of the orator, such as that provided by the famous Etrusco-Roman bronze statue titled The Orator (circa. 100 BC.). This statue depicts the entire body of an Etruscan man, clad in a toga, whose upper limbs are animated with right hand raised, as he gazes far out in front of him towards what we guess to be an extensive audience.17 However, other components traditionally associated with oratory may appear incompatible with the digital era. The entry for oratory in the Encyclopaedia Britannica ends with mentions of President Roosevelt’s fireside chats and the televised debate between Kennedy and Nixon, and has clearly not been updated since.18 While this might simply be due to an oversight, the entry is noteworthy in that it provides an if-not antiquated definition of oratory, at least a pre-digital and mostly pre-­ electronic one:

 Similarly, Picasso’s The Orator, a sculpture in plaster, stone, and metal (1933–1934), said to have been inspired by the Etrusco-Roman statue known by the same name, presents a degree of abstraction which exaggerates the attributes of open mouth and raised right arm. 18  Even if it has been partly updated since, the entry is attributed to the scholar Craig Baird, Professor of Speech at University of Iowa, whose dates are given as 1928–1952, https://www.britannica.com/art/oratory-rhetoric [retrieved 1 March 2021]. 17

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It is immediate in its audience relationships and reactions, but it may also have broad historical repercussions. The orator may become the voice of political or social history. […] An oration involves a speaker; an audience; a background of time, place, and other conditions; a message; transmission by voice, articulation, and bodily accompaniments; and may, or may not, have an immediate outcome. (My emphasis)

This definition highlights a number of components: (i) the presence of a live audience (cf. “immediate”); (ii) a potentially far-reaching, lasting, historical impact; (iii) a specific context (cf. a clearly identifiable speaker, audience and temporal and spatial settings); (iv) speech that is embodied by the speaker’s voice and body language. The first feature (the immediate audience) is dependent on the third feature (a specific context). If we refer back to the examples cited in Chap. 1, it can be argued that they all share, more or less closely, these four features. They all exemplify speech that is embodied by a speaker, vocally and visually. While they may not have the transcending effect associated with some oratory, they are concerned with the state of the world and their impact can be considered far-reaching. They are all embedded within a specific context, albeit the context of the social media account on which some are posted (although this point will be discussed in more detail in Chap. 3). And in regard to the criterion of “immediacy,” it can be argued that it is validated not only by live delivery but also by the quasi-instantaneous way posts on social media can, via the system of notifications, be viewed by many as soon as they are posted. That it is not a misnomer to talk about oratory within the digital context is moreover supported by the fact that the concept of “digital oratory” is used within the field of study of digital rhetoric (cf. Chap. 1).19 “Digital oratory” is defined as “an emerging form of public address housed online in new media platforms such as YouTube, Vimeo or iReport” (Jaffe, 2016, p.  6), or as “thesis-driven, vocal, embodied public address that is housed within (online) new media platforms” (Lind, 2012). An alternative term is “online public speaking” (Mapes, 2019).  The term “digital oratory” is, however, used far less extensively than digital rhetoric, according to a Google search which produced 62,900 results for “digital rhetoric” compared to 1640 results for “digital oratory” (search conducted 24 May 2020). 19

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Returning to Lind’s definition, he adds that “[t]his new form of public address lies somewhere between traditional speech-giving and media production, but is decidedly oratorical.” Such a categorisation, which is not developed further by the author, begs examination. For instance, what are the respective characteristics of “traditional speech-giving” and “media production”? What is the interplay between each set? And what components make digital oratory “decidedly oratorical”? The present enquiry will attempt to answer such questions. Before turning to an initial working definition of oratory for the contemporary context, a word needs to be said about radio oratory and other formats which uniquely espouse the aural channel (such as podcasts). It has been decided that these forms will not be included in the present study, and that the main focus will be placed on oratory which simultaneously espouses both the aural and visual channels. This does not mean that the other types of oratory are dismissed: President Roosevelt’s fireside chats, which are included in the Encyclopaedia Britannica entry cited above, left a significant imprint on political address, and on general communication practice, and were disseminated by radio, just like Winston Churchill’s wartime speeches, which are part of the rhetorical heritage belonging to the English language. However, the choice to concentrate here on formats that exploit the visual channel, which allows us to explore the specific stakes of online video, is based on a conception of oratory as intrinsically staged, multimodal performance. Anecdotal evidence in support of this position is provided by a newspaper editorial dating back to the precise era when the introduction of television started to overturn the predominance of radio oratory. The editorial, published in the run-up to the U.S. Presidential election of 1952 (which saw Dwight D. Eisenhower win against Adlai Stevenson), titled “Television may revive a declining art,”20 predicted the new and important role that televised addresses would now play in electoral campaigns, and which would end up reversing the decline of oratory attributed to the radio:

 Editorial published on 7 June 1952 in The ABC Weekly, the professional journal of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, available at: https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-1543301558/view?sectionId=nla. obj-1664357788&partId=nla.obj-1543425661#page/n1/mode/1up 20

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Radio addresses are comparatively simple; one sits before a microphone and reads a speech, although this is not as easy as it seems, as many a broadcaster has learned […] Television, however, will extend greatly the orator’s appeal, for by skilful placing of cameras it is possible that the viewer in his home may associate himself as one of the crowd. […] Like an actor, the orator must have a visible audience.

According to this editor, television thus marks, after the era of radio oratory, a return to the full multimodal repertoire of oratory—bringing with it new participant structures (cf. Chap. 3), whereby, for instance, the viewer at home can feel included “as one of the crowd.”21

 owards a Definition of Oratory That Accommodates T the Contemporary Context In order to account for both past and present practice, oratory (and “public speaking,” a term which will continue to be used here as a synonym) can be redefined by drawing on a number of the features cited above, and by anticipating several criteria that will be addressed over the early chapters of this book: 1. It mobilises spoken monologic discourse, multimodal resources, and is visually embodied (it involves a speaker who physically presents him/herself to the audience).22 2. It involves a “public” dimension and therefore multiple addressees, the latter making up a relatively high number (cf. “large audiences”). 3. Unlike the prototypical speech of conversation, it does not accompany another social process but constitutes the main social process,

 One of the aims of this editorial is, however, to warn about the dangers of this (re)inclusion of the visual channel, which is presented as more likely to arouse emotion and “misguided enthusiasm,” at the price of “clear thinking,” with important consequences for democratic life—a point to which I return in Chap. 7. 22  It is visually embodied, and, typically, vocally embodied (we hear the speaker’s voice); however, this is not necessarily the case in social media oratory, which can be viewed without the sound, thanks to the practice of captions (cf. Chap. 5). 21

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and exemplifies “language as reflection” (cf. Sect. 2.2.); moreover, it is serious, or “thesis-driven.” 4. It is embedded in some type of institutional context (cf. Goffman’s “institutionalised holding of the floor”—which provides “a background of time, place, and other conditions”), albeit that provided by the social network. Because it is embedded in an institutional context, the discourse • is governed by certain norms, and is therefore at least partly formatted; • is “staged”—that is, it involves self-conscious, skilful, and effective use of language; • corresponds most often to planned rather than spontaneous speech, and hence enacts “elaborate orality” (cf. Chap. 4); and • reflects a relative degree of formality.23 * * * In the digital realm, this definition of oratory excludes certain types of content which are nevertheless based on monologic speech.24 Not all the content posted by YouTubers, Instagrammers, or TikTokers exemplifies serious, thesis-driven content. In addition, a distinction needs to be made, notably within the category of “vlogs” produced by YouTubers (cf. Chap. 3), between speech that constitutes the main activity (and can hence qualify as oratory), and speech that is secondary to another activity, which is the case of tutorials (technical tutorials, makeup tutorials, etc.), gaming content, acting, and so on. Content such as that of “tutorial-­ vlogs,” that are located at the intersection of “DIY” (“do-it-yourself ”) and vlogger cultures (Gruffat, 2015, p. 145), or that produced by “YouTube  In regard to the criterion of formality, it should be noted that most forms of public discourse reflect a move towards informality (Fairclough, 1993). Even the most formal types of contemporary podium oratory now often integrate some informal dimensions (see Chap. 9). 24  These other types of content, which are the object of specific studies, share many of the stakes developed here, and warrant (future) examination in connection to the present corpora—for instance, in terms of formatting (language, concision), or in terms of their values and functions, such as self-reference or horizontal knowledge sharing. 23

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stay-at-home mums,” a category identified by Riboni (2020), are therefore not the focus of the present study. In addition, a fine line exists between the definition of oratory adopted here and the traditional category which is made up of speeches that are given at (face-to-face) social gatherings, such as at weddings or retirement parties. While they may count as “serious,” they may not necessarily qualify as “thesis-driven,” or be intended to “make sense of the world.” They are also unlikely to have a long-lasting (cf. “historical”) impact. These types of speeches, which are characteristic of Anglo-American culture and social life, are ritualistic in nature and perform customary roles (e.g. toast-making speeches).25 These speeches are far from the impetus that oratory places on engaging in the issues of the day and of the world at large. Another defining parameter of oratory or public speaking is the way it is staged as a performance and is conditioned by the fact that the number of addressees is relatively high (and high enough to be considered a “crowd” or a “large audience”). For instance, when a candidate gives an oral presentation as part of an examination in front of a jury of three people, this does not conjure up the connotations typically associated with public speaking. And while academic lectures may be delivered to a crowded lecture theatre, the lecturer rarely stages his/her discourse as a performance by using the “special effects” associated with the “ritual of performance” (although exceptions do exist). The same generally applies to oral presentations given by students during classes. Similarly, in the corporate world, a pitch presented in front of a paperboard to a group of five clients cannot generally be placed on a par with Steve Job’s keynotes, which not only were presented to a mass audience but also integrated the special effects associated with a performance. However, if some of these special effects (among, for instance, the phenomena that enact Rhetorical Staging—cf. Chap. 9) are introduced into the paperboard pitch, then things are not as simple. By introducing such effects, the speaker decides to initiate a type of alterity and play on the asymmetry inherent to the  According to Cox (1863, pp. 315; 217), “social oratory,” also called “dinner-table oratory,” is “so peculiarly English”: it is “the art of saying a great deal about nothing, and saying it in a pleasant manner. It is not designed for any other purpose than to please for the moment.” 25

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participant setup (cf. Sect. 2.2), and hence move closer towards the status of orator. The difference between what qualifies as oratory (or public speaking) and what does not is therefore more a question of scale rather than a clear-cut distinction; some instances of spoken language definitely qualify as such, while others definitely do not, and other instances represent various points in between these two extremes. Moreover, while oratory and public speaking are basically treated as synonyms here, certain instances of spoken language (i.e. those that are particularly formal, sophisticated and have a profound resonance) qualify more accurately as oratory in the collective imagination than others. Of note is the fact that the new possibilities introduced thanks to technological mediation are introducing new complexity, and are particularly testing the categorisations and the dichotomies of the past. Whatever the position on the scale, oratory contrasts with the prototypical spoken discourse of conversation because it is necessarily monologic, a parameter to which we now turn.

2.2 The Specificity of Oratory Compared to Dialogic Speech Oratory as “Spoken Monologic” Discourse What happens when a speaker takes to the stage (be it material or virtual), speaks to numerous addressees, and “holds” the floor? The English language boasts the metaphors of “holding” or “passing” the floor, whereby the “floor” designates the specific discursive space that is occupied by the speaker. This floor or discursive space is monopolised by the speaker, according to a monologic setup. Oratory is difficult to locate within a typology of linguistic interactions: it instantiates discourse that is both spoken and monologic, and combines other features typically associated with writing. It therefore cannot be placed on a par with either prototypical (dialogal) spoken interaction or (monologal) written texts. It challenges the traditional dichotomy of spoken versus written language (Halliday, 1985; Biber et al., 1999; Kerbrat-Orecchioni, 2005) and is arguably one of the oldest

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to do so, well before the advent of the hybrid forms brought about by the audio-visual and digital revolutions of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. While the distinction between “speech” and “writing”—one of the oldest in linguistic description—is in many ways too simplistic, particularly in the face of contemporary communication formats, it is still worth revisiting in order to grasp the specific dynamic that is produced in the case of oratory, which combines certain components of each. One of the difficulties is that descriptions of dialogic speech mix a number of functional (e.g. purpose or symbolic power), interactional (e.g. participants, co-presence), and formal (linguistic) criteria.26 In this chapter, I focus mainly on oratory in its pre-electronic, pre-digital format, before moving, in the following chapter, to the additional complexity engendered by technological mediation. Over half a century ago, it was observed: Long ago Aristotle wrote that “the style of written prose is not the same as that of controversial speaking ….” It appears that Aristotle’s observation had a limited impact on some authors of early speech textbooks. Only general differences between written and oral response modes are implied by early twentieth-century textbook writers discussing such matters as speaking conversationally, adapting to an audience, and developing an effective speaking voice. There is a conspicuous absence of discussion directed toward specifying the differences between the two response modes.” (Gibson et al., 1966, p. 444)

Speech and writing are associated with intrinsic values that have triggered philosophical debate over the ages. While “the Western grammatical tradition is founded almost exclusively on the study of written language, a bias which still exists today” (Biber et al., 1999, p. 1038), the relationship between speech and writing “has sometimes been taken for granted, and sometimes been dismissed completely” (Cleland & Pickering, 2006, p. 185). According to the phonocentric point of view, speech represents  I have chosen, for the sake of clarity at this stage of the presentation, to distinguish between functional, interactional, and formal phenomena. This does not rule out their interdependency, which is addressed below. 26

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the closest and most inner expression of the self.27 Saussure speaks of the “the only true bond, the bond of sound” compared to “the superficial bond of writing.”28 Similarly, speech is inherently “empathetic and participatory,” plays on the vocal resonance of meaning and the “interiority of sound,” and has an intrinsic link to human experience (Ong, 1982). In keeping with its approach to the study of language as social semiotic, systemic functional linguistics concurrently explores issues of symbolic power and functional variation of language. While speech appears ever more central “as a bearer of cultural value” (Halliday, 1985, p. 98), writing is intricately linked to power (Halliday & Martin, 1993)—a point that Kress (1994, p. xv) links to Pierre Bourdieu’s notion of “cultural capital”: “one of the most significant elements of cultural capital in the domain of literacy was precisely an essential knowledge of forms of text as a prerequisite to full competence in writing.” Functional variation pertaining to the spoken/written distinction is modelled within the “mode” component of register,29 which is concerned with the role played by language and other semiotic systems in the situation, and combines functional, interactional, and formal (linguistic) variables. According to modelling within mode (Eggins, 2004, p.  92), at the functional level, spoken discourse is intrinsically dynamic: it is synonymous with action, and is typically used to accompany some other social process (“text-as-­ process”), while written discourse constitutes the social process, and exemplifies language as reflection (“text-as-object”) (ibid., p. 91). In addition, at the interactional level, spoken discourse is defined in contrast to written discourse in that: (i) it requires two or more speakers; (ii) it takes place face-to-face, with participants sharing the same place  The phonocentric point of view is described thus by Jacques Derrida (1973, p. 77) (quoted in O’Regan, 2021, p. 203): “When I speak, it belongs to the phenomenological essence of this operation that I hear myself [je m’entende] at the same time that I speak. The signifier animated by my breath and by the meaning intention … is in absolute proximity to me.” 28  Saussure, cited in Derrida (1976, pp. 35–36) and referred to by O’Regan (2021). 29  Mode features alongside two other components of register: field (i.e. what is going on in the situation of communication, the subject matter or topic), and tenor (participant roles and status). Each three components within register “resonate” (Halliday, 1978) within one of the meta-functions— ideational, interpersonal, textual—conditioning the lexicogrammar associated with each and informing in subsequent modelling, and at a more abstract level, genre (Martin, 1992; Martin & Rose, 2008).

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and same time; (iii) it is based on spontaneous production. And, at the formal level, spoken language is: (i) based on turn-taking, unlike the “monologic” and “synoptic” organisation of written language; (ii) is more casual than formal, involving informal, everyday language; (iii) is characterised by “grammatical intricacy” (in the form of iterative clause complexes), while writing is characterised by lexical density and grammatical metaphor (nominalisations) (Halliday, 1985; Halliday & Martin, 1993; Eggins, 2004). The afore-cited interactional factors of co-presence, multiple speakers and spontaneity, together with the formal criteria of turn-taking and informality, are phenomena that are widely recognised as constitutive of speech. Additional interactive phenomena identified within other typologies include, for instance, dependency on context, and the presence of multimodal, paraverbal cues (e.g. Kerbrat-Orecchioni, 1998), the “experiential involvement” of speech compared to the detachment of writing (Chafe, 2001; Koester, 2022), as well as the temporary nature of speaking in comparison to the permanence of writing (e.g. Koester, 2022). Of course, speech and writing “lie along a continuum rather than being absolutes” (Baron, 2008, p. 46), and what is being referred to here is speech in its prototypical form—that is, conversation, based on turn-­ taking. And so where can oratory be located within such a continuum? Further systemic functional description identifies a “spoken and monologic” mode (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014, p.  39), exemplified, for instance, by an example of political oratory (ibid., p. 4). Alternative terms include “complex medium” (Crystal & Davy, 1969, p. 70) and “admixing of modes” (Carter & McCarthy, 1994, p. 4). Similarly, the specific case of scientific conference presentations  is qualified as “monologic, purely verbal, written-to-be-read-aloud mode” (Charles & Ventola, 2002, p. 181) and is described as having a “foot in both worlds,” between the informal discussions which take place between scientists in the lab, and the final published research article: “[t]he conference presentation, by partaking of these two worlds, creates a synthesis—a different genre— and bridges the gap between them” (Rowley-Jolivet, 2002, p. 120). In their presentation of mode, Halliday and Matthiessen (2014, p.  38) express the hope “that systemic overviews can be presented in further publications.” They provide a brief insight into what such overviews

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could highlight at the level of the lexicogrammar when they analyse the following excerpt of political oratory, taken from Nelson Mandela’s inaugural address, Today all of us do, by our presence here, and by our celebrations in other parts of our country and the world, confer glory and hope to newborn liberty.

and note that it is “more complex [than spontaneous spoken text or written text]: it is probably composed in writing, perhaps with some spoken rehearsal; but it was written in order to be spoken, and to be spoken on an all-important public occasion” (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014, p. 4). Such appraisals attest to the hybrid status of oratory in respect to the attested benchmarks represented by each end of the spoken-written continuum. According to the “consensus that the ‘spoken’/’written’ dichotomy exists only in relation to the medial realisation of a communicative event (i.e., phonic or graphic expression), but not with regard to the linguistic form of such an event” (Murelli, 2011, pp.  49–50, quoted in Janich, 2017), we can separate out the realisation via the phonic medium from each of the other functional, interactional, and formal features which serve to define dialogic speech. For instance, oratory rests on the spoken word (its materiality is phonic), and, as such, it fosters a direct connection (cf. “bond”), empathy, and participation. In addition, like dialogic speech, it is dependent on the immediate context, displays manifestations of speaker involvement, and (in its traditional format) takes place face-to-face. At the same time, it shares many features typically attributed to writing. At the functional level, it does not generally accompany any other social process or activity, but constitutes the main social process, and exemplifies “language as reflection.” At the interactional and formal levels, the monologic mode realises staged, formal discourse. It does not reflect the “collective improvisation” that regulates conversation (Levinson, 1992, quoted by Kerbrat-Orecchioni, 1998), and cannot be likened to the spontaneity of speech. Instead, it appears closer to the preparation and rehearsal inherent in writing (in speech “we usually act

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spontaneously, so that our linguistic output is unrehearsed,” while ­“[w]ritten situations in our culture call for rehearsal: we draft, rewrite and finally re-copy our essay” (Eggins, 2004, p. 92)), just as it enacts speech that is “monitored” as opposed to “unmonitored” (Halliday, 1985). Moreover, preparation prior to delivery typically mobilises the written medium in the form of a written script (cf. Chap. 4). In addition, oratory cannot be considered ephemeral; most often, some physical trace remains after the moment of delivery that guarantees a degree of permanency, either in the form of recordings (since the electronic age), and, beforehand, in the form of the written script.

 ratory and the Asymmetrical Speaker-Addressee O Relation An “Extraordinary” Asymmetry Compared to the prototypical speech of conversation, another main difference, located at the interactional level, is that oratory rests on an asymmetrical speaker-addressee relation. Oratory marshals a “one-to-many” relation: it brings together one speaker but multiple addressees (cf. the “public” component of public speaking). Moreover, addressees accept the tacit contract that they not intervene in the discourse. The discourse does not take a turn-taking structure; rather, it is monologic. This is why some analysts refute the term “addressee” in this context and prefer the terms “audience,” “hearer”—or in the case of technologically mediated oratory, “viewer,” the term adopted by Dynel (2014) in her discussion of YouTubers’ monologues: [A] viewer cannot be conceived as the addressee but a distinct type of hearer, inasmuch as he/she does not enjoy the addressee’s interactional privileges. The addressee, as technically defined, is an interlocutor in an interaction whose ratification the speaker frequently signals by verbal and nonverbal cues (e.g. eye contact and second person pronouns) and who has the right to reply to the preceding turn. (Dynel, 2014, p. 41)

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Of course, “monologic”—like “monologue,” the term used by some authors including Dynel30—is used here to refer to discourse that is physically emitted by only one speaker and engenders not a “monological linguistic event” but a form of interaction (Reisigl, 2008—cf. Sect. 2.1) that allows for non-verbal forms of audience response, such as applause or cheering (what Goffman calls “back-channel” response). In addition, far from the notion of “self-talk,” oratory implies the two separate identities of utterer and receiver. It is a prototypical instance of rhetoric, and corresponds to what Cockcroft and Cockcroft (2005, pp. 5–6), following in the tradition of the New Rhetoric (Perelman & Olbrechts-Tyteca, 1969), describe as “controlled interaction” which involves a rhetor, who is like a chess player in that s/he is always anticipating the other player’s/ speaker’s next move. The notion of asymmetry finds an echo in Goffman’s (1981, p. 173) notions of “partition” and “boundary,” which inform his analysis of performance genres. Such an asymmetry can even be regarded as extraordinary: “the unlimited number of addressees results in an ‘extraordinary asymmetry’ which brings together an enunciator and an audience, the identity and boundaries of each proving difficult to determine” (Maingueneau, 2012, p.  58).31 This fundamental asymmetry founds a discursive space which has not been explored to its full potential. It is a space that is fraught with tension, as it both separates and unites. Distance proves necessary to the speaker, as it singles them out and provides them with the authority to speak before the masses. The alterity and distance associated with the speaker’s position is materialised by the podium (“a raised area on which a person stands to speak to a large number of people”32). The podium realises a separation, physically setting the speaker apart from the audience. At the same time, it confers an elevated status, a characteristic of “platform skills” as defined by Goffman (1981, p. 166).  As underlined by Dynel (2014), the term “monologue” does not necessarily designate “self-talk,” because “one speaker’s discourse is necessarily meant to be heard by hearers/a hearer.” Dynel defines “monologue” as “a speech or a presentation (e.g. a stand-up comedy performance, a political address, or vlogging) made by one speaker in front of the hearer(s), whether or not physically present,” and describes, for instance, specific types of YouTube content as “mass-mediated monologue”. 31  My translation. 32  Cambridge English Dictionary. 30

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The elevated position of the speaker confers authority and power. The podium provides a bird’s-eye view of the audience, and speakers are endowed with the assurance that they hold the floor and cannot be interrupted. They have “speaking rights” (Kress, 1994, p. 20), are masters of a considerable span of (synoptic) text, and make different types of language choices compared to those made in conversation: “a speaker with power, speaking to a large number of addressees (a lecture, typically) will tend to use language which has fewer interactive forms, becomes more planned, and therefore begins to have some of the features of the written language” (Kress, 1994, p. 20). However, at the same time, such distance and elevation isolates the speaker and leaves him/her vulnerable. Speakers must live up to their elevated status by proving worthy of the audience’s attention, an “entity held to be of value” (Goffman, 1981, p. 187). But perhaps more importantly, the speaker is one body, and one face, upon whom all gazes are directed—like Peggy Noonan’s image (cf. Chap. 1) of “one man on a bare stage with a big spotlight” whose soliloquy (self-talk) highlights his isolation with respect to the audience. The specificity of the latter is underlined by Goffman: the speaker of podium talk addresses not “hearers” but “audiences,” who “have the right to hold the whole of the speaker’s body in the focus of staring-at attention,” the right “to examine the speaker directly, with an openness that might be offensive in conversation” (Goffman, 1981, pp.  165; 137–138). There is a “sense of preferential access” to his/her person (ibid., p. 188), which means that the speaker pays with his/her person. The ambivalent nature of the speaker-addressee relation places the speaker on a threshold. A threshold is a type of divide, but one which articulates a movement, a shift, from one space to another, and therefore designates the potential starting point of an experience. Ordinarily, the term “threshold” refers to the material support for a doorway (constructed from a thin piece of wood or stone) which is very narrow and therefore difficult to linger over (an object can only be located on a threshold, not in or within it). The threshold therefore provides an appropriate image for the position occupied by the speaker, who lays him/herself on the line, walking a sort of tightrope, the actor of a delicate balancing act as he/she negotiates between two spaces.

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Discursive Divides and Their Negotiation Indeed, oratory is founded on a type of paradox in that it enacts a divide, a potential gulf with which the speaker needs to come to terms, in order to reach out to the audience and establish a connection. This divide, which is located at the discursive level, adds to that located at the referential level—that is, the very difference in opinion which, in a lot of cases, motivates the desire to stand up and speak to the masses. The speaker needs to negotiate this discursive divide and “make a connection” with the audience, to adopt an expression that is present in much discussion of public speaking practice.33 Insight is provided again by Goffman, who describes the speaker as “obliged to be his own go-between, splitting off a self-as-animator who can speak with the voice of the audience” (Goffman, 1981, p.  193), in what instantiates a “stage-limited performance of approachability” (ibid., p. 194). The divide that informs the speaker-addressee relation can be conceived of as somewhat malleable, allowing for different nuances which either play on the distance or, on the contrary, set out to minimise it. In the first instance, the speaker accentuates his/her difference in status. It is this type of relation that underscores “charismatic speech” (Rosenberg & Hirschberg, 2005), one component of study in the field of “inspirational address pragmatics” (e.g. Cooper, 1989). Particularly memorable moments of oratory come to mind (e.g. Martin Luther King), those when we have the impression that some special force comes into play, a force which stimulates a sense of elation in the audience, who therefore feels uplifted, transported. In the second instance, the speaker fosters proximity, electing “to present himself as just another member of the gathering that is present, someone no different from you or me” (Goffman, 1981, p. 193). According to the current trend, mirroring the focus on interactionism that characterises contemporary scholarship, much emphasis is placed on phenomena  For instance, in Rossette-Crake (2019, p. 42), I discuss a passage in the autobiography of Barack Obama, who recounts the first time he got up (in his late teens) to speak in front of an audience, and the process by which he gradually won them over. The passage ends with the sentence “Then the others started in, clapping, cheering, and I knew that I had them, that the connection had been made.” (B. Obama, 2004, Dreams from My Father, Canongate, pp. 106–107, my emphasis). 33

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that are inherently interactional in nature and foster proximity between speaker and audience. For instance, speakers engineer audience response in the form of applause or cheering in the case of political speeches (Atkinson, 1984). A “collaborative” dimension based notably on the device of storytelling is identified by Capone (2010) as a necessary ingredient of the electoral speech. Similarly, Wilson (2015, p. 201) draws a list of “meta-markers” such as greetings and “meta-performative comments” (e.g. “I say,” “I stand here before you,” “We are gathered here”) which “assist in a monologue context by creating a quasi-interactional moment where the speaker is both talking to and responding to themselves.” The commonplace and emblematic use of the first person plural pronoun “we” also comes to mind. Comparable strategies simulate interaction and project a “meta-discursive representation of the speech itself as a dialogical event” in the context of party conference speeches (Debras & L’Hôte, 2015, p. 189) and construe “intimacy at a distance” (Horton & Wohl, 1956), a formula which nevertheless highlights the presupposed status of distance, upon which an effect of intimacy may or may not be grafted. The trend is not just reflected in studies of political rhetoric, but also in public speaking manuals, which now foster discourse as “communication,” based on a “I-speaking-to-you,” “intimate,” “direct” and “personal” association, conducted in a “conversational-communicative manner” (Sproule, 2012). This has tended to replace discourse as “expression,” informed by “a unidirectional process, proceeding from speaker to audience” (ibid.). These two speaker-addressee relations instantiate two different types of setups, Rhetorical Staging and Dialogic Staging respectively, which are examined in Chap. 9. On the face of it, the two relations seem mutually exclusive. However, things are not so simple. For instance, Capone (2010, p. 112) grapples with the ambivalence of speaker status when, in a discussion of Barack Obama’s South Carolina victory speech (delivered in January 2008 during the Democratic primaries), he notes that “whereas Obama’s voice is just one in a choir of voices, it is still an eminent one; however, it is also one which does not prevail over the others.” If the speaker-addressee relation that underpins oratory proves complex, it is further complicated when it is mediated by technology, particularly digital technology, which is discussed in the following chapter.

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References Atkinson, M. (1984). Public Speaking and Audience Responses. In M. Atkinson & J. Heritage (Eds.), Structures of Social Action (pp. 370–409). Cambridge University Press. Baron, N.  S. (2008). Always On: Language in an Online and Mobile World. Oxford University Press. Benson, T.  W. (2008). Look, Rhetoric! In L.  C. Olson, C.  A. Finnegan, & D. S. Hope (Eds.), Visual Rhetoric: A Reader in Communication and American Culture. Sage. Biber, D., Johansson, S., Leech, G., Conrad, S., & Finegan, E. (1999). The Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English. Longman. Capone, A. (2010). Barack Obama’s South Carolina Speech. Journal of Pragmatics, 42, 2964–2977. Carp, P., & Okulska, U. (2013). Analyzing genres in political communication: An introduction. In P.  Carp & U.  Okulska (Eds.), Analyzing Genres in Political Communication (pp. 1–27). John Benjamins. Carter, R., & McCarthy, M. (1994). Language as Discourse: Perspectives for Language Teaching. Longman. Chafe, W. (2001). The Analysis of Discourse Flow. In D. Schriffin, D. Tannen, & H. Hamilton (Eds.), The Handbook of Discourse Analysis. Blackwell. Charles, C., & Ventola, E. (2002). A Multi-Semiotic Guide: The Conference Slide Show. In E. Ventola, C. Shalom, & S. Thompson (Eds.), The Language of Conferencing (pp. 169–209). Peter Lang. Cleland, A. A., & Pickering, M. J. (2006). Do Writing and Speaking Employ the Same Syntactic Representations? Journal of Memory and Language, 54, 185–198. Cockcroft, R., & Cockcroft, S. (1992, 2005). Persuading People, an Introduction to Rhetoric. Palgrave Macmillan. Cooper, M. (1989). Analyzing Public Discourse. Waveland Press. Cox, E. (1863). The Arts of Writing, Reading and Speaking, in Letters to a Law Student. John Crickford. Crystal, D., & Davy, D. (1969). Investigating English Style. Longman. Debras, C., & L’Hôte, E. (2015). Framing, Metaphor and Dialogue: A Multimodal Approach to Party Conference Speeches. Metaphor and the Social World, 5(2), 184–204. Derrida, J. (1973) Speech and Phenomena: And Other Essays on Husserl's Theory of Signs. Couverture. Northwestern University Press.

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Dynel, M. (2014). Participation Framework Underlying YouTube Interaction. Journal of Pragmatics, 73, 37–52. Eggins, S. (1994, 2004). An Introduction to Systemic Functional Linguistics. Continuum Fairclough, N. (1993). Critical Discourse Analysis and the Marketisation of Public Discourse: The Universities. Discourse and Society, 4(2), 133–168. Gibson, J., Gruner, C., Kibler, R., & Kelly, F. (1966). A Quantitative Examination of Differences and Similarities in Written and Spoken Messages. Speech Monographs, 33, 444–451. Goffman, E. (1981). Forms of Talk. University of Pennsylvania Press. Gruffat, C. (2015). Tutorials on YouTube: A Study from the Perspective of Digital Humanities. Social Media Studies, 1(2), 143–149. Halliday, M. A. K. (1978). Language as Social Semiotic: The Social Interpretation of Language and Meaning. Edward Arnold. Halliday, M. A. K. (1985). Spoken and Written Language. Oxford University Press. Halliday, M. A. K., & Martin, J. (1993). Writing Science: Literacy and Discursive Power. Palmer Press. Halliday, M.  A. K., & Matthiessen, C. (2014). Halliday’s Introduction to Functional Grammar. Routledge. Herring, S. (2004). Computer-mediated Discourse Analysis: An Approach to Researching Online Behaviour. In S.  Barab, R.  Kling, & J.  Gray (Eds.), Designing for Virtual Communities in The Service of Learning (pp. 338–376). Cambridge University Press. Horton, D., & Wohl, R. (1956). Mass Communication and Para-Social Interaction: Observations on Intimacy at a Distance. Psychiatry, 19, 215–229. Jaffe, C. (2016). Public Speaking: Concepts and Skills for a Diverse Society. Cengage Learning. Janich, N. (2017). Genres in the Business Context: An Introduction. In G.  Mautner & F.  Rainer (Eds.), Handbook of Business Communication: Linguistic approaches (pp. 42–61). de Gruyter. Kearney, P., & Plax, T. (1996). Public Speaking in a Diverse Society. Mayfield. Kerbrat-Orecchioni, C. (1998). L’implicite. Armand Colin. Kerbrat-Orecchioni, C. (2005). Le discours en interaction. Armand Colin. Koester, A. (2022). Why Face-to-Face Communication Matters: A Comparison of Face-to-Face and Computer-Mediated Communication. In F.  Rossette-­ Crake & E.  Buckwalter (Eds.), COVID-19, Communication and Culture: Beyond the Global Workplace (pp. 115–133). Routledge. Kress, G. (1982, 1994). Learning to Write. Routledge.

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Lange, P. (2008). Publicly Private and Privately Public: Social Networking on YouTube. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13, 361–380. Levinson, S. (1992). Talk at Work: Interaction in Institutional Settings. CUP. Lind, S. J. (2012). Teaching Digital Oratory: Public Speaking 2.0. Communication Teacher, 26(3), 163–169. Lucas, S. (2015). The Art of Public Speaking (12th ed.). McGraw Hill. MacArthur, B. (1996). The Penguin Book of Historic Speeches. Penguin. Maingueneau, D. (2012). Analyser les textes de communication. Armand Colin. Mapes, M. (2019). Speak Out, Call In: Public Speaking as Advocacy. University of Kansas Libraries. Martin, J. (1992). English Text: System and Structure. John Benjamins. Martin, J., & Rose, D. (2008). Genre Relations: Mapping Culture. Murelli. Murelli, A. (2011) Relative constructions in European non-standard varieties (Empirical Approaches to Language Typology 50). Mouton de Gruyter. O’Regan, J. (2021). Global English and Political Economy. Routledge. Ong, W. (1982). Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word. Methuen. Perelman, C., & Olbrechts-Tyteca, L. (1969). The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation. University of Notre Dame Press. Reisigl, M. (2008). Rhetoric of Political Speeches. In R.  Wodak & V.  Koller (Eds.), Handbook of Communication in the Public Sphere (pp. 243–270). de Gruyter Mouton. Riboni, G. (2020). Discourses of Authenticity on YouTube: From the Personal to the Professional. Edizioni Universitarie di Lettere Economia Diritto. Rosenberg, A., & Hirschberg, J. (2005). Acoustic/Prosodic and Lexical Correlates of Charismatic Speech. Interspeech, 2005, 513–516. Rossette-Crake, F. (2019). Public Speaking and the New Oratory. Palgrave Macmillan. Rowley-Jolivet, E. (2002). Science in the Making: Scientific Conference Presentations and the Construction of Facts. In E. Ventola, C. Shalom, & S. Thompson (Eds.), The Language of Conferencing (pp. 95–125). Peter Lang. Sproule, M. (2012). Inventing Public Speaking: Rhetoric and the Speech Book, 1730–1930. Rhetoric & Public Affairs, 15(5), 63–608. Weintraub, J. (1997). The Theory and Politics of the Public/Private Distinction. In J.  Weintraub & K.  Kumar (Eds.), Public and Private in Thought and Practice (pp. 1–42). University of Chicago Press. Wichelns, H. A. (1925; 1958). The literary criticism of oratory. In D. C. Bryant (Ed.), The rhetorical idiom: Essays in rhetoric, oratory, language and drama (pp. 5–42). Cornell University Press. Wilson, J. (2015). Talking with the President. The Pragmatics of Presidential Language. Oxford University Press.

3 Oratory as Communication Setup (II): Towards a Typology That Incorporates Technological Mediation

The aim of this chapter is to examine oratory when it combines with technological mediation. The digital medium engenders its own specific “discursive divide” that is materialised by the screen and that adds to the asymmetrical speaker-addressee relation that is intrinsic to oratory. In both cases, the divide that results requires negotiation via a number of strategies. After discussing the new types of setups that result from technological mediation and the challenges that it poses, which can be ascribed to the effect of a “filter” that is created by the screen, the second half of this chapter presents a categorisation of the various participant frameworks that inform both the digital and non-digital formats with which this book is concerned.

3.1 When Oratory Combines with Electronic and Digital Media New Setups and New Frameworks of Categorisation The discursive divide inherent to oratory is further complexified by technological mediation, which notably skews the criterion of co-presence associated with prototypical speech, and hence forces a dissociation © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 F. Rossette-Crake, Digital Oratory as Discursive Practice, Postdisciplinary Studies in Discourse, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18984-5_3

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between co-presence at the spatial level (i.e. face-to-face versus distant), on the one hand, and, on the other hand, co-presence at the temporal level (i.e. synchronous/asynchronous). With technological mediation, the spoken word (phonic medium) can now be deployed in contexts where participants are no longer necessarily face-to-face, and/or for communication that is not necessarily synchronous. However, this does not always result in a diminished sense of presence. In fact, the effect can be quite the opposite. Well before the onset of the Internet and mobile phones, Ong (1967, p. 295) described the “second orality” brought about by the electronic media, and the sense of presence that results: “we live with a sense of personal presence which is a new and invigorating human experience and which without our modern communications media would be impossible.” The “second orality” of radio and television is self-­ conscious and planned, and marks a return to “the openness to each other and to the world that had been smothered under the weight of writing and print” (ibid.). Since then, digital media have further  blurred the speech/writing divide, engendering what Ong may well have named a period of “third” or “tertiary” orality. This third type of orality brings with it a range of new problems that are both theoretical and pragmatic. For instance, it is now possible to combine graphic expression (i.e. via the written—or typed— word, which is read by the addressee) with relatively synchronous communication (online chats are instantaneous; text messaging and even email can be synchronous or treated as synchronous by certain users). Digital mediation also redistributes distinctions between temporary and permanent formats, and founds “a constitutive paradox” in that “it is fast like spoken discourse, but records a trace, like written discourse” (Ertzscheid et al., 2013). In addition, the instances of “written” or “typed” language are borrowing linguistic forms that are typical of speech, resulting in “transubstantiation” (Kerbrat-Orrechionni, 2012, p.  25), “netspeak” (Crystal, 2001), and creating a number of theoretical and pragmatic problems that have received scholarly attention. For instance, Baron (2008) asks (according to the title of one of her chapters), “are instant messages speech?”1 and Darics (2016) examines the pragmatic  As noted by Riboni (2020, p. 46), much attention in computer-mediated communication scholarship was initially devoted to locating online language within the speech–writing continuum, but such efforts have since been abandoned, as online language “does not seem to fit either.” 1

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problems that are prompted by online (written) communication due to the fact that it lacks the paralinguistic and visual cues that accompany face-to-face speech. To accommodate the new digital formats, a number of analytical frameworks have focused on the parameter of presence and presence-­ related phenomena. For instance, in systemic functional theory, a further criterion within mode is “the complementary monologue-through-­ dialogue cline,” which is “sensitive to the effects of various technologies of communication on the kind of interactivity that is facilitated” (Martin & White, 2005, p. 28). This cline is mapped by Eggins (2004) (drawing on earlier work by Martin (1984)); it is founded on the parameters of aural and visual feedback, as well as the imminent degree of a response (immediate, rapid, or delayed). Taken together, these parameters inform different degrees along a cline of “spatial or interpersonal distance.” For example, according to Eggin’s cline, reproduced in Fig. 3.1, (casual) conversation entails visual and aural contact as well as immediate feedback. On the other hand, email lacks visual or aural contact but allows for rapid feedback. In between each of these formats is located telephone communication, which benefits from aural contact and faster (immediate) feedback, but lacks visual contact. Interestingly, Eggin’s cline does not include any communication format that could be assimilated with oratory or public address. If we were to locate oratory along such a cline, it would probably share the same position as conversation, or be placed just to the right of conversation, as it combines visual and aural contact and, +visual contact +aural

-visual +aural

-visual -aural

-visual -aural

-visual +one-way aural

-visual -aural

casual conversation

telephone

email

fax

radio

novel

+immediate feedback

+immediate feedback

+rapid feedback

+rapid feedback

+delayed feedback

Fig. 3.1  Modes of communication according to the cline of spatial or interpersonal distance (adapted from Eggins, 2004, p. 91)

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depending on the specific format, feedback that is either immediate (e.g. for face-to-face podium oratory) or rapid or delayed (e.g. digital formats). Similar interactional criteria are included in another analytical framework, that of media richness theory (Daft & Lengel, 1984; Yates & Orlikowski, 1992; and reviewed and applied in Koester, 2022), which classifies different media along a cline from “rich” to “lean.” For instance, “rich” media transmit nonverbal cues and provide immediate feedback. In addition, they are defined at the levels of content and form by the fact that they support personalisation and accommodate linguistic variety. According to these criteria, the richest communication medium is that provided by face-to-face conversation. A digital medium such as email is located in a medial position within Yates and Orlikowski’s (1992, p. 309) cline that is designed to distinguish different types of organisational communication. Commenting on Yates and Orlikowski’s cline, Koester (2022) notes, for instance, that video-conferencing could be inserted just after face-to-face conversation, and before telephone conversation—in other words, it is not as “rich” as face-to-face conversation but qualifies as “richer” than telephone conversation. And, just like within the previous cline of spatial or interpersonal distance, we could place oratory in a similar position to that of video-conferencing, just after face-to-face conversation: it qualifies as a “rich” medium in that it transmits nonverbal cues and (according to its traditional format) allows for immediate feedback. And it not only supports personalisation but, as we will see (Chap. 7), makes personalisation, particularly in the contemporary context, its trademark. However, it proves “lean” particularly in its contemporary digital formats in that, as we will also observe, it allows for a relatively low degree of linguistic variety (Chap. 6) and is instead subject to standardisation and much formatting. Koester (2022) also draws on social presence theory (Short et al., 1976; Kupritz & Cowell, 2011), which maps out co-presence, and “identifies the extent to which a medium conveys the perception that other people are physically and emotionally present” (Koester, 2022, p. 122). The theory takes into account non-verbal cues, such as facial expression, voice (volume, pitch), tactile cues (touching, shaking hands) and olfactory cues. All of these cues are relevant to spoken face-to-face communication, which provides the highest degree of social presence, unlike that of spoken online communication.

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The final framework I will mention develops the notions of “conceptual orality” and “conceptualised scripturality” (Murelli, 2011, pp. 49–50). These are based on the feature of proximity, taken not as a concrete interactional parameter but as the object of a linguistic (and discursive) construal, whereby “conceptionally oral forms of communication convey greater linguistic proximity whereas conceptionally scriptural forms appear more formal and thus typically facilitate communication characterised by social distance” (Koch & Oesterreicher, 1985; Murelli, 2011, pp. 49–50; both quoted in Janich, 2017). Like the previous two frameworks, this typology reflects the central stakes of presence and proximity, as well as their complexity. Functional, interactional and formal factors are interdependent, and at the same time account is made for the possibility of recognising “presence” (or a sense of presence) without necessarily material co-presence (i.e. face-to-face communication)—as exemplified by the sense of presence that Ong attributes to the electronic formats of second orality. Other frameworks have been developed specifically for digital communication. As noted by Herring and Androutsopoulos (2015, p. 128), computer-mediated communication “possesses characteristics of orality along with characteristics of its own.” Herring’s (2007) “faceted classification scheme” for computer-mediated discourse expands on the interactional variables discussed up until now: she distinguishes between two types of variables: “medium” or “technological” facets and “situation” or “social” facets. The first category includes variables such as synchronicity, one-way versus two-way message transmission, the permanent nature or not of content on the digital medium, message format and size, anonymous messaging, private messaging, filtering, and quoting. The second category includes variables which will be addressed in Chaps. 6 and 7 as they pertain more specifically to the social dimension, such as communication purpose and participant characteristics, including beliefs, ideology, and identity.2 However, this second category also includes what can be regarded as an interactional parameter: that of “participation  Like Herring’s model, this book aims to highlight the interdependence between the technological and social dimensions. However, for sake of clarity, these two dimensions are introduced in separate chapters. 2

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structure,” which includes distinctions between one-to-one/one-to-many and public/private, as well as phenomena such as degree of anonymity, group size, amount, rate, and balance of participation. Moreover, these facets continue to evolve parallel to the development of the digital medium. Recent additions in terms of technological facets include “liking” and “friending” (Herring & Androutsopoulos, 2015). Within such a framework, digital oratory presents the constant of a one-way, one-to-­ many, public participation structure, together with variation in terms of, for instance, synchronicity, permanency, or duration (message size). As noted by Herring and Androutsopoulos (2015, p.  130), the boundary between synchronous and asynchronous setups is being eroded by Web 2.0 and social media, which notably “allow for real-time interaction but also keep a record of the chat that can be retrieved later”—a description of the “duplicated” temporality that characterises a certain category of digital oratory. An appraisal of digital oratory is complicated further by the fact that the “performance” or speech itself is generally embedded in an “interactive multimodal platform” (or “IMP”) (Herring, 2015), which allows social media users to comment on multimodal content within a single website. As their name indicates, IMPs, which can be regarded as a sub-­ type within the general category of social network sites, incorporate several modes, and the minimum requirement is that they combine text with one other mode (audio, video and/or graphics). Herring cites YouTube as one of the first of such platforms because it allows users to comment asynchronously on a shared video. This practice is associated with much digital oratory, that which is typically posted on interactive multimodal platforms (e.g. YouTube, Instagram, TikTok). Such embedding within IMPs raises a number of theoretical questions for, as noted by Herring (2015), IMPs give rise to forms “that are distinct from faceto-face communication, with their own unique affordances, which are both less than and more than face-to-face interactions.”

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 he “Filter” Effect: Challenges Posed by T Digital Communication Co-presence, Context, Embodiment, and Community The dichotomy of “both less than and more than face-to-face interactions” can be extended to digital communication generally, and examined more specifically in regard to the particular case of digitalised speech. Technologically mediated communication is “less than” face-to-face interaction in a number of respects, and these present challenges, again, not only in terms of description, but also from a pragmatic point of view of the participants. Interrelated questions relating to co-presence, context, embodiment, and participant frameworks all come to the fore when dealing with digitalised speech. And in contrast to the “unfiltered moments” provided by face-to-face oratory (cf. Chap. 1), they produce the effect of what can be likened to a “filter,” a term that has been used to describe the experience of the user that is mediated by the screen: “what we see on a computer screen is a highly mediated, filtered and designed version of the world” (Kern, 2014, p. 342) (my emphasis).3 For instance, it can be argued that digital communication cannot provide the same experience as that provided by face-to-face communication simply because of the lack of co-presence. According to Kupritz and Cowell (2011) and Koester (2022), who both focus on professional communication, spoken face-to-face communication cannot be adequately replaced by any digital media (such as video-conferencing). The latter provide less social presence, despite (and, we could also argue, perhaps due to) very sophisticated technical setups, which do not “surround” the user in the three-dimensional way that the spatial context of face-to-face communication does: “[n]o matter how sophisticated, the virtual environment does not surround the user in CMC as the physical environment does in face-to-face communication” (Kupritz & Cowell,

 A similar disconnect can be posited for the screen of the electronic era, namely the television screen. However, television does not foster participation and interactivity as Web 2.0 does, and so the discrepancy is not felt to the same extent. 3

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2011, p. 64; quoted in Koester, 2022).4 Significantly, organisers of competitions of three-minute thesis presentations, a New Oratory format, strongly discourage speeches that are not recorded in front of a physically present audience, and suggest to competitors that such a setup results in less effective communication: “[a]s an important aspect of the competition is audience engagement, anyone who would choose to present via conferencing facilities would be at a disadvantage compared to other competitors.”5 Lack of co-presence means lack of a specific context. In the case of a 100%-online setup, what can be considered the specific context? The challenge of context is exemplified by the afore-mentioned embedding within IMPs, which are emblematic of the way digital environments are “multilayered spaces” (Georgakopoulou & Spilioti, 2016, p. 5). The digital medium engenders a “context collapse,” in which “multiple audiences, usually thought of as separate, co-exist in a single social context” (Marwick & Boyd, 2011, p. 145). Similarly, Crystal (2001, p. 202) notes that the Internet “truly strains the notion of ‘situation,’” quoting the vision of its founder, Tim Berners-Lee: “[t]he vision I have for the Web is about anything being potentially connected with anything.” This is problematic from a pragmatic viewpoint if we adopt the position that meaning is derived from context. On one hand, social network sites are considered “bounded systems” (cf. Chap. 1), and context is something that is “dynamically designed” by participants as they interact with others (Tagg et al., 2017). However, on the other hand, Web 2.0 represents a complex ecosystem—one that, for instance, allows for the juxtaposition of all types of content, both serious and less serious. This makes for what may seem like a rather confusing user experience for someone who is not used to the digital interface, particularly when it comes to social media.6 For example, when scrolling through the content of a social media account  At present, mainstream digital oratory is not yet concerned by three-dimensional virtual experiences, although this is likely to evolve in the very close future. 5  This is stipulated in the presentation of the competition, available at: https://threeminutethesis. uq.edu.au/resources/faqs-competitors 6  For example, the expression “a light randomness” has been used to describe the TikTok platform, source: J. Parham, “TikTok and the Evolution of Digital Blackface,” 4 August 2020, Wired, https:// www.wired.com/story/tiktok-evolution-digital-blackface/ 4

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(such as the TikTok account of Charli D’Amelio—cf. Chap. 1), we cannot identify an all-encompassing, coherent narrative; instead, we experience a number of sub-narratives which, even if they reflect the multiplicity of the modern persona and the way we now represent our lives (cf. Chap. 7), can be considered an issue, particularly for young people, for whom such communication has sometimes become the norm (in other words, they perhaps no longer necessarily look for the overriding narrative and coherence when confronted with other text types, or when required to synthesise different knowledge sources—skills that arguably depend on writing/reading, as part of Bourdieu’s cultural capital (Kress, 1994—cf. Chap. 2)). The term “interface,” which is frequently applied to the digital medium (it designates, for instance, “the way a computer program presents information to a user or receives information from a user, in particular the layout of the screen and the menus”),7 refers to a point of connection which at the same time presupposes a negotiation between unrelated elements: “the place at which independent and often unrelated systems meet and act on or communicate with each other the man-machine interface.”8 This definition highlights the idea of a construct that brings together elements whose articulation does not go without saying. Hence the notion of fabrication, and even forgery (as exemplified by virtual reality): “the computer is a forgery of sorts, a fake landscape that works to synthesise disparate elements into a cohesive whole” (Johnson, 1997, p. 238). The fact that communication is no longer governed by co-presence allows participants to “be in several places at once” (or at least “engaged in” several places at once), and be simultaneously both on and off the screen, and/or in several places on the screen. A perfect illustration of this is the common practice, made available by the technology, whereby computer users can have several “windows” open at once on their screen (e.g. they can be participating in an online meeting which is brought up on the screen in one window, be checking their emails in another window, surfing the Internet in another, all at the same time). This engenders “polyfocality” (the user’s attention is divided between different points of 7 8

 Oxford English Dictionary.  Merriam-Webster Dictionary.

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focus—Jones, 2004), which brings with it specific issues of fatigue and cognition that were particularly decried during the pandemic (e.g. “zoom fatigue” (Bailenson, 2021) and “cognitive overload” (Schmitt et  al., 2021)),9 and that serve to highlight “the limits of embodied communication” in the context of technologically mediated communication (Jones & Hafner, 2021, p. 127). The possibility for participants to “be in several places at once” can be considered particularly problematic for oratory in regard to the notion of kairos, the special effect incumbent on the dynamics of the moment, of a speech performed for a specific audience in a specific time and place (cf. Chap. 4). The general issue of context is tackled by Jones (2004) in a study titled “The problem of context in computer mediated communication.” The author discusses the difficulty of adapting the notion of context as defined, for instance, by Halliday and Hasan’s (1985) tripartite model of language, context, and text, to cases of digital communication. On one hand, he notes that digital communication challenges “the dichotomies upon which some of our most basic assumptions about CMC in particular, and communication in general, rest.” These include dichotomies “which separate the ‘virtual’ from the ‘real’, the ‘sender’ from the ‘receiver’, the ‘public’ from the ‘private’, the ‘figure’ from the ‘ground’, and, finally, the ‘text’ from the ‘context’.” The author notes that [r]eading many academic accounts of computer mediated communication, in fact, leaves one with the impression that such interaction takes place in a kind of virtual vacuum with little connection to the material worlds of the people sitting in front of computer screens and producing the words that analysts spend so much time dissecting and interpreting (Jones, 2004, p. 21)

On the other hand, Jones goes on to refute the view of some analysts who consider CMC as “despatialised” communication lacking in contextualisation cues, and instead underlines the new means provided by CMC to invest physical space, “be present to one another and to be aware of other  For instance, Bailenson (2021) defines a “nonverbal overload” that he attributes to four main factors: excessive amounts of close-up eye gaze, cognitive load, increased self-evaluation from staring at the video of oneself, and constraints on physical mobility. 9

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peoples’ presence,” and manage different levels of presence within multiple fields of interaction. Both presence and context are closely linked to the question of embodiment. Unlike a lot of digital communication, digital oratory (according to the definition adopted for oratory—cf. Chap. 2) requires that the speaker physically appear in front of the audience and/or the screen. Digital oratory is therefore not devoid of a certain extent of contextualisation in terms of the setting in which the speaker is filmed. The question of embodiment (or lack of it) within the digital medium relates to other issues that are foregrounded within the field of digital rhetoric. These include authenticity, representation of the self (Turkle, 1995), and the postmodern question of the formation of digital identities (Zappen, 2005; Eyman, 2015). And these questions relate not only to the speaker, or producer of the message, but also to the addressee, as represented by the virtual, online community, which is “transient” and “disembodied” (Drasovean & Tagg, 2015). According to Herring’s (2004, p. 355) operationalisation of the concept, an online community is determined by: (i) the regularity of its participants (participation is active and sustained); (ii) a shared history, purpose, culture, norms, and values; (iii) solidarity, support, and reciprocity; (iv) the means to resolve conflict; (v) the emergence of roles, governance, and rituals; (vi) a self-awareness of the group as an entity distinct from others. The producer of digital communication is therefore required to cater to an audience which is not only limitless but at the same time needs to feel “at home” within the community such as that provided by the specific social network. Online communities do not result from physical embodiment but from the construal of some type of common ground, or “affinity space” (Gee, 2005). In order to create a sense of community and “emotional attachment” among users (Herring, 2008, p. 921), specific weight is placed on linguistic choices and what “language is doing, in the truest performative sense, on the Internet” (Herring, 2004, p. 338). For instance, the website for TED talks brings together a community of users construed by way of online affiliations and linguistic and discursive norms (Drasovean & Tagg, 2015).

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Making a Connection Via the Digital Interface Digitalised oratory therefore implies a double divide, whereby the speaker distance constitutive of oratory is amplified by the filter effect associated with the digital medium. This double divide requires negotiation. According to one orator who was forced online during the COVID-19 pandemic, it can be negotiated and a sense of connection established and “energy” created, at least from her point of view as speaker: “you still feel the energy when you present [online] but you don’t get to see the reaction and energy of the other people” (my emphasis).10 Again, just like the increased role that they play in the construal of online communities, specific weight is placed on linguistic choices. And it would appear that, unlike face-to-face oratory, where the constitutive distance between speaker and audience informs a “space” that can be either amplified or minimised, digital communication fosters language that minimises such a divide by borrowing heavily from forms of language typical of (face-to-­ face) spoken interaction (e.g. discourse markers, contracted forms). Use of spoken forms of language in various forms of digital writing/typing, such as text-messaging, blogging, and so on, is widely recognised (cf. Crystal’s “netspeak” or Baron’s question “are instant messages speech?”). Such borrowing is informed by and contributes to two broad trends: first, the “conversationalisation” of public discourses generally, which Fairclough (1993) links precisely to the technologisation of discourse; and, secondly, the more general association that is made between the Internet and orality. Orality is “an ambient condition” of digital communication (Hess, 2018) and, according to a process of “remediation,” “speech concatenates through the different digital genres” (Bolter & Grusin, 1998).11  A. Levina, “The Digital Public Speaking competition—a roadmap from preparation, speech writing, and the contest,” posted 24 March 2020, https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/ digital-public-speaking-competition-roadmap-from-anna-levina-mba/ 11  Parallels between digital communication and orality can be established at other levels, such as that made between hypertextual linking and the syntax of orality (Bolter, 1991), a point underlined in Landow’s seminal work when he links hypertext to ancient oral practices: “the reader-author inevitably has more in common with the bard who constructed meaning and narrative from fragments provided by someone else” (Landow, 1992, p. 117). 10

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These linguistic choices are conditioned by the function assumed, in the digital context, by language as “an interpersonal resource, rather than solely an information network” (Riboni, 2020, p. 50, quoting Zappavigna, 2012, p. 2). And, more than that, in the specific case of social media, language takes on a predominantly phatic function. Following in the steps of Wang et  al. (2011), who coin the term “phatic technologies,” Jones and Hafner (2021) qualify social media as “phatic communication.” As they explain: For some […] the kinds of messages people share through chat clients or on social media sites seem ‘banal’, ‘trivial’, or even lacking in ‘content’ altogether. Why is it necessary for people to endlessly exchange emojis or pictures of the coffee they are drinking at Starbucks? But often the ‘content’ is not the point of this kind of communication: connection is. […] What people are often doing when they interact through lean media is not so much exchanging information as maintaining a sense of connection with their friends. (Jones & Hafner, 2021, p. 103—original author emphasis)

Indeed, the whole point of social media is that the user “be with” others (cf. definition of “social,” Chap. 2), and reach out through the digital screen to establish connections with those who are not physically present. The term “connection” is used predominantly in the context of social media (cf. the definition cited in Chap. 1 for social network sites, which serve to “share a connection” and create “list of connections”), which epitomise Ong’s “ecological age of total interconnectedness.” A similar catchphrase of social media, and Web 2.0 at large, is that of “sharing” (e.g. sharing ideas (Chap. 7) or stories (cf. Chap. 8)), whereby “sharing” “has become ubiquitous as an iconic action—for example, clicking a ‘share’ button—which reproduces content across networks of online connections” (Page, 2018, p. 1). Interestingly, the same notion of making a connection is used in both the context of oratory and that of social media—just as the increased interpersonal function of language in digital communication echoes the shift noted in public speaking manuals from discourse as expression to discourse as communication (Sproule, 2012—cf. Chap. 2). By extension, we could talk about a similar “phatic” function in the case of oratory, although oratory cannot be reduced to such a function (it is thesis-driven).

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And it can also be assumed that digital oratory is partly phatic, particularly as it is disseminated via online video that is typically embedded within the phatic-oriented social media of IMPs—although things may well prove more complex in the case of digitalised speech when compared to text-based or visual content. In their study of YouTubers, Araüna et al. (2021) speak of the way YouTubers succeed in creating the “illusion of a direct connection.” The TED speaker is sometimes endowed with a sacred-like status, akin to that of the “digital shaman” who is no longer cast as the originator of the message, but the mediator: “One of the first steps toward becoming a digital deliverer is becoming a digital shaman, one who can foster an interaction in which the audience and shaman-­ rhetor co-deliver (invent) a solution to their shared, unconscious problems” (Morey, 2016, p. 13). Interesting connections can be posited with more ancient forms of orality: Zumthor (1983, p.  214) speaks of the figure of the “shaman,” or “official soothsayer” that he ascribes to the oral poet of ancient tribal song, as part of the more general participatory mystique that Ong (1982) identifies in old orality. Digital speakers are capable of initiating a form of ritual bonding (to be linked to the impetus placed by TED talks on “delivering an experience,” which is perhaps more important than the “sharing of ideas” announced in its slogan). Again, we are confronted with somewhat of a paradox: the screen, like the podium, functions as both an aid and an abettor. Both the podium and the screen create a divide, a specific discursive space that has the potential to provide a strong sense of connection, one that is typically felt to be stronger than that experienced in communication realised via other media, and that can be put to a number of pragmatic purposes. We are reminded of the acute sense of presence attributed to the “second orality” of the electronic media (the “sense of personal presence which is a new and invigorating human experience”) (Ong, 1982—quoted previous section), which may also at first be perceived as somewhat of a paradox because it also marks the move away from the setup of face-to-face communication. And in regard to the (linguistic) phenomena mentioned briefly here, which will be taken up in length in Chap. 9, it can be considered that either they correspond to specific strategies that serve to override and compensate for the divides, or that they are enhanced, and prove all the more powerful, thanks precisely to these constitutive divides.

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3.2 Participant Frameworks Composite Audiences The previous pages have highlighted the way technological mediation has introduced variety with respect to a number of the interactional parameters associated with face-to-face speech. These variations result in different participant frameworks. Co-presence (or not) of participants conditions audience feedback, and determines the different types of feedback in which the members of the audience are able to engage (and by which they do indeed “participate” in the literal sense, either verbally or non-verbally, in the exchange).12 In prototypical face-to-face speech, speakers can monitor the effect of what they are saying on the addressee, and addressees can indicate that they understand and/or ask for clarification (Chafe, 1982, p. 45, quoted in Koester, 2022). Similarly, audience feedback is determining for the orator, and lack of it during online communication can be disconcerting, as one speaker who was forced online during the COVID-19 pandemic testifies (cf. remark quoted above: “you still feel the energy when you present [online] but you don’t get to see the reaction and energy of the other people”—my (new) emphasis). At the same time, the orator is particularly exposed by the new types of feedback that can be given indirectly and in real time via means that are specific to social media: The use of new media means audience reactions may be accessible to web communities in real time. How awful if, for instance, Twitter messages on a feedback channel read: “I’m bored already and it’s just the first slide” or “What the hell does this mean?!” (Morton, 2014, p. 174)

Real-time posts of this type require managing: the specialists of professional communication Duarte (2012) and Handler (2017) recommend, for instance, that a moderator keep an eye on social media so that any  In contrast, the term “participant” is used in a very general sense in the phrase “participant framework” (Goffman, 1981; Dynel & Chovanec, 2015) to designate all parties who each fill a constitutive role in the communication setup, irrespective of whether they can engage in verbal or non-verbal feedback. 12

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criticism can be addressed during a question-and-answer time at the end of the speech/presentation. Importantly, such reactions posted on social media do not address the orator specifically, but also address other members of the online community. They represent indirect as opposed to direct feedback, and in so doing, introduce a new level of complexity into the interactional setup, which implies additional participants who do not share the same status.13 They exemplify the “new interactional practices” that are engendered by technology and that allow interlocutors to integrate “multiple goals and purposes” (Dynel & Chovanec, 2015, p. 10). When we also take into consideration the “diversified communicative genres, whether private or public” that are also ushered in by technology, it is clear that “the classic dyadic model of communication/interaction has been proven obsolescent” (Herring et al., 2013, p. 3). Within the categorisation proposed here for oratory, two main types of audiences are distinguished: 1. face-to-face (F-F) audiences, who are physically present when the speech is performed (orator and audience are co-present at the spatial level: they share the same space); and 2. remote audiences, who are not physically present and who either watch or listen to the speech thanks to technological mediation (electronic or digital). Co-presence encompasses both a spatial and a temporal component. Face-to-face audiences are necessarily addressed synchronously; they are recipients of the speech, as it is being delivered. However, this is not the case for remote audiences, a category which can further be divided into • audiences whose attendance is synchronous to the moment of delivery (the audience watches or listens to the speech in real time); to simplify, reference will be made to “remote, synchronous (“R-S”) audiences”; and

 In terms of feedback, in addition to the direct (e.g. audience applause) and indirect (e.g. tweeting, comments) forms that have already been mentioned, we can also include the delayed commentary and analysis that is carried out well after the speech event with respect to the content and the scripting of speeches—that is, when speeches are considered as archive texts (cf. Chap. 2). 13

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• audiences whose attendance is asynchronous (audiences watch or listen to the speech at some point after the moment of delivery); to simplify, reference will be made to “remote, asynchronous (“R-AS”) audiences.” Before the advent of any technological mediation, oratory involved a participant framework that only brought together an orator and a face-to-­ face audience. However, nowadays, it is rare that an orator simply addresses a face-to-face audience. Two other setups are more common. First, the F-F audience can be removed altogether. This is the case of political addresses that are delivered from radio or television studios, as well as a lot of the oratory posted to social media accounts. Alternatively, the speech can be delivered within a setup that involves a composite audience. Composite audiences incorporate both a F-F audience and a remote audience. This is the case of speeches that are performed to a “live audience” and that are at the same time recorded in order to be disseminated (either in whole or in part, and either synchronously or asynchronously) to a wider audience.14 In his study of political speeches, Reisigl (2008) distinguishes between speech genres that belong to “classical rhetoric” and those that belong to “modern political communication,” and highlights the complexity of the latter due to the spatio-temporal dissociation that they allow. Unlike classical rhetoric, which is likened to “singular, momentary and point-blank speech events,” and is characterised by its “temporal, spatial, thematic and functional unity,” as well as the “immediate sequential adjacency of the speech and its reception (including the audience reactions)” (Reisigl, 2008, p. 258), modern speeches are defined by their “diatopia” and “diachrony” (p. 257). These make for a particularly complex setup—or network of setups:

 People have developed the reflex of taking out their (ubiquitous and discrete) mobile devices to record many aspects of their lives. Even when filming is not part of the official speech setup (this is the case of speeches delivered on family or on social occasions such as weddings or retirement parties, or when an institutionalised format prohibits it), orators (and institutions) have very little guarantee that a member of the audience will not take out their mobile device and start filming. 14

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[M]odern political communication is characterised by a great typological variety with multiple temporal relations to past, present and future, by a thematical ephemerality and by a procedural embedding into a complex network of discursive, interrelations and sequences, which is constituted by an often selective, fragmentary or paraphrastic distribution of the speech via mass media to heterogeneous groups of audiences. (Reisigl, 2008, pp. 258–259)

Notions such as “multiplicity,” “embedding,” “networks,” fragmentation and heterogeneity underline the complexity of the setup(s) which go hand in hand with technological mediation and produce composite audience structures—and which, moreover, are not specific to monologic speech-giving. For instance, interviews and debates that are broadcast on radio or television have been analysed according to concepts such as “double address” or “trilogue” (e.g. Kerbrat-Orecchioni & Plantin, 1995; Siess & Valency, 2002). In addition, considerable attention has been given to the new configurations brought about via the digital medium (Morris & Ogan, 1996; Herring, 1996, 2007; Yates, 2000; Bou-Franch et al., 2012—quoted in Dynel, 2014, p. 38). Multiple addressing to composite audiences is indeed typical of contemporary speech-giving. Examples abound in the political arena. For instance, U.S. presidential inauguration addresses are traditionally delivered to the crowd gathered in front of the Capitol and are simultaneously broadcast on television (and are now livestreamed via the digital medium). In addition, highlights of the speech are broadcast asynchronously, during subsequent radio and television news bulletins. The same applies to addresses made by MPs and members of the government during parliamentary sessions. A number of Winston Churchill’s famous war speeches were delivered to the House of Commons and relayed via radio to the country at large. They contrast, for instance, with King George V’s radio broadcast in which he announced the onset of war, or, prior to that, President Roosevelt’s weekly radio addresses, which were delivered in studio conditions, without a F-F audience. A composite audience structure also features in the first two examples presented in Chap. 1: the address at COP26 by the U.N.  Secretary-­ General is delivered in front of a F-F audience made up of other

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dignitaries and participants of the conference, and is at the same time live-streamed on the U.N. YouTube channel, just like Angela Davis speaks directly to the crowd gathered in the streets of Washington as the event is live-­streamed on Women’s March social media. Similarly, TED talks exemplify the New Oratory formats, which characteristically combine a F-F audience and a remote audience of Internet users. However, during the COVID-19 pandemic, these formats were forced to forego the F-F audience, as illustrated by the talks delivered during the 2020 Countdown conference. Another type of composite audience based on spatial dissociation involves several audiences that simultaneously come together in several venues, where the speaker is physically present at one of the venues. In 2017, TED organised what appears to have been a one-off “cinema experience,” whereby audiences could attend in a cinema a TED conference that was projected on the screen and that was taking place synchronously at another venue (in front of a F-F audience) (the format duplicates the concept of live opera cinema screenings). In this case, there is temporal co-presence, but not spatial co-presence between the speaker and the cinema audience(s), and the latter can be considered remote. A similar spatial dissociation occurs in some cases where holograms of a speaker, who is (physically) speaking elsewhere to a F-F audience, are projected in (other) venues where other audiences are assembled (see Chap. 5). In both cases (the TED cinema experience, and the use of speaker holograms), the experience of the remote audience is slightly different from that of a remote online audience, in that the members of the former are not isolated but come together spatially, and benefit from the effect of collective participation. However, this type of remote audience may feel “secondary” to the F-F audience who is located in the same venue as the speaker, although the former can be included more explicitly in the latter by various technological means (e.g. by projecting, on the stage with the speaker, live images of the audiences in the other venues). Whatever the type of composite audience, it poses a challenge for the orator, who needs to be able to cater to all components of the audience: “[m]any politicians nowadays are faced with the problem of multiple addressing” (Kühn, 1992; quoted in Reisigl, 2008). The terms “face-to-­ face” and “remote” have deliberately been chosen here in that they do not

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presuppose any hierarchy between the two components. Reisigl (2008) chooses, for instance, to distinguish between a “primary” (face-to-face) audience, a “secondary” audience (who listens to a live transmission) and a “tertiary” audience (who listens to a later transmission). On the other hand, Goffman distinguishes between “addressed recipients” and “imagined recipients” to refer to what we are calling “face-to-face” and “remote” respectively. Even if Goffman (1981, p.  133) uses the term “addressed recipient” to emphasise contact at a predominantly visual level (“the one to whom the speaker addresses his visual attention”), the term suggests that this audience is the only entity that orators have in mind as they deliver their speech. This can correspond to the experience felt by some speakers. For instance, referring to the experience of the way she delivered her TED talk, the writer Elizabeth Gilbert speaks of “an extremely intimate encounter [...] and then all of a sudden, it gets broadcast.”15 However, the remote audience proves far from superfluous or accessory. As will be demonstrated in various sections of this book, the fact that a speech is recorded or filmed for the benefit of a remote audience influences many aspects of the live delivery, as well as the internal construction of the speech itself. And, most often, its members far exceed the number of members of the F-F audience. As noted by Herring, Stein and Virtanen (2013, p. 3) in their discussion of public media, “the mass audience is likely to be more important to a communicator than the immediate addressees”—which therefore makes it “quite surprising that numerous researchers should have purposefully conceptualised audiences as “overhearers,” who are traditionally defined as unratified hearers” (ibid., p. 4). And at the same time, when the audience is composite, the F-F audience fulfils an essential role for the remote audience at a pragmatic level. Indeed, it can be argued that the remote audience benefits from the delivery in front of the F-F audience, and that they experience as it were by proxy the F-F delivery. The “filter” effect of the screen described above is therefore down-toned and the Internet user is witness to lively, authentic interaction, in which the F-F audience participates via direct forms of feedback (applause, cheers, laughter) that are generally made apparent in  Elizabeth Gilbert, “Behind the TED talk 2009,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aASvyfFUMdk [accessed 04.05.2022].

15

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the recording. Reisigl (2008, p. 255) distinguishes, for instance, between the different forms of feedback that a F-F audience can provide depending on the formality of the speech—from simply applause during commemorative speeches and ceremonial addresses, to cheers or even whistling, as well as the “conventionalised directive attention getters” such as “Hear, hear!” that are part of the British parliamentary tradition. It would appear that TED talk authorities are well aware of the way the F-F audience contributes to the construal of meaning for the remote audience, as it stipulates in its criteria for TEDx conferences organisers that shots of the audience must be included in the edited video of the talk that is uploaded to the Internet. It can also be argued that the presence of a F-F audience also makes for a more authentic delivery on the part of the orator, who anticipates their reactions and even as it were “cues” them into the script of the speech—a strategy described by Atkinson (1984) and by Reisigl (2008, p.  256), who describes patterns which permit pauses for applause that he calls “acclamation relevance places.”

Remote Speakers In addition to composite audiences, technology, more specifically digital technology, now allows for a remote, online speaker, who speaks to an audience that is physically assembled at a venue. There is not co-presence between speaker and audience on the spatial level, nor, in some cases, on the temporal level (e.g. for speeches that are pre-recorded). This occurs at the COP26 opening ceremony, which includes the projection of some pre-recorded speeches that are delivered by speakers (e.g. the “grassroots” activists—cf. Chap. 1) from various corners of the world. And this is also the case of Volodymyr Zelensky’s many online appearances in front of world institutions, national parliaments, entertainment events (the Grammys, the Cannes Film Festival) during his campaign to gain international support during the war in Ukraine (cf. Chap. 11). Within such a setup, the experience of the speaker, as well as the way s/he is perceived, reflects a different type of alterity to that which informs the speaker-addressee relation that is intrinsic to oratory generally. As experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic, remote speakers at hybrid

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events (e.g. business meetings, conferences) can be at a disadvantage in terms of the way they are given the floor and are able to participate. A remote orator can be placed at a similar disadvantage. However, in certain contexts, and depending on the status of the speaker, the alterity introduced by the spatial dissociation, as well as the technological mediation (e.g. the projection on a giant screen of a larger-than-life speaker), can confer a certain type of reverence on the speaker, similar to that associated with a superspeaker (cf. Chap. 9), particularly if the speaker is speaking synchronously from the capital of a war-torn country.

Feedback and the Complexity of Social Media With the advent of social media, participant frameworks have been complexified even further in regard to the parameter of feedback. Unlike the communication formats spawned by the electronic media, in which viewers/listeners could not provide feedback, the digital medium that has been instantiated by Web 2.0 and is exemplified by social media, is—as has already been underlined—“participatory,” and allows for multiple forms of feedback and interaction. Web 2.0 is characterised by a process of “dynamic co-creation” which makes it difficult to distinguish producers from recipients, and allows recipients to participate at several levels, either between one another (between recipients) or with the producers of content or with other audiences, via the (original) producer, according to a “loop” involving remediation (Herring et al., 2013, p. 7). Dynel (2017, p. 72) speaks of a “collective producer,” noting that “researchers tend to emphasise the multiplicity, anonymity and asynchronous participation of receivers,” as well as the fact that “[i]t is impossible to propose an overarching framework for all media platforms, given their complexity and diversity.” And in addition to the various types of “active” participants listed above, there are also those participants who are “passive,” and constitute potential “lurkers”: these participants are sometimes forgotten, and this can be problematic: “[p]ublicising a turn, a speaker must be mindful of the fact that it will be widely available and may potentially reach even those to whom the speaker does not specifically intend to communicate a given message” (Herring et al., 2013, p. 74).

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A pertinent case in point in regard to oratory is provided by YouTube. YouTube disseminates much digital oratory, and its participant framework is very similar to that of other platforms that were developed after it. Dynel (2014) provides a detailed typology of the “immanently dialogic” participation framework that underlies interaction on the YouTube platform. Described as a form of “post-television” (Lister et al., 2009; Tolson, 2010), YouTube houses videos that vary enormously in terms of their format and content, which range from extracts of cinema or television programmes and music videos, to amateur videos, including original short films and vlogging; the latter are produced by “YouTubers” and are “the video version of text-based weblogs” (Dynel, 2014, p. 39). Certain vlogs produced by YouTubers—those that Dynel (p.  41) qualifies as “massmediated monologue, when the speaker is talking directly to the camera eye […] [and] seems to be addressing the viewer,” and where “the discourse is produced precisely to be broadcast to them [YouTube viewers]” (p. 42)—conform to the definition of (digital) oratory that is adopted here. YouTube is prototypical of Web 2.0 in that it provides a virtual space that allows users to post videos, allows other users to reply to videos either via another video or via a comment, and allows users to comment on other users’ comments. It involves “infinite numbers of potential participants at the reception end, who are typically unfamiliar with one another” and can hence be described as “mediated quasi-interaction” (Dynel, 2014, p.  7). YouTubers typically “engage in asynchronous computer-­ mediated interaction, changing their participatory statuses at the production and reception ends”; at the production end, they “take the floor as speakers in videos,” and “author and post videos as senders” (ibid. p. 49). Three “levels of communication” can be distinguished, which involve, respectively: (i) the speaker and the hearers within the video itself; (ii) the sender and the recipients of the video; (iii) the sender and recipients, who exchange comments about the video, in the form of text, or that of (another) video. These different levels are embedded within one another: the level of interaction within the video is embedded within that of the sender-­ recipient interaction, both of which can, in turn, be embedded at the level of comments. The resulting framework is represented in Fig. 3.2, adapted from Dynel (2014). 

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The digital orator who delivers his/her address is included in the first level—as is the F-F audience (when there is one). At the second level, that of sender and recipient of the video, a distinction can be made between senders who coincide with the orator within the video—which is the case of the videos of YouTubers included in this study—and senders who do not coincide with the speaker and represent a third party—which is the case of institutions such as the United Nations (that has a YouTube channel dedicated to climate), the Women’s March, or TED talks.16 This second level also comprises the remote audience. The comments that inform the third level of communication (Androutsopoulos and Tereick (2016) refer, for instance, to “on-line polylogues”) can relate to either the content of the video (e.g. the comment “Good speech, Boris!” that was posted by one YouTube viewer as s/he watched the video of the COP26 opening ceremony), or the level of sender-recipient interaction (e.g. the comment “The arrogance of these people thinking they can Save the earth!!” targets the United Nations as both organiser of the conference and promoter of the message behind the conference as sender of the video). In addition, comments can be made about other comments (“How many CO2 sending all those emojis hum?”) and, in this case, it can be considered that, while these comments remain linked to the original video, they constitute a level of interaction, in which the video is no longer completely embedded, which launches a new thread, and as it were takes on a life of its own. To accommodate these “comments about comments,” an additional (fourth) level of communication can be posited. This framework can be extended to other social media platforms. Instagram and TikTok uphold a similar three-level (and even four-level) structure. Like the YouTube videos, the Instagram videos vary in that the orator may or may not coincide with the sender. In the example quoted in Chap. 1, Michelle Obama is both orator and official sender of the content posted on the account that bears her name, while other orators  YouTube videos included in this study can be broken down into two categories: (i) recordings of oratory posted by third-party institutions; (ii) content produced by YouTubers (typically without a F-F audience). 16

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user comments about other user comments

user comments about the video

sender - recipient of the video

interaction within the video

Fig. 3.2  Participation framework in YouTube interaction (adapted from Dynel, 2014)

speak on the official accounts of organisations. At this point in time, TikTok provides less variation. Currently, TikTok typically involves an orator who coincides with the sender, and the platform has not yet arrived at the same degree of institutional use as have YouTube or Instagram.17 In regard to the third level of communication, Instagrammers and TikTokers, like YouTubers, can typically partake in the comments that constitute the interaction at this level.

 Because each young generation tends to adopt the most recent social platform, we need to wait for the “TikTok generation”—typically, teenagers—to “come of age,” before organisations begin to open TikTok accounts that target them. 17

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3.3 Summary: Oratory as Communication Setup Oratory as Communication Setup Figure 3.3 proposes a typology of oratory as communication setup and summarises the different parameters that have been discussed in this chapter and the previous one. Moving through the figure, from top to bottom: 1. Oratory instantiates speech (phonic material) as opposed to writing (graphic material). 2. It coincides with the specific category of monologic speech, as opposed to that of dialogic speech (which can be subdivided into the categories of casual, face-to-face conversation, and staged trilogue that is technically mediated (e.g. television interviews, televised debates). 3. As opposed to “non-staged” instances of monologic speech (in which we can, for instance, place academic lectures or conference papers), oratory coincides with an aesthetically staged performance. 4. Oratory can further be broken down according to the parameter of co-presence in combination with that of technological mediation, according to four categories: (i) (entirely) face-to-face audiences; (ii) face-to-face & remote audiences (i.e. a combination of both); (iii) (entirely) remote audiences; (iv) remote speakers who address (at least in part) an audience brought together within the same space: speech

dialogic (turntaking)

casual face-to-face staged (trilogue)

monologic

oratory (aesthetically-staged performance)

non-staged

F-F audience

F-F+ remote audience remote audience

Fig. 3.3  Oratory as communication setup

remote speaker

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a. (Entirely) F-F oratory include political speeches that predate the electronic era. b. The F-F and remote audience setup is illustrated by Examples 3, 5, and 6 cited in Chap. 1 (UN Secretary-General’s address at COP26; Angela Davis’s speech at the Women’s March; Kotchakorn Voraakhom’s TED talk); it is also illustrated by cases where various audiences are brought together synchronously in different venues, with the speaker present at one of the venues (e.g. the TED cinema experience, and holograms). c. The entirely remote audience setup is illustrated by Examples 1, 2, and 4 from Chap. 1 (Charli D’Amelio’s TikTok post; Michelle Obama’s Instagram post; Sophie Howe’s talk at TED’s 2020 Countdown). d. Examples of remote speakers include Volodymyr Zelenky’s online public speaking appearances during the Ukraine war. Additional distinctions can be made within the categories of face-to-­ face and remote and (entirely) remote audiences depending on further criteria: (i) whether the technological medium is electronic, digital, or both; (ii) whether the remote audience is able to listen/watch the speech both synchronously and asynchronously, or simply asynchronously; (iii) whether the remote audience can access the full speech or simply excerpts; (iv) the type of audience feedback that is accommodated into the setup; The category of remote speakers, which are necessarily digitally mediated (rather than electronically mediated) can be further subdivided according to whether there is a remote audience in addition to the audience brought together within the same space; in this case, parameters of synchonicity/asynchronicity, access to the speech in part or in full, and level of audience feedback also come into play.

Main Categories of Oratory Distinguished Here Some of the distinctions summarised in Fig. 3.3. inform the following general categories of oratory. The present study focuses on categories 2 to 4, and the first category will serve for comparative purposes:

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1. Podium, lectern oratory (referred to here as “podium oratory”) is delivered from a podium (a stage), and from behind a lectern. It implies a F-F audience. It can be further distinguished according to the period of time in which it is produced. In its older format, which corresponds to the most traditional setup of oratory, it does not imply a remote audience. Contemporary podium oratory involves a remote audience in a more ad-hoc way, compared to the systematised means by which the remote audience is inscribed into the New Oratory setup. 2. The New Oratory is underscored by a F-F audience and a remote audience. It brings together a number of formats that developed simultaneously (notably between 2006 and 2008), and that share a number of features which, taken together, imposed a new type of public speaking practice for the new millennium. These features concern delivery (cf. Chap. 1: e.g. no lectern, no physical trace of a written script, mobility of the speaker, informal dress code, inclusion of a slideshow, shorter formats), and a move towards more informal linguistic choices. Characteristic formats belonging to the New Oratory include the following: • Corporate keynotes are, according to the sense in which the term is now most often used, delivered by a company’s CEO, and exemplify the more active, embodied role that CEOs are now called upon to fulfil within corporate stakeholder communication.18 The format is also part of the growing trend towards the organisation of corporate events, and confirms the high stakes of spoken presentations that have marked the corporate sector since the middle of the twentieth century.19 In a way, the keynote is the “parent genre” of the New Oratory, preceding the others chronologically. It is inseparable from the high-tech sector and the figure of Steve Jobs, founder of the company Apple. As affirmed by Handler (2017) in his review  “Keynote” is a term of American origin, dating from the end of the nineteenth century, which designates the most prestigious speech given at a conference or convention and which summarises its main themes (Oxford English Dictionary). It is also the name chosen by Apple for its software program that allows the creation of slideshows (a competitor to Microsoft’s PowerPoint). 19  Howell and Bormann (1971, pp. 7–10, quoted in Handler, 2017) describe the paradigm change that began when U.S. companies started to use presentations as a tool in order to manage decision-­ making processes. 18

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of business presentations, Jobs invented the new, corporate “mediatic high mass.” Indeed, in the 1990s and 2000s, Jobs forged a new style for a new format of oral presentations. Other entrepreneurs and business leaders, in the United States and elsewhere, began to emulate this model, which has become central to the marketing strategy of many companies, and is used notably to launch new technological products. On this point, digital oratory is “digital” in more ways than one: in addition to being relayed via the Internet, its first iconic formats arose out of the function they assumed in promoting these very technologies. • Investor pitches are performed by entrepreneurs, or budding entrepreneurs, who present their business plan in order to convince investors to finance their project. Examples include those that are delivered as part of competitions that take place during “Start-up weekends” (the first of which took place in the United States in 2007). These bring together participants who are developers from the business sector, who form teams to launch start-up companies. Like all sales pitches (with the exception of the personal pitch for job interviews), the investor pitch is based on a need-fulfilment format. The format of the competition imposes a time limit, for instance, one minute or three minutes, and the time limit literally takes centre stage as the sixty-second countdown is projected on the screen behind the speaker. • Three-minute-thesis presentations, of which the time limit is inscribed eponymously, provide PhD students or young doctors with the opportunity to communicate with the general public about their research. Speeches are delivered during competitions organised in universities. The first competition was organised in 2008 by the University of Queensland in Australia, which made “3MT,” a registered trademark.20 The first international competition was organised in 2010, and now more than 600 universities belong to the official “3MT” network and organise competitions for their PhD students. Added to these are other university net Even though “3MT” is a registered trademark, for the sake of convenience, it will be used here to refer to the genre in general. 20

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works that organise under different names competitions that abide by the same principle. The 3MT contrasts with other academic genres such as the written version of the PhD, the oral PhD viva, or the conference paper where, typically, academics communicate with other academics belonging to the same discipline. The 3MT is conditioned by the fact that it targets what is qualified as a “non-­ specialist” audience and therefore negotiates between two communities of reference. • TED talks date back to 1984, but the format as we know it today began with the launch of the TED website in 2006. TED stands for “Technology, Entertainment, and Design,” which captures the focus of the first speeches (again, technology is present in both the medium and the content). The range of fields has subsequently expanded, to the point where today a TED talk potentially addresses any type of subject. Since 2009, TED has offered public and private institutions the opportunity to obtain a “TED licence” to organise independent “TEDx” conferences. TED imposes an eighteen-­ minute time limit on speeches, which purportedly c­ orresponds to the threshold of an audience’s attention span. We will come back to this format specifically in Chap. 10. 3. Fully digitalised oratory uniquely involves a remote audience. If the category predates 2020, it was particularly reinforced by the COVID-19 pandemic, when the organisation of F-F events became impossible, and which saw, for instance, the New Oratory formats forced to move entirely online. Such a move implied a number of changes, such as the adoption of a “talking heads” setup. Outside (formerly) New Oratory setups, the pandemic saw, for instance, the exponential development of webinars,21 which sometimes embed monologic presentations that potentially qualify as oratory. 4. Social media oratory constitutes a sub-category within the category of fully digitalised oratory. It is fully digitalised in that it implies a remote speaker who addresses an online audience via a video posted to a social  “Webinar” is a portmanteau word designating “a web-based seminar,” inscribing in its very name the digital medium (“web”) and an educational/instructional component (“seminar”), although webinars are more than simply seminars moved online (see Rossette-Crake, 2022). 21

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media platform (cf. definition, Chap. 1). In its most typical form, it is enacted via a selfie video, a video that is self-filmed using a mobile phone, is framed vertically (“portrait” layout), generally from a close to very close angle, and facilitates a greater mobility of the speaker, who speaks from a variety of settings. Examples discussed in this book will be limited to three currently prominent platforms: YouTube, Instagram (a portmanteau of “instant camera” and “telegram”), and TikTok (a name that refers to the beat of the clock in English—cf. “tick tock”). While each of these platforms fosters its own identity and has a specific target audience (i.e. linked to the different generations that “came of age” as each platform was developed), there is, at the same time, much overlap and intertextuality (in the general sense) between the platforms, as the same video content can be (re)posted to several platforms at once. As already underlined in earlier chapters, within the great variety of video content that exists, that which qualifies as social media oratory stages language as the main social process, in contexts that can be likened to either deliberative or informative ­rhetoric (which are the two main categories of speeches that are traditionally presented in public speaking manuals). Over the previous pages, oratory has been examined in light of its specific communicational setup(s). These descriptions need to be supplemented with an analysis of the conditions of delivery, which are taken up in the following chapter.

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Morton, S. (2014). The Presentation Lab: Learn the Formula Behind Powerful Presentations. Wiley & Sons. Murelli, A. (2011). Relative constructions in European non-standard varieties (Empirical Approaches to Language Typology 50). Mouton de Gruyter. Ong, W. (1967). The Presence of the Word: Some Prolegomena for Cultural and Religious History. Yale University Press. Ong, W. (1982). Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word. Methuen. Page, R. (2018). Narratives Online: Shared Stories in Social Media. Cambridge University Press. Reisigl, M. (2008). Rhetoric of Political Speeches. In R.  Wodak & V.  Koller (Eds.), Handbook of Communication in the Public Sphere (pp. 243–270). de Gruyter Mouton. Riboni, G. (2020). Discourses of Authenticity on YouTube: From the Personal to the Professional. Edizioni Universitarie di Lettere Economia Diritto. Rossette-Crake, F. (2022). COVID-19 and the Rise of Digitalised Spoken Communication: The Example of Webinars. In F.  Rossette-Crake & E. Buckwalter (Eds.), COVID-19, Communication and Culture: Beyond the Global Workplace (pp. 135–153). Routledge. Schmitt, J., Breuer, J., & Wulf, T. (2021). From Cognitive Overload to Digital Detox: Psychological Implications of Telework during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Computers in Human Behavior, 124. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. chb.2021.106899 Short, J., Williams, E., & Christie, B. (1976). The Social Psychology of Telecommunications. John Wiley & Sons. Siess, J., & Valency, G. (2002). La double adresse. L’Harmattan. Sproule, M. (2012). Inventing public Speaking: Rhetoric and the speech book, 1730-1930. Rhetoric & Public Affairs 15(5), 63–608. Tagg, C., Seargeant, P., & Brown, A. (2017). Taking Offence on Social Media: Conviviality and Communication on Facebook. Palgrave. Tolson, A. (2010). A New Authenticity? Communicative Practices on You-­ Tube. Critical Discourse Studies, 7(4), 277–289. Turkle, S. (1995). Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet. The University of Michigan Press. Wang, V., Tucker, J. V., & Rihll, T. E. (2011). On phatic technologies for creating and maintaining relationships. Technology in Society, 33(1–2), 44–51. Yates, J., & Orlikowski, W. (1992). Genres of Organizational Communication: A Structurational Approach to Studying Communication and Media. The Academy of Management Review, 17(2), 299–326.

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Zappavigna, M. (2012). Discourse of Twitter and Social Media: How We Use Language to Create Affiliation on the Web. Continuum. Zappen, J. (2005). Digital Rhetoric: Toward an Integrated Theory. Technical Communication Quarterly, 14(3), 319–325. Zumthor, P. (1983). Introduction à la poésie orale. Seuil.

4 Oratory as Rhetorical Practice: The Renewal of Memoria and Actio

4.1 Oratory Minus the Lectern: The Move to a More Embodied Rhetoric Most of the formats belonging to the period of New Oratory that began to develop during the first decade of the twenty-first century share a key characteristic: they dispense with the lectern. Forgoing the lectern had a number of consequences, both direct and indirect, and ushered in a new style of delivery. Two main consequences can initially be identified. First, the lectern serves as an object upon which speakers can rest a script. Without the lectern, the speaker either needs to hold the written script (which therefore restricts gestures with hands and arms) or needs to give it up. In the latter case, speakers need to adapt their mode of production, either by adopting a more spontaneous mode or by using techniques to memorise a previously written speech, either with or without prompting by way of technological means. Second, with the disappearance of the lectern, the speaker’s entire body now appears in full view of the audience. Speakers are free to move about the stage and their bodies become a more complex multimodal resource. On this point, the foregoing of the lectern marks a paradigm change for oratory and presentation style © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 F. Rossette-Crake, Digital Oratory as Discursive Practice, Postdisciplinary Studies in Discourse, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18984-5_4

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generally, both within and outside the digital sphere.1 Indirect consequences of the removal of the lectern include a modification of the speaker-addressee relation. The lectern—a prop that physically isolates the speaker—informs the asymmetrical relation between speaker and audience, as well as the speaker’s authority (cf. Chap. 2); removing it allows for modulation within this relation, opening the door, for instance, to (more) informality. The removal of the lectern started a movement which led, in the case of certain instances of contemporary oratory (e.g. some keynotes, 3MT presentations and investor pitches) to the lowering of the stage, and sometimes the removal of the stage altogether. This as it were preconditioned the move to fully digitalised oratory, where the stage became merely metaphorical. Interestingly, a relation of synecdoche exists between “lectern” and “podium,” according to a particular usage of the term “podium” in American English, that is used as a synonym for “lectern” (“a stand for holding a book, notes, computer, etc. when you are reading in church, giving a talk, etc.”2)—hence the choice of the term “podium” in the title of this book. In terms of rhetorical practice, the removal of the lectern, as informed by each of the two main aspects mentioned above, marks a renewal of both memoria and actio, the two final canons of classical rhetoric, after inventio, dispositio, and elocutio.3 In fact, if it brought about a new style of delivery, such novelty only concerns modern and post-modern times, because it actually rekindles classical practice—as represented by the Etrusco-Roman statue “The orator” (cf. Chap. 2), whose figure appears in full, without a lectern. For scholars of rhetoric, digital communication increases the impetus on delivery, now considered the most “powerful” of the canons (Porter, 2009; Rhodes & Alexander, 2014). Digital delivery shapes “the new digital canon,” which is conditioned by “the challenge of  For instance, during televised evening news bulletins on French television channels, anchors now present some or part of the bulletin standing up. 2  Oxford English Dictionary. 3  Memoria is concerned with memorising speeches, while pronuntiato and actio cover the management of voice and gestures that make up delivery. Following a common convention, the two latter components will be referred to here simply as actio—both for the sake of convenience, and also because this chapter focuses on the visual aspects of delivery, while some stylistic variation in vocal delivery is discussed in Chap. 9. 1

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digital delivery” (Gurak & Antonijevic, 2009, p. 501). And digital oratory forces an appraisal of the multimodal resources that are still relatively neglected in the study of digital discourse, which remains “structured by its disciplinary focus on language and linguistic phenomena” (Thurlow et al., 2020). Compared to the oratory of the recent past, the New Oratory presents a more embodied rhetoric in the very literal sense in that the speaker’s whole body appears in full view of the audience. This goes hand in hand with the adoption of a personal voice (cf. Chap. 8). At a more general level—and whether or not the speaker’s body is in full view—digital oratory stands in sharp contrast to the many disembodied forms of communication that have been fostered by the digital medium. And based on the way it is flourishing, it can be posited that digital oratory fulfils the vital need for live, embodied discourse, almost as a form of reaction to the virtual, non-face-to-face, anonymous, and disembodied speech that is prototypical of digital rhetoric (Gurak, 2001), where “physical bodies are absent” (Herring, 2004, p.  338). Indeed, we live in a new era where “[o]nline interaction with anonymous individuals from around the world increases while social interaction with those nearby decreases” (Robinson, 2014)—an era, moreover, where “[t]he prevalence of texting and social networks is creating a generation of people who will struggle to verbally express their ideas” (Donovan, 2014, p. 5). From group text messaging and emails, “like” clicks, or Twitter posts, to interactions conducted directly with machines, via messages that we either read or hear (be it automatic answering services, do-it-yourself supermarket or petrol station cash registers, Microsoft’s Cortana, Google Home, etc.), our world is becoming increasingly crowded with anonymous utterances. These place us in the role of a speaker who can make contributions that are unsigned or that we sign with a “pseudo,” a fabricated digital identity; alternatively, they place us in the role of an addressee who is on the receiving end of utterances that cannot be traced to a human source.4 They  Anonymity now characterises a lot of professional and corporate discourse, as exemplified by the “language workers” analysed by Boutet (2012) such as the workers of call centres, who remain invisible and are asked to adopt different pseudonyms depending on the target audience. Similarly, big corporations recently introduced a practice as part of the recruitment process, whereby candidates are required to record themselves on an online platform as they answer questions in a time limit, in front of no live addressee, albeit the computer screen. 4

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exemplify the way “rhetoric lost its body” (Boyle, 2018), where “body” refers both to the human body and to the social body (institutions, regimes) which have been re-informed through ambient information systems—for which Blackman (2017) develops the trope of the “alien” to describe the new industrial discursive practices that develop a non-body politics. In contrast, much online video content, including digital oratory, has “changed our relationship with the physical world and with our own bodies,” and has provided new ways for people to use physical space and their physical bodies as meaning-making resources (Jones & Hafner, 2021, p.  113). Oratory stages a speaker whom we can see and whose voice we can hear. The heightened sense of embodiment and presence of the person of the orator is certainly what Chris Anderson (2016, p. 199), the head of TED talks, partly refers to when he identifies the additional “human overlay” that is imparted by spoken performance in the context of today’s digital landscape.

4.2 Mode of Production … and Memoria Modelling Memoria: Different Modes of Production If removal of the lectern means relinquishing a physically present written script, this does not mean that there is no script at all. In most cases, oratory is based on delivery of a text which has for the most part been prepared in advance, and has generally at some point been committed to paper. Preplanning encompasses not just the general content but also the wording, which is materialised via the script. Digital oratory belongs to the wider body of speech types that are heavily scripted and rely on the written medium in order to craft the speech for oral delivery (McCorkle, 2012). In particular, the New Oratory formats provide a striking contrast between the absence of any physical trace of a written script, on one hand, and, on the other hand, the slickness of the presentation, which is prepared down to the finest detail (notably in order to respect a time limit, or to integrate a slideshow).

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In regard to oratory more generally, if delivery based on a written script remains the norm, in a small number of cases there may be no script at all. For instance, Goffman (1981) identifies three different modes for “animating spoken words”: “memorisation,” “aloud reading,” and “fresh talk” (i.e. impromptu or extemporaneous production, without any script). Similarly, Tannen (1988), who expresses her debt to Goffman, refers to an “oral/literate continuum” in a discussion of the practice of giving a paper at an academic conference. The continuum, which informs a “commingling of orality and literacy,” features, at one end, “extemporaneous talk,” and at the other, “the verbatim reading of a paper from a written text” (Tannen, 1988, p. 36). We can expand on these categories in order to distinguish between various modes of production: 1. Improvised orality, which involves no prior preparation: production and delivery coincide fairly closely; speakers put ideas into words in real time; 2. Prepared orality, which involves a planning stage: speakers think about the content in advance, often noting down on paper word-for-word some main ideas and some parts (e.g. the introduction); this said, speakers will not have a precise idea of the entire speech, and will not have written it down in full; 3. Elaborate orality, where the speech is planned in advance, and is scripted in full; the speech therefore takes the form of a text in the traditional sense; however, speakers need to make slight adjustments to the text in real time, at the moment of delivery, in order to avoid the effect of a written text, and appear fully present in the moment of the delivery. Improvised orality is closely linked to the notion of “extempore speech,” which has been of particular importance for the Church, providing the emblematic title of a treaty on preaching (Ford, 1896), a form of address that fosters “the speaking out from the inner man of soul to soul with that burning, fiery eloquence which is flung direct from the heart of the speaker into the heart of the hearer” (Ford, 1896, p. 13). In the black American preaching tradition, a sense of the spiritual can only be arrived

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at when there is no manuscript, an instance of “spiritual preaching” as opposed to “manuscript preaching” (Rosenberg, 1971). Improvised orality is rare in oratory. In the specific case of political speeches, Reisigl (2008) notes: Usually, they are prepared in writing, although the wording of their verbal presentation may sometimes differ considerably from the written version. They are rarely produced ad hoc or spontaneously and even the sporadic ex tempore speeches are never improvisations out of nothing, but compositions based on speech patterns and set pieces that have entered the linguistic and episodic memory of the speaker. The infrequency of spontaneous speeches is due to the fact that speeches are, for the most part, given in formal situations, and on occasions speakers have been familiar with for a long time. (Reisigl, 2008, 243)

The author refers here to “compositions based on speech patterns and set pieces” which an experienced speaker, such as a politician who is called upon to speak regularly, builds up as part of what could be called his/her personal public speaking repertoire. These exemplify a type of prepared orality at both the macro and the micro (grammar and syntax) levels. A famous example is provided by Martin Luther King’s 1963 “I have a dream” speech (cf. Chap. 1). According to his speech writer, who witnessed the scene,5 he departed from the written script at the very moment (the peroration) when he began to deliver the series of anaphora based on the repetition “I have a dream,” a leitmotif that he had already developed in a previous speech, a commencement address delivered at Lincoln University two years earlier.6 In this way, King feigned the spontaneous mode characteristic of the “spontaneous preaching” of the black American preaching tradition, which no doubt contributed to the power of the speech.  His speech writer, Clarence B. Jones, recounts: “I watched Martin push the text of his prepared remarks to one side of the lectern. He shifted gears in a heartbeat, abandoning whatever final version of the balance of the text he’d prepared late the previous night” (Jones & Connelly, 2011, p. 112). 6   Text of the speech available at: http://www.thekingcenter.org/archive/document/americandream# 5

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Elaborate orality—that is, fully scripted speeches—corresponds to the most common practice. It is quasi compulsory for new public speaking formats because of the short time limits and the concision they enforce. The adjective “elaborate” (“containing a lot of careful detail or many detailed parts”)7 insists on the structured nature of the speech, which is formatted particularly via language. It also highlights use of language that is striking, and even “ostentatious”:8 language that is designed to be performed. Delivery based on elaborate orality can be carried out according to various modes, namely: (i) scripted and read; (ii) scripted and fully memorised (hence renewing the classical rhetoric tradition of memoria); (iii) scripted and partly memorised. And within this latter category, delivery can be facilitated by various types of prompts, such as a prompter placed on the stage, or prompts provided within a slideshow presentation. Among the examples quoted in Chap. 1, Angela Davis visibly relies on a written script, glancing down at regular intervals at the lectern during the speech she delivers at the rally in Washington. She expertly combines this with regular eye contact as she glances out to the crowd in front of her, alternating glances to her left and to her right. In some cases, we sometimes cannot be absolutely sure of the exact means by which the speaker is able to summon the previously written words. This is the case of the address made at COP26 by Antonio Guterres, who comes to the stage holding the pages of what is visibly his script; however, during his delivery, he never looks down at his lectern; it can only be assumed that he is reading from prompters, and that the pages are there in case of a technical problem with the prompters. The stages of many TED talk conferences are equipped with prompters, which are located on the stage at the feet of the speaker. This does not appear to be the case for the talk by Kotchakorn Voraakhom, who never looks down, and whose eye contact continually embraces different parts of the room. Similarly, in her fully digitalised TED talk, Sophie Howe does not appear to be reading from a prompter—but textual elements of her speech may be on the screen at which she is directing her gaze. Indeed, in some instances of the  Cambridge English Dictionary.  Oxford English Dictionary.

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fully digitalised oratory that developed during the COVID-19 pandemic, we can gauge that the speaker (sometimes a non-experienced speaker, sometimes more experienced9), is reading off the screen at which he/she is looking, which produces a disconcerting effect for the viewer that is indeed like a filter. Within social media oratory, it would appear that the speakers are either speaking without a script or have memorised it fully (certain structures in conjunction with the slow pace of delivery suggest that Michelle Obama’s post may have been scripted; Charles Brumauld (cf. Chap. 11) admits that he scripts most of his online video content). In this, social media oratory is not far removed from political podium oratory, which is typically underscored by elaborate orality. A rare and famous exception is provided by the address made by U.S. Senator Robert Kennedy when he announced the death of Martin Luther King on the very evening of the assassination (April 4, 1968). The senator did not have time to write out his speech in full. In the video recording of his delivery, we can see the speaker occasionally glancing down at a piece of folded paper in his hands, on which he had most probably jotted down his main ideas. Moreover, memorising a fully scripted speech is rare in modern-day podium oratory. For instance, according to his speechwriter, Barack Obama is said to have committed only one speech entirely to memory over his entire political career, that delivered during the 2007 Democrat primaries, at the Jefferson-Jackson fundraising dinner in Des Moines, Iowa (10 November 2007), which is, moreover, considered to have played a significant role in turning the primaries around in his favour, in his race against Hillary Clinton.10 Elaborate orality raises the issue of authorship. That is: who wrote the script of the speech? Up until now, I have used the term “speaker” according to its literal sense, to refer to the participant who is physically delivering the speech. But a distinction needs to be made between a speaker who  For instance, former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, who had previously delivered several TED talks live, is clearly reading from his computer screen during the session he co-chairs of the 2020 TED Countdown conference. 10  According to Jon Favreau, Director of Speechwriting for Barack Obama from 2005 to 2013, speaking at the Kennedy School of Government Institute of Politics, Harvard University, April 2, 2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poAc2VGSlX4 9

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is the author of his/her text, and the speaker who is not. For instance, Goffman establishes several distinctions—between the entity corresponding to the author of the text (“who has selected the sentiments and words”), the “sounding box” or “talking machine” (the participant who delivers the speech)—and also conceptualises the status of “principal” (“who is committed to what the words say,” and is “staking out his own position”) (Goffman, 1981, pp. 144–145; 167). As underlined by Reisigl (2008, p.  257), modern political communication—and we can extend this to communication in other sectors—contrasts with classical rhetoric in that it is multi- and intertextual, and in that the speaker is not necessarily the author of the text. Again, a lot of digital oratory may be regarded as closer to classical oratory in that the speaker generally coincides with the author of the text.11

Temporal and Spatial Thresholds In most oratory, be it digital or pre-digital, production of the message based on prepared or elaborate orality involves at least two stages (that preceding the moment of delivery, and that of the delivery itself ), and can thus extend over an indefinite time frame. Conflicting forces can be identified in the combination of compulsory preplanning, and a mode of reception placed in the thrust of the here-and-now of the delivery. And so, as well as the initial discursive divide engendered by the fundamental asymmetry of the speaker/addressee relation (cf. Chap. 2), another divide—or threshold—involves the temporal axis, in conjunction with a spatial one, based on the delivery of a text which has been prepared in a different space, prior to the moment when the speaker takes to the public speaking floor. These temporal and spatial thresholds require negotiation by the speaker in order to carry off the text in the here-and-now of the delivery. “Carrying off” the text is one component of ethos in the Aristotelian sense, in that it contributes to the speaker credibility that is construed  Interestingly, another category would need to be added to Goffman’s list if we were to take into account TikTok performances that involve lip-syncing (not included as oratory in this study), where the TikToker does not even qualify as the “sounding box.” 11

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within the discourse itself. It can also be linked to the Goffmanian notion of “principal” (cf. “who is committed to what the words say”—cited above). Again, the term embodiment can be used here in another sense, that of embodying the text: the speaker needs to communicate the feeling that s/he is very much involved in his/her text, and is attuned to the audience. In other words, speakers appear “at one” with their speech. Orators will carry off their text if they give the impression of speaking in their own words, found in the spur of the moment. Absence of any trace of a script contributes to the sense of embodiment by a speaker who is physically and mentally alive to the moment of delivery.12 In contrast, when the speaker reads or appears to be reciting by rote, s/he can appear detached; the script proves a barrier and deepens the divide between the two moments of production. The reaction of the audience in such a case is invoked by William Safire, speech writer to Richard Nixon, who talks of a dismayed, fidgeting audience, and identifies the recent development of a (new) “hybrid” form of address which plays on both prepared (what he calls “quasi-extemporaneous”) and elaborate orality, and provides a means for the speaker to negotiate the temporal and spatial thresholds: A hybrid form of prepared address is coming into vogue to overcome the dismay of audiences that begin to fidget as soon as the person on the podium puts on spectacles and begins to read. That is the quasi-­ extemporaneous “building block” speech. In this presentation, the idea is to appear to be ad-libbing while not rambling off on tangents. […] For ­verisimilitude, the speaker will pause occasionally, seem to think about what he will say next, emit a few uhs and ahs, and plunge ahead toward the prepared peroration that has been fairly well committed to memory. I saw Charles de Gaulle do this at a state dinner in Paris to an audience of Americans who believed he was saying whatever came into his head. (The game was given away by an interpreter who had a written translation ready.). (Safire, 2004) (my emphasis)

 A parallel can be drawn with musical performances: pianists appear truly at one with a piece of Chopin or Beethoven, for example, when they play from memory, without the physical presence of the sheet music before their eyes, which, it can be argued, would place them in an indirect relation to the instrument, and therefore to the music itself. 12

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The metaphor of the “building block” designates a speech that is based on prepared orality in a first stage (it is controlled and there is no rambling; it is prepared as opposed to improvised, and may well include some of the “speech patterns and set pieces” identified by Reisigl), and that then concludes by turning to elaborate orality. Safire highlights the artifice of a falsely spontaneous mode (“the idea is to appear to be ad-libbing”), and also identifies pausing and the insertion of specific markers (“uh,” “ah”) that establish what he refers to as “verisimilitude.” Both of these components serve to create the impression of an improvised orality.

“Writing Orally,” Deictic Reference, and Kairos Indeed, the sense of embodiment of the text of the speech depends not only on the mode of delivery as outlined above, but also, in the case of elaborate orality, on a certain distancing from the written medium. In the bygone era of stenographers, speech writers would dictate an initial version, and would not be in direct contact with the materiality of the written word; the same was later made possible thanks to Dictaphones. Distancing from the written medium is also achieved by adopting some features of spoken language, according to the tenet of “writing orally,” a phrase coined by Clarke (2011, p.  17) in a discussion of President Kennedy’s speeches. This is part of the phenomenon of “feigned orality” described by Jack Goody (1987), or what Goffman refers to as “the illusion of fresh talk,” which depends on writing “in spoken prose,” in addition to effective delivery (“read it ‘expertly’” (Goffman, 1981, p. 190)). The “illusion of fresh talk” also relates to “the bonding between text and situation of delivery,” or “interactional encasement” (Goffman, 1981, p. 173). The speaker acts as his/her own “go-between”—a term echoing the notion of the threshold—in order to connect his/her “textual self ” with his/her “speaking personality.” The latter is “intimately responsive to the current situation” (p. 175). The speaker “addresses the occasion. In both ways he gives himself up to the situation” (p. 191) (my emphasis). This not only construes the “sense of preferential access to the speaker” (cf. Chap. 2), but also inscribes the speaking event in its uniqueness, based on the tacit assumption “that what the audience hears was

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formulated just for them and for this current occasion” (p. 188). Such bonding between text and situation is achieved via language choices, such as “contextualising devices” (p. 188), by which the speaker “extemporaneously (or apparently extemporaneously) embellishes his text, using his text as a basis for a situationally sensitive rendition, mingling the living and the read” (Goffman, 1981, p. 192) (my emphasis).

Deictic Reference Goffman’s “contextualising devices” are centred notably around exophoric, or deictic, reference, which refer directly to the context of delivery. In her study of political speeches, Prasch (2015, 2016) proposes a “rhetorical theory of deixis,” which, for instance, presents the parameter of time “as both a specific temporal marker on a timeline of history (quantitative time, or chronos) and as a symbolically constructed moment that is ripe or opportune for rhetorical action (qualitative time, or kairos)” (Prasch, 2015, p. 173). Indeed, explicit reference to the here-and-­ now of the delivery corresponds to a staging of kairos. Developed by the early Sophists, kairos, from the Ancient Greek “the right/supreme moment,” conceptualises the sense of the opportune, the importance of grasping the right moment, and is therefore linked to the way the speech ties in with the dynamics of the moment. Deictic reference corresponds to a strategy that is used in all types of oratory. Explicit linking to participants and to the space and time of delivery is achieved via first-person pronouns, demonstrative pronouns and determiners, and adverbials such as “here” and “now.” For example, temporal reference (e.g. “this afternoon,” “this very moment,” “today”), in conjunction with first-person pronouns, is particularly common: We know that we gather this afternoon on indigenous land […] We especially salute today the Standing Rock Sioux.13 (Angela Davis, Women’s March on Washington, Jan. 2021)

 The Standing Rock Sioux is an indigenous American tribe that is engaged in protecting its culture and language. 13

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At this very moment, with every breath we take, major delta cities across the globe are sinking, including New  York, London, Tokyo, Shanghai, New Orleans, and as well as my city, Bangkok. (TED talk, Kotchakorn Voraakhom, Nov. 2018) My message today is that there is still time to avert that disaster, that diplomacy can prevail” (Instagram post on account “borisjohnsonuk,” Feb. 19, 2022) I have a job to inform people of the racial inequalities in the world right now. (TikTok post, Charli D’Amelio, June 30, 2020) Today is Eating Disorders Day. An eating disorder is when there is a major disturbance in our relationship to food. (Instagram post on account “charlesbrumauld,” June 2, 2022)

Such references serve to negotiate the temporal and spatial divides posed notably by the written script. Thanks to such devices, a time and a place are carved out for the oratory act, which becomes anchored within the reality of the delivery. At this stage, it is necessary to anticipate the discussion of Rhetorical and Dialogic Staging, two setups which are presented in Chap. 9. Deictic markers are common in conversation, and, as such, are part of the list of markers that enact Dialogic Staging. However, when they are used at a particularly high rate, they correspond to a rhetorical amplification, and prove a tool of Rhetorical Staging, as illustrated by the emblematic Gettysburg address pronounced by Abraham Lincoln (cf. Chap. 9). The address is remarkable for its high frequency of deictic reference, namely spatial reference. In addition to first person plural reference (all finite clauses save one contain a reference to “we,” “us,” or “our”), the speech features deictic use of demonstratives (“this continent,” “we cannot hallow this ground”), as well as eight instances of the adverb “here,” seven of which appear in the last four sentences, including those of the utterance “The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can

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never forget what they did here.”14 These lines foreground the tension between “here” and “the world” and hence the expansion from one to the other. It can be posited that such a focus on the immediate context functions to saturate it, and that the reference exceeds the immediate here-­ and-­ now. The Gettysburg is emblematic of certain rhetorical acts described by Prasch, that correspond to “kairotic encounters that are both timely and timeless, rooted in places that are symbolically constructed and materially real” (2016, p. 173). As she notes in relation to another instance of epideictic oratory (President Reagan’s Pointe du Hoc DDay commemoration speech, delivered 6 June 1984  in Normandy, France), “[a]lthough the speaker and the text are rooted in time, the place of a public address can maintain and even reappropriate the text for future generations” (Prasch, 2015, p.  269).15 Because it saturates and therefore transcends the here-and-now of the delivery, a high frequency of deictic reference proves an important tool in Rhetorical Staging, of which a key component is the construal of an overarching community, as will be discussed further in Chap. 9.

Actio: The Body on the Stage—And Off In contrast to other forms of digital communication (such as blogs, emails, text messaging, etc.), digital oratory places the focus on the speaker’s body, which is exploited as a rich multimodal resource. However, the “semiotic ‘potential’” (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006, p.  9) of the body translates in different ways across the various types of digital oratory. We will distinguish here between New Oratory and fully digitalised oratory (including social media oratory), the development of the first chronologically preceding that of the latter. As has already been underlined, in the New Oratory formats, the speaker’s entire body is in full view, while in one sense, the speaker is “disembodied” in a lot of fully digitalised oratory and social media oratory, which resort (back) to the model of the “talking heads” of the electronic era (Hall Jamieson, 1984), and which is also  Many written versions exist for the Gettysburg Address. I quote the “Final Text” version reproduced in Wills (1992). 15  Epideictic oratory shares an obvious affinity with deictic reference (Prasch, 2015). 14

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characteristic of dialogic digital speech (“video-in-interaction”—Licoppe & Morel, 2012). For instance, in Charli D’Amelio’s TikTok video (cf. Chap. 1), the close shot does not allow any view of the speaker’s body, and the unique point of focus is her face. A general awareness of body language as a multimodal resource, together with a renewed interest in the component of classical rhetoric, actio, can be felt in the fields of both rhetoric and discourse studies. Olbrys Gencarella and Pezzullo (2010, p. ix) speak of “a renaissance of scholarship […] at the intersection of rhetorical and performance studies.” Body language is a focus of analysis of political oratory (e.g. Debras & L’Hôte, 2015), and of oral presentations in other sectors of activity, such as academia (e.g. see Valeiras-Jurado & Ruiz-Madrid, 2019 on conference presentations). In regard to the digital interface, Jones and Hafner (2021, p. 123) identify new digital “embodied modes” in which speakers communicate “with whole bodies rather than just their voices or images,” of which the analysis can be broken down according to various components (e.g. gaze, gesture, facial expression, posture, proxemics, movement, and even touch). They insist on the way digital communication has introduced new ways of using one’s body when compared to that of face-to-face communication: [W]hile synchronous video-based interaction is much more embodied than text-based interaction (or even photo sharing), the way people use their bodies to communicate is very different from the way they do in face-­ to-­face interaction. Video gives users much more control over what they are showing, making it possible for them to direct the gaze of their interlocuters in ways that they cannot in face-to-face interaction. (Jones & Hafner, 2021, p. 126)

The authors go on to contrast these new possibilities for embodied communication with the restrictions brought about by more recent technology, which produce “two-dimensional bodies shrunk to the dimensions of a computer or mobile phone screen and usually limited to the face [which] are much more restricted in the ways they can express meaning than three-­dimensional bodies in physical space” (ibid.)—a description that fits social media oratory in the form of the selfie videos that have

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been discussed in this book so far. In a separate study, Jones (2020) underlines the experience of the viewer, and identifies the “technosomatic entanglements” whereby “seeing is always entangled with the mediational means through which it is accomplished.” The author develops an “embodied semiotics” of “visuality” based on several parameters such as the way the viewer’s attention and perceptions are channelled by technology, the “kinds of people technologies allow us to be,” and the distribution of power in terms of who has the right to be seen and who has the right to look. Of course, the concept of digital oratory places the focus on the online, remote audience, whose experience of the speech is mediated through the screen. However, the “somatic entanglements” are not the same for remote audiences depending on whether or not they are part of a hybrid audience and are hence viewing not only a speaker but also a physically present audience. I propose to attempt an unravelling of these “entanglements” by dissociating the multimodal setup of the live delivery, which is discussed here, from the representation of the speaker’s body due to the way it is filmed, which will be discussed in the following chapter. For New Oratory speakers, delivery requires managing the space on stage. The digital speaker exploits the full meaning-making potential of a “talking body,” which is now placed in the spotlight, walks freely about the stage, and can use a wide variety of hand/arm gestures. Focus on the speaker’s body makes for a more theatrical delivery, one which is characteristic of our image-based society of communication and “the videosphere” described by Régis Debray (2004)—a world dictated by appearances, in which we have “rediscovered the human body.” This is particularly well illustrated by the winner of the 2018 Asia Pacific 3MT finals (cf. Chap. 8): while the speaker does not make full use of all the space on the stage, she is mobile, and constantly moves one step forwards, backwards, or sideways. She multiplies her hand movements and facial expressions, with a new gesture accompanying almost every new utterance. The speaker chooses to exaggerate the sense of show, as indicated, for instance, at one point of her presentation by the theatrical expression “And voila!” Movement about the stage is facilitated by the use of wireless microphones (including head microphones, that free up the hands)—which, rather paradoxically, exemplifies the way technology can

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help to create a greater sense of embodiment (cf. following chapter). Movement is also facilitated in some examples of investor pitch and 3MT competitions by the fact that the stage is non-existent, with the speaker sharing the same, less confined, space as the audience. When there is a stage, it is streamlined and relatively bare, with the exception of the screen which projects a slideshow, sometimes the presence of a logo (e.g. “3MT” or “TED”) in conjunction with, in the case of TED, the circular red carpet that is their characteristic trademark (cf. Chap. 10). Occasional props are introduced, such as the human brain brought on stage during Jill Bolte Taylor’s famous TED talk (cf. Chap. 10), or, in the case of keynotes or pitches, the product when it is the object of a product demonstration. In contrast, fully digitalised oratory, including social media oratory, can be divided into two types: (i) those that entail speakers who are immobilised in front of the webcams of their home computers or the screens of their mobile phones; (ii) those that involve a speaker who is standing and/or moving about (and is filmed thanks to a hand-held phone). In the first case, where speakers are sitting, and where digital speakers can put a “face” but not a “body” on their discourse, this typically results is a less dynamic performance—as intimated by one actor in the speaking sector, who notes: “[p]ersonally, I prefer to stand up to have enough energy. If I sit, the sound and the energy would be too dull.”16 Compared to face-to-face communication contexts, speakers tend to exaggerate their facial expressions (Jones & Hafner, 2021)—as well as their vocal variation (e.g. intonation), according to a process that can be interpreted as a form of compensation. When speakers are standing, the performance is generally more dynamic. An example is provided by Sophie Howe’s fully digitalised TED talk quoted in Chap. 1. She gives her talk standing, and while she does not move about, the medium shot takes in the many arm gestures that punctuate her talk. She performs her talk indoors, but a number of the talks given at the same conference, which addresses climate change,  A. Levina, “The Digital Public Speaking competition—a roadmap from preparation, speech writing, and the contest,” March 24, 2020, https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/digital-public-speakingcompetition-roadmap-from-anna-levina-mba/ 16

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feature speakers speaking outside. In this case, they typically stand, but are immobile, such as Severn Cullis-Suzuki, who delivers her talk “Make your actions on climate reflect your words” on location, within a natural landscape, standing at vantage points around a lake.17 Likewise, Angel Hsu delivers her talk, “Cities are driving climate change. Here’s how they can fix it,” from what appears to be the rooftop, against the background of a cityscape of high-rise buildings.18 By doing away with not only the lectern but also the stage, fully digitalised oratory is therefore free to choose its location, be it indoors or outdoors. Choice of setting—or “scenography”19—becomes another resource for directing meaning. For these two TED talks, the choice of outdoor setting is clearly linked to the topic of the talk: for instance, a talk about the impact of cities is delivered against a cityscape. Similarly, when Boris Johnson chooses to record his Instagram post from the cabin of the plane aboard which he is travelling to Berlin, he stages the dynamic role he wishes to play in the upcoming negotiations, as well as a sense of urgency. And when Volodymyr Zelensky films a selfie video on location outside, in the streets of Kiev, it reinforces the message that he has decided to stay in the country’s capital and support his fellow citizens. Other examples of fully digitalised oratory adopt the private setting of the speaker’s home. This choice construes intimacy, as part of the process whereby “public” speaking has gone “private” (cf. Chap. 7). A rather amusing example is provided by a 3MT contest that took place during the first lockdown period of the COVID-19 pandemic. The 2020 3MT Finals of Trent University, Canada, begins with the host academic sitting in what is probably his own living room, in an armchair in front of a fireplace (the first shot of the video of the contest is a close-up shot of the fire burning away in the fireplace, as piano music plays in the

 https://www.ted.com/talks/severn_cullis_suzuki_make_your_actions_on_climate_reflect_ your_words?language=en 18  https://www.ted.com/talks/angel_hsu_cities_are_driving_climate_change_here_s_how_ they_can_fix_it?referrer=playlist-­countdown_session_1_urgency 19  The term “scenography” is used here in its everyday sense to refer to the design of stage scenery— as opposed to the meaning given to the term within the enunciative approach to discursive genre presented in the Chap. 6. 17

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background).20 The cosy atmosphere is accentuated by the dress code, which is humorously “Balzacian” in that the host wears a dressing gown and socks (no shoes).21 Scenography and choice of dress put a novel, positive spin on the circumstances, and visually stage the “home edition” of the competition that is announced in the host’s welcome speech: Trent University’s three-minute thesis normally would be done very publicly in a large space, but this year we have to do the home edition

The fact that orators can now choose their setting is one element that participates in the “mobility turn” that is taken up extensively by Jones and Hafner (2021). Drawing on the concept originally coined by Licoppe and Morel (2012), the authors link this to a distinction they draw between “place” and “space,” and highlight the process whereby a “space” is turned into a “place” thanks to the social practice which takes place in it.22 In other words, “places are spaces that are embodied, relational, and meaningful” (Jones & Hafner, 2021, p. 120). Speakers therefore “engage in placemaking” (ibid.). For instance, digital speakers have turned the potential space of the home into a “place” that equates with the metaphoric public speaking platform. In contrast, in cases of “Zoom-style,” webcam-based oratory where the speaker is sitting very close to the webcam and we cannot make out any of the background, we are as it were robbed of a sense of place—and context—which hence needs to be construed uniquely by the linguistic/vocal channels. Mobility also involves the movement of speakers through different places, as illustrated by the potential of selfie videos, which makes for a particularly dynamic performance and can participate in the construal of meaning, as will be discussed in the chapter devoted to social media oratory. The choices that underscore the filming of these videos are discussed in the following chapter, in which we turn to multimodal resources that depend directly on technology.   3MT Finals 2020, Trent University, Canada https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jwZya_ IDc4&t=34s [accessed 03.03.2022]. 21  An iconic attribute of the nineteenth-century French novelist Honoré de Balzac is his dressing gown, as he was known for writing throughout the night in his home/bed attire. 22  This distinction was first developed by the philosopher Michel de Certeau, cited by Jones and Hafner (2021). 20

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References Anderson, C. (2016). TED Talks: The Official TED Guide to Public Speaking. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Blackman, L. (2017). ‘Loving the Alien’: A Post–post-human Manifesto. Subjectivity, 10, 13–25. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41286-­016-­0022-­6 Boutet, J. (2012). Language Workers: Emblematic Figures of Late Capitalism. In A. Duchêne & M. Heller (Eds.), Language in Late Capitalism: Pride and Profit (Vol. 1, pp. 207–229). Routledge. Boyle, C. (2018). Rhetoric as Posthuman Practice. Ohio State University Press. Clarke, T. (2011). Ask Not: The Inauguration of John F. Kennedy and the Speech that Changed America. Penguin. Debras, C., & L’Hôte, E. (2015). Framing, Metaphor and Dialogue: A Multimodal Approach to Party Conference Speeches. Metaphor and the Social World, 5(2), 184–204. Debray, R. (2004). Transmitting Culture. University of Columbia Press. Donovan, J. (2014). How to Deliver a TED Talk. McGraw Hill. Ford, H. (1896, 1906). The Art of Extempore Speaking. Smiths’ Publishing Co Ltd. Goffman, E. (1981). Forms of Talk. University of Pennsylvania Press. Goody, J. (1987). The Interface Between the Written and the Oral. Cambridge University Press. Gurak, L. (2001). Cyberliteracy: Navigating the Internet with Awareness. Yale University Press. Gurak, L. J., & Antonijevic, S. (2009). Digital Rhetoric and Public Discourse. In A. A. Lunsford, K. H. Wilson, & R. A. Eberly (Eds.), The SAGE Handbook of Rhetorical Studies (pp. 497–508). Sage. Hall Jamieson, K. (1984). Eloquence in an Electronic Age: The Transformation of Political Speechmaking. Oxford University Press. Herring, S. (2004). Computer-mediated Discourse Analysis: An Approach to Researching Online Behaviour. In S.  Barab, R.  Kling, & J.  Gray (Eds.), Designing for Virtual Communities in The Service of Learning (pp. 338–376). Cambridge University Press. Jones, C., & Connelly, S. (2011). Behind the Dream: The Making of the Speech that Transformed a Nation. Palgrave Macmillan. Jones, R. (2020). Towards an Embodied Visual Semiotic. In C.  Thurlow, C. Dürscheid, & F. Diémoz (Eds.), Visualizing Digital Discourse: Interactional, Institutional and Ideological Perspectives. De Gruyter. Jones, R., & Hafner, C. (2021). Understanding Digital Literacies: A Practical Introduction. Routledge.

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Kress, G., & van Leeuwen, T. (2006). Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design. Routledge. Licoppe, C., & Morel, J. (2012). Video-in-Interaction: “Talking Heads” and the Multimodal Organisation of Mobile and Skype Video Calls. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 45(4), 399–429. McCorkle, B. (2012). Rhetorical Delivery as Technological Discourse. South Illinois University Press. Olbrys Gencarella, S., & Pezzullo, P. (Eds.). (2010). Readings on Rhetoric and Performance. Strata Publishing. Porter, J. (2009). Recovering Delivery for Digital Rhetoric. Computers and Composition, 26(4), 207–224. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compcom.2009. 09.004 Prasch, A. (2015). Reagan at Pointe du Hoc: Deictic Epideictic and the Persuasive Power of ‘Bringing Before the Eyes’. Rhetoric and Public Affairs, 18(2), 247–276. Prasch, A. (2016). Toward a Rhetorical Theory of Deixis. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 102(2), 166–193. https://doi.org/10.1080/00335630.2016.1156145 Reisigl, M. (2008). Rhetoric of political speeches. In R.  Wodak & V.  Koller (Eds.), Handbook of Communication in the Public Sphere (pp. 243–270). de Gruyter Mouton. Rhodes, J., & Alexander, J. (2014). On Multimodality: New Media in Composition Studies. Conference on College Composition and Communication of the National Council of Teachers of English. Robinson, B. (2014). The Marriage of Religion and Technology: Reading Apple’s Allegorical Advertising https://secondnaturejournal.com/the-marriage-of-religion-and-technology-reading-apples-allegorical-advertising/ [accessed 14.10.2021]. Rosenberg, B. (1971). The Art of the American Folk Preacher. Oxford University Press. Safire, W. (2004). Lend Me Your Ears: Great Speeches in History (2nd ed.). W.W. Norton & Company. Tannen, D. (1988). The Commingling of Orality and Literacy in Giving a Paper at a Scholarly Conference. American Speech, 63(1), 34–43. Thurlow, C., Dürscheid, C., & Diémoz, F. (Eds.). (2020). Visualizing Digital Discourse: Interactional, Institutional and Ideological Perspectives. Mouton de Gruyter. Valeiras-Jurado, J., & Ruiz-Madrid, N. (2019). Multimodal Enactment of Characters in Conference Presentations. Discourse Studies, 21(5), 561–583. Wills, G. (1992). Lincoln at Gettysburg, the Words that Remade America. Simon & Schuster.

5 Multimodality and Technology

5.1 The Slideshow The Slideshow as a Multimodal Resource Delivery incorporates other components which provide further potential for the construal of meaning via the visual channel, and which require specific negotiation by the digital speaker. One prominent innovation of the New Oratory is its quasi-compulsory slideshow, which is also used in some fully digitalised oratory. In one New Oratory format, the 3MT presentation, the slideshow is a compulsory requirement by the competition organisers, who stipulate that speakers speak to one single slide. More generally, the slideshow is also a recurrent component within the academic and corporate sectors. Slideshows have been integrated into multimodal analyses of academic genres (e.g. Rowley-Jolivet, 2004; Diani, 2015). As for the professional sector, Handler (2017) addresses the evolving role of PowerPoint presentations.1 If they were first devised  PowerPoint is the registered trademark for the Microsoft software program launched in 1987. “Keynote” is the name of Apple’s slideshow software. 1

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as a visual accompaniment synchronous to the presentation, they now have other uses, for instance, as documentation for later referencing, as a form of “slideument” (a portmanteau word based on “slide” and “document”) (Duarte, 2012, p. 7), or as a document that is sent in advance and is used by professional actors to decide whether or not it is pertinent for them to attend a presentation or a meeting (Beaudouin, 2008, p. 384) (both quoted in Handler, 2017). In the corporate sector, keynote presentations and product launches provide iconic use of slideshows and have been an impelling force in their technical development—particularly in the case of the high-tech companies that develop the presentation software and demonstrate their use at these events. The slideshow serves a number of functions. It can be used as a prompter in the absence of a physically present written script. In addition, it can participate in the construal of speaker legitimacy. Speech coach and academic Max Atkinson explains the development of slideshows in the following terms: One of the great attractions of the slide-driven approach was that it offered an easy way of appearing to be prepared and professional. The mere fact that you had some slides to show was enough in itself to qualify as a ‘proper’ presentation in the eyes of the audience, who were increasingly conditioned to expect nothing else. (Atkinson, 2004, p. 124)

In other words, in the contemporary context, the slideshow is one of the attributes of the professional speaker. Different types of meanings are construed depending on the types of content that are projected, which are summed up in Table 5.1. These can be divided into two categories: (1) textual content; (2) visual content. Table 5.1  Categories of content within slideshow presentations Textual

Visual content

Headings Points (1, 2, 3, …)

Photographs Drawings/ paintings Tables, figures Logos, icons

Quotes Website addresses and other types of references, sources, etc.

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Text contributes generally to either ideational or textual meaning.2 A typical use of slideshows—highlighted by the name “PowerPoint”—is to list in point form (typically nominal phrases) the main ideas of the speech, as well as to make the organisation of the speech clear (e.g. by projecting the title of the section of the speech at the top of the slide). According to the framework developed by Kress and van Leeuwen (2006, p.  59), visual content can be further subdivided into narrative representations (involving “participants […] represented as doing something to or for each other”) and conceptual representations (which “represent participants in terms of their class, structure or meaning […] in terms of their generalised and more or less stable and timeless essence”). Conceptual representations are the most common types of visual content to appear within slideshows. Visual content particularly contributes to interpersonal meanings: for instance, by entertaining the audience, making them laugh, creating complicity, and so on. It can also serve a textual function, by attracting attention at a key moment of the speech, and thereby managing the flow of information. Similarly, it can ease the cognitive load at specific points of the speech by creating “visual interludes” (e.g. photographs that offer a change of scene, are relaxing, etc.). Classificatory and analytical conceptual content (e.g. charts, graphs) contribute to ideational meaning, providing a visual representation of information that may be more difficult to explain verbally, and at the same time underscore the speaker’s authority and experience on a topic (e.g. a scientist who presents results of experiments). Within practices belonging to the New Oratory such as TED talks and keynotes, slide presentations in recent years display less textual content and more visual content. This is illustrated by the famous opening sequence of the 2007 keynote when Steve Jobs unveiled the first iPhone. The textual content on the slides is limited to the catchphrase “Apple reinvents the phone,” which gives way to an edited photograph of an iPod featuring a phone dial from thirty years before. And then this gives way to a photograph of the new iPhone. Here, the visual channel  I adopt the categorisation of meaning according to the three meta-functions identified in systemic functional linguistics: ideational (or extralinguistic), interpersonal, and textual (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014; Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006). 2

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construes meaning at two levels: textually, the slides stage the unveiling of the product and contribute to information focus, and interpersonally, they create suspense, add humour, and therefore help establish complicity with the audience. The slideshow generally accompanies the corporate keynote from beginning to end, even if at the beginning it may simply involve the projection of the company logo—which can be analysed as carrying ideational meaning (the company is identified), as well as interpersonal meaning (as it is an implicit call for adhesion to the brand). The single slide of 3MT presentations is also generally projected from beginning to end. However, in other formats, such as TED talks, the slideshow may only be used for part of the speech. As exemplified by the beginning of the iPhone presentation, it can serve as part of the captatio, in order to establish an initial connection with the audience. This is also the case in the following opening lines of a TED talk. A photograph is projected after the first three sentences, and provides the answer to the question that has just been expressed verbally. After a dramatic pause, the answer is confirmed via the verbal channel: I’m a neuroscientist, and I do experiments to test how different chemicals in the brain influence the choices we make. I’m here to tell you the secret to successful decision-making. [A photo of a sandwich appears on a slide] A cheese sandwich. (M. Crockett, “Beware neuro-bunk,” TED talk)3

Again, when it coincides with the captatio, the typical role of the visual is to contribute meaning at both the textual and interpersonal levels. Alternatively, the slideshow does not begin immediately, but instead corresponds to a second, informative stage of the talk. In this case, it enhances ideational meaning. Interestingly, the slideshow is often turned off just before the peroration, which allows the audience to “re-centre” on the speaker. Such examples illustrate the way the verbal and visual channels are interwoven and have clearly been prepared simultaneously, with the   Transcribed from video retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/molly_crockett_beware_ neuro_bunk 3

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visual channel orienting the content of the verbal. The two channels are also linked by verbal cues that make explicit reference to the visual channel, such as by referring at regular intervals to the presence of the slideshow, as well as to the specific content of the slides. Steve Jobs does this during the iPhone launch, when he says “here it [the iPhone] is... no, actually, here it is, but we’re going to leave it there for now.”4 Similarly, in one of Al Gore’s early TED talks about climate change (2006), his slideshow begins after a lengthy verbal introduction, at the end of which he announces the topic of his talk via a direct question (“what can you do about the climate crisis?”). Shortly after, he explicitly transitions to the visual channel (“now the slideshow”). He then follows up with a series of remarks about the slideshow itself, which he says he has updated (explicit references to the slideshow appear in italics): I want to focus on what many of you have said you would like me to elaborate on: what can you do about the climate crisis? I want to start with, I’m going to show some new images, and [projection of slide with a graph entitled “Record US Heat”] now, the slide show. I update the slide show every time I give it. I add new images because I learn more about it every time I give it. It’s like beachcombing, you know? Every time the tide comes in and you find some more shells. Just in the last two days, we got the new temperature records in January. (A. Gore, “Averting the climate crisis,” TED talk)5

In a TED talk by Bono, he makes the transition to the visual via an imperative form (“look”) and deictic reference (“these data sets”): Look at what’s been achieved. Look at the pictures these data sets print. [projection of slide with a graph entitled “Number of people receiving antiviral therapy”] Since the year 2000, since the turn of the millennium, there are eight million more AIDS patients getting life-saving antiretroviral drugs. (Bono, “The good news on poverty […],” TED talk)6

 Apple keynote, January 9, 2007.  Transcribed from video https://www.ted.com/talks/al_gore_on_averting_climate_crisis [accessed 04.03.2018]. 6   Transcribed from video https://www.ted.com/talks/bono_the_good_news_on_poverty_yes_ there_s_good_news [accessed 04.03.2018]. 4 5

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When slideshows display textual content, the visual and verbal channels can be interwoven so that the slideshow reproduces some of the exact words and phrases that are pronounced by the speaker.7 However, the slide presentation is one of the factors (including, for instance, speaking to a short time limit) that makes improvised and prepared orality (cf. previous chapter) an ever more marginal part of modern-day public speaking practice. This increases the risk of a disconnect at the temporal and spatial levels.

 egotiating More Complex Temporal and Spatial N Thresholds On the face of it, the slideshow makes the speaker’s job easier, and perhaps less confronting. The speaker can use the slides to jot his/her memory. And for the shy speaker, the screen works like a buffer: the speaker feels less conspicuous because all eyes are on the screen rather than on him/her. However, the slideshow gives rise to new challenges. It introduces a new level of complexity within the temporal, spatial, and interpersonal divides that are intrinsic to oratory. Unlike the earlier practice of “chalk and talk” (i.e. writing words on a blackboard or paperboard in real time and at specific moments of a presentation), the slideshow is prepared in advance. This makes it more difficult for the speaker to feign spontaneity and appear in the here-and-now of a speech devised especially for the audience at hand. Al Gore achieves this by explicitly making mention of the fact that his slideshow has been updated and tailored to the specific speaking occasion. In the professional sector, the disconnect is increased by the fact that slide presentations are

 Dissociating the two channels has become acceptable in a limited number of sectors that target restricted communities. For example, in the international scientific community, it can be acceptable for the slides to be in a language (e.g. English) that is not the language of the verbal presentation (e.g. native language of the scholar). Similarly, during scientific conference papers, which typically bear high information content, it is acceptable to present complex tables and figures on the slides that will not be commented upon directly during the speech. 7

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also used in stages prior and subsequent to presentations or meetings (cf. “slideument,” mentioned above).8 In addition to the screen through which online audiences watch digital oratory, the slideshow introduces another screen—or several other screens—and therefore further “filters” (cf. Chap. 3). There is the screen onto which the slides are projected, and sometimes the screen of the speaker’s laptop, through which the speaker controls the presentation (instead of using a small hand remote). Rather than speakers looking directly at their audience, they speak through a screen, or several screens. Physically, they may turn their backs on the audience and look at the slides, or keep their eyes glued to their laptop. The expression of “talking to the slides” that is sometimes used by speakers (e.g. “I’m going to talk to some slides”) suggests that the screen is a participant of the interaction, which therefore potentially comes between the speaker and the audience. In popular literature, the risks of the slideshow are highlighted by the expression “Death by PowerPoint.”9 This expression highlights a number of problems, such as presentations that contain too many slides, or too much content on a slide, complicated formatting (e.g. text or material that is too small, too many styles and fonts, too many “points,” etc.), and/ or speakers who read word-for-word from their slides. All of these problems invariably lead to a risk of cognitive overload, which is already a general challenge in any type of oratory (Rossette-Crake, 2019). When there is a slideshow, the audience is faced with the challenge of trying to simultaneously process a high amount of information that derives from two distinct channels, and that may conflict if they are not synced. The potential tension between the verbal and visual channels is managed by alternating the focus on each, for instance, by using the slideshow at specific moments but not for the entire duration of the speech (cf. examples quoted above).

 It is common practice for companies to provide representatives with standard slideshows that cannot be altered or personalised by the speaker. Moreover, some multinationals provide slideshows to their outposts in different countries, which are often translated word-for-word without taking into account the cultural differences of the target audience. 9  A Google search of the expression “Death by PowerPoint” bore 1,850,000 results (search conducted 19.05.2022). 8

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Perhaps of more concern is the suggestion that the slideshow imposes a format that may be conditioning thought processes and resulting in their over-simplification, due to a “rhetoric of points” (Frommer, 2012) that presents thought in a superficial, “packaged” way akin to current marketing practice. In this, it may be a symptom of the growing influence of corporate and marketing forces in discourses and communication practices that do not belong to the corporate sector per se (cf. Chap. 7).

5.2 Other Technological, Multimodal Resources An Ambiguous Relationship with Technology The slideshow is one of several multimodal resources that rely on technology for their realisation and which, when taken all together, make for a delivery that is more and more technologised. In the cases where public speaking is still performed on a stage, the speaker shares this space with many technological devices: screens, amplifiers, prompters, digital timers, computers, hand-held remotes, microphones, and so on. These different types of technological intervention reflect an ambiguous relationship with technology. A contrast can be noted between two extremes: at one extreme, use of these devices is non-invasive and is carried out discretely, while at the other end of the spectrum, use of technology is conspicuous, and is put on show. In the first case, technology helps to create a greater sense of speaker embodiment. Wireless microphones (head and lapel microphones), just like small hand-held remotes that fit into the palm of a hand, free up the arms and allow the speaker to use more body gestures. Prompters and slideshows help trigger the speaker’s memory, and assist in producing the illusion of a spontaneous delivery—on the condition that the speaker negotiates this reliance discretely. However, more recently, in the case of fully digitalised oratory, when speakers sit in front of their webcams, some have taken to reading off their computer screens—the very same screens through which they need to appear to be making eye contact with

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the audience. As noted in the previous chapter, reading off the (same) screen creates a rather disconcerting effect for the audience—particularly if the speaker is located very close to his/her screen. In the case of conspicuous use of technology, it can be argued that it abets rather than aids speaker embodiment. Interestingly, Apple’s corporate keynotes have moved from a relatively simple, discrete, and understated use of technology in the early 2000s, to the current sound-and-light shows that depend on a multiplication of screens, which have, moreover, grown in size. Screens relay not only slideshows but also images of the speaker, and include technically animated visual effects, to emphasise, for instance, the transition between speakers. Similarly, more and more technical devices have been added to the TED talk stage since TED was first created. Interestingly, the edited videos of TED talks now regularly include shots taken from an angle located at the back of the stage, allowing the remote audience to adopt both the viewpoint of the speaker who is looking out towards the F-F audience and an omniscient viewpoint, because the shot also captures the back of the speaker. Moreover, the frame also takes in a collection of devices that are aligned at the front of the stage (prompters, clock, small screen displaying the slideshow for the speaker). Such an alignment of devices creates a visual, physical barrier between speaker and audience. The fact that the devices are included in the frame suggests that the producers have chosen to highlight the technicity that is an integral part of the performance.

 ultiple Screens and the Projection of the Image M of the Speaker The Live Performance and Multiple Screens A number of contemporary oratory formats exploit multiple screens. Some of these screens duplicate the same slide within a slideshow, or simultaneously project different, complementary slides. Alternatively, screens are now also used to project the moving image of video, which is often put to sound. Video is, for instance, exploited in some speeches delivered at the COP26 opening ceremony, such as that of David

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Attenborough, during which moving images are projected at specific moments of the speech, against a music soundtrack over which the orator speaks.10 According to another setup that has particularly developed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, a screen—or multiple screens—relay to a live audience the image of a remote speaker (cf. Chap. 3).11 Again, COP26 includes such examples, and the setup is particularly exploited during the online speaking engagements of Vlodymyr Zelensky, whose image is “beamed” into the national parliaments, international institutions, and onto the stage of various cultural and entertainment events. A practice developed pre-pandemic involves the projection of the image of a speaker who is physically present on the stage. As s/he speaks, a screen—or, again, several screens—projects his/her image that is filmed synchronously. Because of the size of the screens, the speaker appears larger than life. Speechwriter William Safire (2004, p. 26) had predicted the development of such a practice during the twenty-first century, quoting as one of the trends of the new millennium the use of “visual aids (including a Big Brotherly image of a speaker’s face on a huge screen alongside him).” The practice first developed in the political sector, in the context of election campaigns (e.g. by 1992, it is integrated into the regular scenography of the U.S.  Democrat National Convention). Outside the political field, it developed with the new public speaking practices that bring together audiences on a big scale. Projection of the live speaker on a screen first appears in TED talks in 2011. It is introduced into corporate keynotes a little later, but not by all companies. For instance, it is used in Facebook keynotes but not in those of Apple, which suggests that the latter chooses to focus uniquely on the product as opposed to the speaker.12  See speech at 1 hour 4 min of the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oofxDQQKE7M [accessed 05.02.2022]. 11  Of course, this precise setup, which requires a F-F audience, predates the pandemic. However, the second stage of the pandemic, when international travel remained difficult, saw hybrid events and the inclusion of remote speakers become common practice. 12   For instance, it is part of Facebook’s F8 2019 keynote (https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=DQAZF50P_-w), but not part of the Apple Event of September 2019 (https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=-rAeqN-Q7x4), one of the last in-person Apple events since the onset of the pandemic (cf. in-person events had not resumed at the time of writing this book). 10

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Screens have not only multiplied in number but also in size. In some setups, screens tower over speakers. And some screens are themselves subdivided into several subscreens, or “windows.” These various technical possibilities make for complex multimodal configurations, which are underscored by a polyfocal setup (Jones, 2004) which requires that viewers divide their attention between the different screens.13 For instance, the TED 2022 conference in Vancouver takes place on a stage at the back of which is placed one enormous screen, which itself can be broken down into several windows. Two other screens are placed to the left and to the right of the main screen, in more elevated positions. Throughout the talks, these different screens present different combinations of the slideshow and the image of the speaker. Technological advances have also enhanced the sensory experience in terms of quality and image definition. If we again take the example of Apple keynotes, unlike the early keynotes, when Steve Jobs speaks in front of one big, single screen upon which text and very much two-dimensional looking products are projected, the Apple September 2019 event projects extremely high resolution images of Titan-sized products that tower over miniature-sized speakers. The contrast is particularly impressive when the product that is projected is a small object (e.g. a wristwatch), construing what some may view as a rather strange power relation between technology and humankind.

The Live Performance and Interpersonal Meanings Whatever the content they project, the very act of multiplying screens that display the same content increases the sense of show, and reveals the emphasis on the visual channel, perhaps at the expense of the verbal channel. It also serves to increase information focus, and hence contributes to meaning at the textual level. When it is the slideshow that is duplicated, it can be argued that this takes the focus away from the person of the speaker, and reduces the speaker to (just) one component of a multimodal setup that extends well beyond him/her. Speaker  Polyfocality is arguably less problematic for a F-F audience compared to a remote audience, for whom the risk of cognitive overload is already present, due to the online format. 13

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embodiment, together with any sense of intimacy, is compromised. However, when the screen projects the speaker—be it a speaker who is physically present and whose body can be seen on stage, or a remote speaker—the duplication can be seen to (re-)place the speaker at the centre of the performance. Despite the fact that it involves a screen, this can increase the sense of speaker embodiment, and even confer a sense of power on the larger-than-life speaker, increasing the asymmetry of the speaker-audience relation, according to the “big brother” image evoked above. However, at the same time, when the screen provides close-up shots of the speaker, it can construe a sense of intimacy, proximity and connection, and hence reduce the asymmetrical relation—particularly as this allows members of the F-F audience who are sitting far from the stage to view the speaker close-up. Significantly, the multiplication of screens and the projection of the speaker on a screen are typically exploited only when sufficient space allows for it—in other words, when the speaking event brings together a vast F-F audience in a big venue. These interpersonal meanings are reinforced or modified by the arrangement of the screens within the venue, and with respect to the position of the speaker. In cases where there is just one screen, one common, traditional setup places the screen behind and slightly above the speaker, at the back of the stage, intimating an articulation between the spheres of real/ideal according to the meanings identified for such vertical arrangements by Kress and van Leeuwen (2006): that is, the speaker, located below the screen, embodies reality, while the content projected on the screen located above him/her can, due to its higher position, be associated with representations of an ideal world, a meaning potential that can prove particularly relevant for advocacy-type speeches that call for change. This meaning potential can also explain the fact that screens are being placed at more elevated levels in big venues, such as the 2022 TED conference referred to above. And similarly, another reason for projecting images of the speaker may well be to present him/her in a more elevated position, in order that s/he appropriate the “ideal” domain. In terms of the horizontal axis, traditional arrangements place the speaker (and lectern, when there is one) at the centre of the stage, a position that enhances power and authority:

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For something to be presented as Centre [i.e. the central element] means that it is presented as the nucleus of the information to which all the other elements are in some sense subservient. (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006, p. 196)

Similarly, the central position of the screen confers authority on Volodymyr Zelensky during many of his online speaking appearances, where the screen is positioned centrally with respect to the viewpoint of the F-F audience. Alternatively, the screen is placed to one side of the speaker, according to a polarised arrangement of the speaking floor. A common layout places the speaker to the left of the stage and the screen to the right (from the viewpoint of the F-F audience), whereby each enacts the positions of “given” and “new” respectively: that is, akin to information flow within the sentence, the position to the left coincides with and confers the status of “given” or “known” information, while the position to the right confers information focus on what is therefore new or newsworthy. Transferred to the public speaking floor, the speaker placed to the left represents common ground and a bridge towards the newsworthy content projected on the screen placed to the right. This setup is exemplified by Al Gore’s early TED talk on climate change (quoted above). Similarly, at COP26, the lectern, and therefore the speaker, are placed to the left of the stage, with the speaker acting like a bridge towards the content on the screen, which expands beyond the speaker to the right of the stage. A recent variation on this traditional arrangement places the screen to the left, while the speaker stands to the right of the stage. This is the case for Kotchakorn Voraakhom’s TED talk, performed on the stage of the 2018 TEDWomen conference (cf. Chap. 1). Interestingly, the layout is replicated at other TEDWomen conferences, for instance, that of 2021.14 If, like above, we assign the roles of “given” and “new/in focus” to each, this places extra focus on the speaker, who embodies the position of novelty and originality.

 See, for instance, Maja Bosnic’s talk “How to share public money fairly” https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=vO5Rio_skIU [accessed 05.03.2022]. 14

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Fully Digitalised Oratory: Screens Within the Screen The fully digitalised forms of oratory that developed during the pandemic saw a number of public speaking formats that included a slideshow move online. In many cases, organisers of speaking events adopted video conference platforms and used the screen-sharing facility to project the slideshow. In this case, we again often deal with a screen that is subdivided into several windows. For instance, the slideshow appears in a separate window to that of the speaker (and to the other potential windows that display participants). Due to the pandemic, video conference platforms quickly began to develop new arrangements and new functions, and they continue to do so. Platforms offer various choices in terms of the size and layout of the various windows. Either these choices are made (and controlled) by the event hosts or each participant is free to choose the layout s/he prefers. The most basic and common layout gives the most space to the window of the slideshow, which is placed centrally, with the speaker appearing in a smaller window to one side. Another layout places the slideshow and the speaker in windows of the same dimension. And again, such choices place emphasis either on the speaker or on the sideshow. In the latter case, the content of the slideshow stands as it were in a position of authority, on its own.15 Online TED conferences, such as Countdown 2020, offer a higher level of technicity and editing, and more variety of layout. Interestingly, the screen of the uploaded TED video is rarely subdivided into several “windows” or “screens” at once. Fragmentation into two windows occurs not for the talks themselves, but uniquely for the transitions provided by the hosts, who appear in pairs, each in a separate window on each side of the screen. Within the talks, there is no subdivision when there is a slideshow (slideshows are not as common compared to the pre-pandemic, F-F performances): instead, the video cuts to the slideshow when the speaker refers to its content, and then cuts back to the speaker.

 This is the case for the Canadian part of the investor pitching competition “Techstars Global Startup Weekend” (round 2), which took place in the early stages of the pandemic. View at: https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzxgI4C4RWE [accessed 03.06.2021]. 15

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Immersive Experiences and Holograms Technical innovations introduced recently into speech-giving include immersive experiences and holograms. Immersive experiences provide a high-tech alternative to slideshows. As their name suggests, they provide an experience, making for a new type of participatory setup, as one actor in the professional sector explains: When you create something that is truly immersive, the audience are transformed from being spectators to being participants. The presentation is not something they simply watch, it becomes something they experience. And the message is transformed from something they understand to something they know.16 (Original emphasis)

According to scholars of specialised communication (e.g. Bravo & Maier, 2020), such “participation” (in the general sense of the term) provides cognitive benefits by enhancing the audience’s understanding of the ideational content of the presentation. This aspect is also recognised in the professional sector, as indicated by one blog, which refers to increases in “cognitive understanding.”17 Immersive presentations were experimented well before the pandemic. In the section providing advice for organisers of TEDx conferences, the TED website showcases a talk recorded in a green screen studio18 that uses immersive visuals.19 The topic of the talk—contemporary art—lends itself to the projection of visuals, namely artwork, on the three studio walls that surround the speaker in the first part of the talk, and then, in the second part, on the outside stone wall of a building in front of which the speaker stands.  C, Riddell, “Six steps for creating an immersive presentation,” April 24, 2015, https://www. linkedin.com/pulse/six-steps-creating-immersive-visual-presentation-chris-riddell/ 17  J.  Joy, “Immersive Presentations—What’s next for video conferencing?” (not dated), https:// valoremreply.com/post/immersivepresentations/ [accessed April 22, 2022]. 18  A green screen is “a green surface used as a background when making a film or television programme, so that any image can replace the screen behind the actors” (Cambridge English Dictionary). 19  Marissa Vigneault’s 2017 talk “How contemporary art responds to politics,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYYMevrp3So [accessed 05.04.2022]. 16

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Immersive experiences are not only a cognitive tool, but also a persuasive device. During the 2022 French presidential elections campaign, the left-wing candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon spoke at an “immersive and olfactory rally,” which offered a full sensory experience, and exploited 360-degree videos, spatialised sounds, and “smells diffused” around the exhibition hall.20 The event was branded as a “world first” by the candidate’s campaign organisers, and came after what is, to my knowledge, the candidate’s other world-first, his use of holograms, that he first experimented during the 2017 French presidential elections, which we will come to in a moment. The 2022 immersive event features not only images projected onto all the walls and ceilings of the hall, but also the diffusion of two types of perfume which aim to reinforce the references that the speaker makes in his speech to outer space and the sea. For the organisers of the event, the immersion offered a cognitive advantage, as well as a means for creating a sense of connection: according to the French MP and rally organiser Bastien Lachaud, it “allows you to create universes in order to give substance to more abstract concepts,” and illustrates how technology can be used to connect people, who “experience together what an individual can experience alone with an augmented reality headset.”21 And to borrow the expression used by the candidate’s political party, the aim was to persuade by “uniting the spirit and the senses.”22 What could be hailed as “immersive oratory” introduces a new form of multimodality that does not depend on one stabilised viewpoint and therefore cannot be easily analysed according to the categories of Kress and van Leeuwen that were applied above. In addition, it again raises questions in terms of the interpersonal relation between speaker and audience and the functional status of the speaker, who occupies an ambiguous position. On one hand, the speaker and the speaker’s discourse are not the main focal points of the event. In some ways, the  “Videos, sounds and smells: French far-left candidate’s unusual rally to reinvigorate campaign,” Euronews, Feb. 23, 2022. https://www.euronews.com/2022/01/16/videos-sounds-and-smellsfrench-far-left-candidate-s-unusual-rally-to-reinvigorate-campaig 21  “Jean-Luc Mélenchon convie ses militants à un meeting « immersif » à Nantes,” Le Monde, Jan. 16, 2022. https://www.lemonde.fr/politique/article/2022/01/16/jean-luc-melenchon-convie-ses-­­ militants-a-un-meeting-immersif-a-nantes_6109687_823448.html 22  Euronews, Feb. 23, 2022, quoted supra. 20

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speaker can be compared to a type of master of ceremonies. But on the other hand, for the immersion to prove effective, the speaker needs to be able to carry it all off. Indeed, Jean-Luc Mélenchon is known for his theatrical delivery style. When he gives a speech, he embodies it fully, both by gestures and by voice (his voice is emphatic and declamatory). In addition, his oratory includes moments of improvised and prepared orality. While he makes use of a lectern on which he rests his notes, he never reads from them but glances at them only occasionally. At the speaking events we are talking about here, he never stands for long behind the lectern, and generally stands to one side (mostly, to the right), moving away from it and using a wide range of gestures throughout his speech. Similarly, it can be argued that because the immersive experience is tightly linked to his discourse, it serves the speaker’s rhetoric. In other words, it does not take on a life of its own. Like the slideshow before it, the immersive experience is underpinned by a high level of interweaving between the different channels of meaning by which the verbal (the discourse itself ) and the visual (together with the other sensory channels) mutually take their cues from one another. This is illustrated in the following passage, when the issues of the environment and the climate crisis are introduced by way of a virtual tour of outer space: One day Yuri Gagarin was sent by the USSR, to go beyond the biotope in which we live—that is, Earth. [Projection begins] And suddenly, here it is! [Arms of speaker extend outwards] A product of science, a product of human intelligence, it’s incredible! Beyond all the biotopes, here is infinite space, containing, as Giordano Bruno announced in the sixteenth century, this infinite universe made up of an infinite number of worlds. But among this infinite number of worlds, whether empty or inhabited, there is this one that you see there [he points], it is Earth, see! It’s blue, the blue planet with that thin film around it. It is not only our common home, now that we human beings have set out to conquer the vastness of space. It is humanity’s nest, and it is this nest that we must protect above all else. Look at it! And when you look at it, you understand that there are general human stakes because there is only one ecosystem that allows the life of human

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beings [he points again], this one, this blue planet, which is not changeable! We don’t have another one!23

The speaker’s discourse mediates the sensory experience by the numerous deictic references (“here it is!”; “here is …”; “this infinite universe”; “this one, this blue planet”), imperative forms (“see!”; “Look at it!”), and is reinforced by the speaker’s gestures (e.g. pointing). Holograms were first used by the same French politician during the 2017 presidential campaign,24 and the experience was renewed in 2022, when his campaign organisers devised a “hologram multi-rally” that brought together audiences from 12 venues across the country. As the candidate speaks to a F-F audience at one of the venues, the image of him speaking is projected (together with his voice) on the stage of the 11 other venues where remote (but not online) audiences are gathered. Each of the 12 venues replicate the same scenography, composed of the stage, a lectern, and a large screen to the left of the stage that is subdivided into 12 windows which each relay the image of the hologram at each venue. Interestingly, this visual unification of the 12 venues is realised through the image of the hologram of the candidate (rather than, for instance, shots of the audiences at each venue).25 A hologram speaker gives new meaning to the concept of “digital speaker.” Again, holograms raise some interesting questions in terms of speaker embodiment. From the Greek “holos” (“whole”—in the sense here of “three-dimensional”) and “gramma” (“that which is drawn or written”), the hologram provides a visual representation which remains exactly that—a representation, as opposed to the physical body of the speaker. In some respects, holograms can work to undermine the necessity of physical presence. However, at the same time, holograms attest to the value of a visual representation of the body of the speaker, reinforcing the requirement of a discursive setup that is embodied—particularly in  Text transcribed and then translated into English from video available at: https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=vdxHe12lUmI [accessed 26.03.2022]. 24  T. Mogg, “A French presidential candidate is using his ‘hologram’ to reach more voters’, April 20, 2017, https://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/french-presidential-candidate-hologram/ 25  Volodymyr Zelensky adopted the technique, and appeared in the form of a hologram to speak at different tech fairs around Europe, in June, 2022. 23

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this specific case, where the speaker carries off an extremely theatrical, engaging performance. Such an example highlights the political stakes of digitalisation in the context of oratory. Importantly, one of the reasons for innovating with the use of both holograms and immersive experiences is, according to the party of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, to attract the younger generation of voters—the specific age group that is turning away from politics and is no longer turning up to vote at elections.

Use of “Captions” in Social Media Oratory Another recent technical innovation concerns the integration of captions into social media oratory. Referred to as “captions,” they actually fulfil the role of subtitles by displaying a written version of what is being said verbally, as well as indicating other relevant parts of the soundtrack (e.g. background noises, music).26 A built-in function of social media applications first allowed them to be added manually (for instance, on Instagram in 2021), and then to be auto-generated (as of 2022 for Instagram, which followed the example of TikTok).27 Captions introduce a visual resource in a context where, according to practice to date, slideshows are absent. (This is stating the obvious, but it is indeed worth pointing out that there is no reason why, technically, slideshows may not be added to social media oratory—but of course, slideshows would take away the central focus that is placed on the person of the YouTuber, Instagrammer, TikToker, etc.) These captions, whose positioning can vary (e.g. at bottom or at top of screen), add to other visual components that appear on the social media screen, such as the  Subtitles (in the source language, and in a number of target languages) are added to some other forms of digital oratory, such as the uploaded videos of TED talks. But when other formats (e.g., 3MT presentations, investor pitches) went fully digital during the pandemic, they generally did not exploit the subtitling functions built into the video-conferencing platforms that were being implemented in other contexts (e.g., the professional context of business meetings, or that of online teaching). 27  A distinction is made between “open captions,” which can be turned off by the viewer, and “closed captions” which cannot be turned off, although this option is not provided by certain platforms and/or in certain geographical zones. 26

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“like” and “comment” icons located to the right of the video, the brand or organisation logo, website address, and so on. While the captions do not take the focus off the speaker in the same way that a slideshow would (the captions are superimposed on the screen that displays the speaker), they do engender another visual component that requires management by the remote audience. Taken together, all the visual elements produce a “busy” effect, particularly as they are viewed on the small screen the size of a smartphone. However, some social media orators (e.g. Vanessa Hill, cf. Chap. 11) reduce the risk of polyfocal fragmentation for the viewer by pointing with their finger at specific moments to the position on the screen where the captions are placed. Such pointing not only brings the vocal and the visual channels together, but also provides a vector (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006) that directs the attention of the viewer, for purposes of emphasis. Social media platforms have perhaps chosen the name “caption” rather than “subtitle” because the former term refers to a journalistic practice (that concords with a “media enclosing scene”) (cf. Chap. 6), in which much social media can be integrated. However, the content of the captions does not fulfil the traditional role associated with the journalistic practice of captions, which are designed to provide some type of paratext that complements but does not duplicate the discourse (“words that are printed below a picture, cartoon, etc. that explain or describe it”).28 At the same time, they do not fulfil the traditional function of subtitling (e.g. in movies), which would normally serve to provide a translation into another language. In contrast, social media captions provide a written display, in the source language, of the exact words that are being said by the speaker. When the video is viewed with the sound, the caption therefore creates a rather unusual duplication of the discourse, which is both spoken—and therefore heard—and written—and therefore seen—mixing the traditional channels of spoken and written language (cf. Kress, 1994, p. 67). Use of captions is recommended by social media commentators for a number of reasons. First, they provide access for the hearing impaired, and also facilitate comprehension for members of a global audience who may find it easier to read rather than listen to a language that is not their  Oxford English Dictionary.

28

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own. Another reason quoted by social media professionals is that, in the context of corporate branding, captions increase “viewer engagement” (cf. Chap. 7) and visibility for purposes of search engine optimisation (SEO) in that they “boost audience attention and comprehension” and provide a “visual hook” similar to an attention-seeking headline.29 Indeed, when viewers listen to the soundtrack of the video and hear the speaker’s voice (and understand the language), captions can fulfil an emphatic, textual function, creating visual impetus on what is being said (this is amplified when the speaker points at the captions—cf. above). However, depending on their positioning on the screen, and also the choice of font style and size, they can add to the “in-your-face” feel that is produced by the very close framing of the speaker, which is discussed in the following section. Another main reason for using captions resides in user practice: the majority of videos on a social platform like Instagram are viewed without the sound (which also explains why they are usually muted by default).30 When the sound is turned off and the audience does not hear the speaker’s voice, there is, for instance, no longer the “interiority of sound” produced by the vocal resonance that Ong (1982) identifies as a feature of speech as opposed to writing (cf. Chap. 2), nor the empathetic and participatory effects associated with it. In addition, the discourse is not as embodied by the speaker (it remains embodied visually, but not vocally). Because it is also visually represented, the discourse is dissociated from the speaker’s voice, allowing it as it were to take on a life of its own.

5.3 Filming The final component linked to multimodality to be discussed here concerns not the performance itself but the choices contingent on its filming for the purpose of online dissemination. Social media oratory (and some  Up to 92% of users view videos with the sound off. Source: “3 ways to add captions to Instagram videos (and why you should),” https://takenote.co/add-captions-to-instagram-videos/ [accessed 27.3.2022]. 30  Ibid. Moreover viewing without the sound means missing out on other elements, such as the music that plays (more or less faintly) in the background of some social media oratory. 29

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other types of fully digitalised oratory) introduces a different style of filming to that of the New Oratory formats. In all cases, the style is underscored by contrasting interpersonal meanings which construe a different type of relation between the speaker and the audience.

The New Oratory Let us begin with the New Oratory formats. These are generally filmed without speakers looking directly at the camera. The speaker does not engage directly with the remote online audience, for whom the speech act is construed as an “offer” as opposed to a “demand” (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006, p.  117).31 In addition, the speaker is filmed from an oblique angle rather than frontally, which increases the sense of detachment in regard to the remote audience. Of course, New Oratory speakers do not look straight at the camera for the good reason that they are directing their eye contact towards the F-F audience, who are included in a number of the shots. These shots construct the public speaking event as a narrative, as an unfolding action to which the remote audience is privy. As in other narrative representations (ibid., p. 67), we can identify a vector, which construes a reactional process, formed by the speaker’s gaze that is directed at the audience. Importantly, TEDx conferences stipulate the condition of “multicamera shooting” (the talk must be shot simultaneously from at least two angles). This provides a number of perspectives, as well as a sense of omniscience and a balance of power for the remote audience. The edited videos of TED talks contain a mixture of close-angle shots (representing the head and shoulders of the speaker), medium shots (full figure) and long shots (the figure occupies no more than half the size of the frame). These shots therefore alternate between different types of social distance: “intimacy,” “social distance,” and “impersonal distance” (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006). However, according to TEDx guidelines, the most important shots are close shots: “[b]ecause the majority of our audience watches TED talks on computer screens, laptops, and mobile devices, the  This section draws largely on the meanings attributed to various resources that are identified by Kress and van Leeuwen (2006). 31

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close up is the single most important camera angle and helps connect the viewer to the speaker through the small screen.”32 Alternatively, the medium shot “offers respite from the intensity of the close up,” while the wide (long) shot “establishes the space and orients the viewer.” For conference organisers, the long shot “frames in the projection screen, so that our online viewers get a sense of what the live experience is like.”33 Similarly, editing combines a mixture of eye-level, low-angle and high-­ angle shots, which alternatively confer symbolic equality, speaker power and viewer-power. TED refers to the eye-level shot as representing the speaker as “your best friend.”34 Equality is reinforced by “asymmetrical framing” that places the speaker “a little to the left or right of the frame,” and hence avoids the construal of speaker power associated with a centred composition. Interestingly, however, some fully digitalised TED talks, such as Sophie Howe’s talk (cf. Chap. 1), or the pre-recorded green screen studio talk about art (cf. previous section), are filmed with the speaker standing mainly in the centre of the frame. If offset by other components (e.g. eye-level shot, smiling speaker), a centred composition can construe speaker authority without creating the feeling for the online audience that they are being “spoken down to.”35

F ully Digitalised and Social Media Oratory, and the Contraction of Social Space Fully digitalised oratory and social media oratory bring into play a number of other choices. They are similar to New Oratory formats in that they also offer a mixture of eye-level, low-angle and high-angle shots, although the eye-level shot is the most common. However, in most social media oratory and other fully digitalised oratory, speakers are filmed in a

 https://pb-assets.tedcdn.com/system/baubles/files/000/004/585/original/CameraPlaybook2012-Small.pdf?1484062157 33  Ibid. 34  Ibid. 35  This may not be the case for the green screen talk, which triggered, among others, the following comment: “I do not agree with this woman and her ranting” [comment box accessed 25.3.2022]. 32

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way that directly engages and establishes a direct relation with the viewer. This is achieved by a number of means. First, the speaker directs his/her gaze directly at the camera, establishing contact with the viewer and construing a “demand” whereby “the participant’s gaze [...] demands something from the viewer, demands that the viewer enter into some kind of imaginary relation with him or her” (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006, p. 118). Speaker involvement and appeal to the viewer are also enhanced by the speaker appearing frontally rather than obliquely. This is the case, for instance, when speakers sit (or stand— e.g. Sophie Howe’s online TED talk) in front of their own webcams. TEDx guidelines refer to the “direct-to-camera” shot, which they illustrate with the (pre-pandemic) talk given by Stan Lee, creator of the Marvel comic book superhero series.36 In his talk, Stan Lee, who is sitting behind a desk, occupies a central position which, when combined with a direct gaze, connotes the “contrived and posed” effect of conceptual, symbolic representation (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006, p. 105). Behind Stan Lee’s desk, the frame partly takes in a piece of his artwork, as well as photo frames displaying photos of him at moments of his career. These choices of framing and scenography depict Stan Lee not only as orator but also in his symbolic role of creator, in keeping with the title of his talk (“What makes a superhero?”). A special word needs to be said about the very close angle from which social media oratory is filmed. Typically, social media videos are shot with a mobile device such as a smartphone, and favour close shots or medium-­ close shots (Riboni, 2020). If a lot of social media oratory is filmed from a stationary position and can be classified among the “sit-down” videos identified by Riboni (ibid.),37 a number of videos are now exploiting the potential of mobility (cf. Chaps. 4 and 11). In the case of the iconic selfie videos, they are filmed by the speaker. In many cases, the mobile filming device is hand-held, which explains the particularly close angle (as  Stan Lee, “What makes a superhero?” TEDxGateway, India, 2013, https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=DSGf6is3U2w 37  For instance, Riboni (2020) contrasts the sit-down videos of make-up and science YouTubers (who, moreover, look at the camera and speak directly to the audience), with “mum vlogs,” which are more dynamic and are filmed by the YouTuber (the mother), who moves about and is placed behind the camera. 36

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illustrated by Boris Johnson’s video filmed on the plane, or Charli D’Amelio’s video). The very close angle not only amplifies the intimacy and strong sense of engagement associated with the close-angle shot (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006, p. 127), it goes further and produces a type of distorted intimacy, creating the impression that the speaker is as it were “in our face.” The speaker’s own face takes up most of the shot, which is generally framed vertically, according to a portrait format that increases the personal emphasis with respect to the speaker.38 The closer shot testifies to the way three-dimensional bodies have been “shrunk” to two-dimensional faces (Jones & Hafner, 2021—cf. Chap. 4), and to the problem of contextualisation, as the very close angle leaves little room for visual representation of background context. It also points to the complex and sometimes ambivalent interpersonal relation between social media orators and their audience, as the intimacy that it confers contrasts potentially with the central, authoritative positioning of the orator within the frame. Of course, selfie videos share the same technology as “selfie photos,” and therefore similar stakes, not only in the way selfie photos resemble commercial discourse and the neoliberal values they uphold (cf. Chap. 7), but also in the phatic function they fulfil, and the way they present “a set of visible flaws which have rapidly become the signature of the genre” and construe freshness and authenticity (Gunthert, 2015). More generally, it can be posited that by its adoption of closer angles, social media oratory promotes a contraction of social space. The symptom (as well as a tool) of “public speaking gone private” (cf. Chap. 7), it presents a speaker who (symbolically) enters the viewer’s intimate space. In this respect, it can be argued that social media oratory—like other social media video content—is reconfiguring cultural norms in terms of proxemics. The study of proxemics, defined as the way humans use space as a specialised elaboration of culture (Hall, 1966), distinguishes between different spaces, or zones, which range from intimate space (commonly used between family members and close friends), to social space (used for formal events). The size of these spaces varies depending on culture. For  One exception to vertical framing is provided by Volodymy Zelensky’s group selfie videos filmed at the beginning of the Ukraine war (cf. Chap. 11). 38

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instance, American culture proves a “non-contact culture” in that its members prefer to keep more open space between themselves and their conversation partners, while Latin America and the Middle East are home to “contact cultures” (Knapp & Hall, 2014). It would appear that such norms, particularly those that apply to American culture, are in the process of being overturned, if social media is anything to go by, due to the contraction of space that is enacted by many selfie videos. Up until now, multiple forms of oratory have been discussed irrespective of purpose or the types of social actors that they involve. These aspects are addressed in the following chapter.

References Atkinson, M. (2004). Lend Me Your Ears. Random House. Beaudouin, V. (2008). PowerPoint: Le lit de Procuste revisité. Social Science Information, 47(3), 371–390. Bravo, A., & Maier, A. (2020). Immersive Visualisations in Design: Using Augmented Reality (AR) for Information Presentation. Proceedings of the Design Society: Design Conference, 1, 1215–1224. https://doi.org/10.1017/ dsd.2020.33 Diani, G. (2015). Visual Communication in Applied Linguistics Conference Presentations. In B.  Crawford Camiciottoli & I.  Fortanet-Gomez (Eds.), Multimodal Analysis in Academic Settings: From Research to Teaching (pp. 83–106). Routledge. Duarte, N. (2012). HBR Guide to Persuasive Presentations. Harvard Business Review Press. Frommer, F. (2012). How PowerPoint Makes You Stupid. The New Press. Gunthert, A. (2015). The Consecration of the Selfie. Études Photographiques, 32. http://journals.openedition.org/etudesphotographiques/3537 Hall, E. T. (1966). The Hidden Dimension. Anchor Books. Halliday, M.  A. K., & Matthiessen, C. (2014). Halliday’s Introduction to Functional Grammar. Routledge. Handler, P. (2017). Business Presentations. In G. Mautner & F. Rainer (Eds.), Handbook of Business Communication: Linguistic Approaches (pp.  63–89). de Gruyter.

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Jones, R. (2004). The Problem of Context in Computer Mediated Communication. In P. LeVine & R. Scollon (Eds.), Discourse and Technology: Multimodal Discourse Analysis (pp. 20–33). Georgetown University Press. Jones, R., & Hafner, C. (2021). Understanding Digital Literacies: A Practical Introduction. Routledge. Knapp, M.  L., & Hall, J.  A. (2014). Nonverbal Communication in Human Interaction. Wadsworth Cengage Learning. Kress, G. (1982, 1994). Learning to Write. Routledge. Kress, G., & van Leeuwen, T. (2006). Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design. Routledge. Ong, W. (1982). Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word. Methuen. Riboni, G. (2020). Discourses of Authenticity on YouTube: From the Personal to the Professional. Edizioni Universitarie di Lettere Economia Diritto. Rossette-Crake, F. (2019). Public Speaking and the New Oratory. Palgrave Macmillan. Rowley-Jolivet, E. (2004). Different Visions, Different Visuals: a Social Semiotic Analysis of Field-Specific Visual Composition in Scientific Conference Presentations. Visual Communication, 3(2), 145–175. Safire, W. (2004). Lend Me Your Ears: Great Speeches in History (2nd ed.). W.W. Norton & Company.

6 Oratory as Social Practice (I): Discursive Genre, Culture, and Power

6.1 Oratory and the Question of Discursive Genre Genre and the Heritage of Classical Rhetoric An Initial Definition of Genre In this book up until now, I have been referring to communication “practices” or “formats,” and have delayed using the term “genre,” which requires defining, and which needs to be assessed in terms of its appropriateness in the context of digital communication. The concept of discursive genre provides an entry point into an exploration of oratory as social practice. A genre is a “staged, goal-oriented social process” (Martin, 1992, p. 505). According to the definition adopted here (cf. Chap. 2), oratory is embedded in an institutional context. Indeed, unlike conversation, which is a more gratuitous, flexible, and unstable means of communication requiring constant adjustment by its participants, the spoken discourse that is instantiated by oratory is subject to a set of constraints that are determined by the institutional context. Oratory covers a number of © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 F. Rossette-Crake, Digital Oratory as Discursive Practice, Postdisciplinary Studies in Discourse, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18984-5_6

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practices that potentially qualify as discursive genres, in cases where they are determined by a specific purpose, constitute a distinct social practice that is relatively stabilised, and boast a recognisable format that sets up expectations in the mind of the audience. By respecting the constraints of the genre, speakers legitimate their discourse and the fact that they take to the floor (Guilbert, 2014, quoted in Vicari, 2021). From a pedagogical standpoint, a course in public speaking involves becoming familiarised with a number of “speech genres” that make up a “complex communicative ecology”: Some of our readers might object that public speaking, as it is taught in the United States, is not a speech genre in its own right but rather a collection of a variety of speech genres such as informative and persuasive speaking, epideictic/ceremonial speaking, business/professional speaking, limited preparation speaking, narrative speeches, and Lincoln-Douglas debates. (Boromisza-Habashi & Reinig, 2018, p. 3)1

These authors conclude that “it is reasonable to approach public speaking as a type of oratory that can be considered a secondary speech genre, that is, a generic collection of other, more basic speech genres” (ibid.) (my emphasis). According to a main premise of discourse analysis (e.g. Darics & Koller, 2019), a genre is, as social process, also defined according to the social actors that it engages. Social actors are themselves aware of the need to adapt to the “basic speech genre” that underlies a specific sector. An interesting testimonial dating back to the nineteenth century is provided by a member of the legal profession. In his “Letters to a Law Student” (1863), Edward W. Cox issues a warning in regard to what he calls the “oratory of the Bar”: If you resolve to make the Bar your business, as well as your profession, you will probably have to unlearn much […] If you have cultivated oratory at  The Lincoln-Douglas debates were a series of debates that opposed Abraham Lincoln as candidate for the U.S. Senate and the incumbent Senator Stephen Douglas. They marked the beginning of the use of debates as publicity events for political candidates. 1

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Oxford, or Cambridge, or at any of the spouting clubs in London, almost certainly you will have acquired a style of speaking altogether unfitted for the Bar. (Cox, 1863, p. 259)

The author goes on to advise his readers to discard the “debating-club style” associated with “grandiloquence” and “floweriness,” and to learn instead to “speak with exceeding plainness and simplicity” and “bring down your oratory to talking” (ibid., p.  260). Highlighted here is the linguistic variation that informs genre, and which is central, for instance, to the systemic functional notion of “register” (cf. genre is “realised through register” (Martin, 1992, p. 505)). In the nomenclature provided by this nineteenth-century author, “oratory of the Bar” is distinguished from “oratory of the pulpit” (church oratory), “oratory of the Senate,” “oratory of the platform” (which is “addressed to the public at large, on matters of public concern” (Cox, 1863, p.  281)), and “social oratory” (also called “dinner-table oratory”). If this taxonomy proves rather antiquated and participates in the social and cultural biases of its era,2 it does provide an interesting snapshot of oratory as social practice in the context of the City in the second half of nineteenth-century London. Of course, because they are socially and historically determined, genres are not stable entities, and constantly evolve with changes in society. One characteristic of the contemporary context that poses a number of difficulties for both speakers and analysts is the speed and the degree to which new genres have been developing, notably due to local appropriations of the communication technologies (Riboni, 2020). Public speaking practice is emblematic in this respect, and political speeches provide a case in point. Compared to classical rhetoric, modern political communication encompasses a wider variety of speech types and functions (Reisigl, 2008, p. 257), which themselves reflect “increasingly complex” political situations, systems, conditions, and circumstances (ibid., p. 244).

 For instance, the author likens “platform oratory” to what he calls “mob oratory” in that it is said to correspond to a “miscellaneous gathering of all classes, but in which the lower classes predominate” (Cox, 1863, p. 296). 2

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The Heritage of Classical Rhetoric Nevertheless, classical rhetoric provides a useful starting point for a genre analysis of oratory. Classical rhetoric identifies three categories of rhetoric which are socially oriented in that they are primarily defined according to speech purpose, in addition to a time variable: “deliberative speech” is concerned with future action/time, and aims to “seek to persuade someone to do something or to accept our point of view”; “forensic speech” or “judicial speech,” is concerned with past time and, by extension, “to any kind of discourse in which a person seeks to defend or condemn someone’s [past] actions” and relates typically to “the oratory of lawyers in the courtroom”; and “epideictic speech,” also called declamatory or ceremonial speech, is “not so much concerned with persuading an audience as with pleasing it or inspiring it”—“for neatness,” this latter category is identified with present time (Corbett, 1990, pp. 28–29).3 If this division, which is still very much reproduced in treaties of rhetoric and public speaking up to this day, accounts for the reality of rhetorical practice during classical times, it is “abstract and ideal” (Reisigl, 2008, p. 244) and reflects the difficulty posed by any classification in terms of genre: Already the speech practitioners of antiquity knew that this theoretical distinction, in practice, is not as strict as suggested, and empirical speech analyses also demonstrate that the theoretical separation has first and foremost to be taken as a simplification produced for giving a didactic overview. (Reisigl, 2008, p. 244)

For this author, contemporary political speeches can be associated with the classical categories of deliberative and/or epideictic speech. He proposes (pp.  249–251) a thorough typology based on the field of action (e.g. lawmaking, party-internal, political advertising), as well as a number of other contextual parameters (e.g. who is speaking? on what occasion? where? when? to whom? via what media? for what purpose? in what form? about what?). More generally, he insists on the performative function of political speeches as speech acts which “accomplish the two political  See also Reisigl (2008, p. 245) for a detailed presentation of these three categories.

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purposes of inclusion and exclusion,” and are also “socially integrative by contributing to the formation of transindividual identity and to the foundation of group solidarity” (p. 251). Group solidarity is a stake of epideictic speech, whose basic function is “to enhance belief in certain moral and civic values and thus to increase social bonding and solidarity of the cultural group” (Kennedy, 1994, p. 22) (my emphasis). In fact, it can be argued that construal and/or reinforcement of the community correspond, to varying degrees, to a common purpose of much, if not all, oratory. This is particularly the case for oratory that is performed via social media, where construal of community is particularly important (cf. Chap. 3). Among the criteria used to define genre, that of purpose can therefore prove rather problematic depending on how general or finite the level of distinction. In addition to a basic epideictic function, most contemporary forms of oratory conflate with persuasion (cf. the “deliberative” category) in one form or another (e.g. political speeches, debating, investor pitches, personal pitches, product launches, etc.). The address by the UN Secretary General at COP26 can be qualified as both epideictic, in that it serves to welcome the community of conference participants, and persuasive, in that it includes a call to action in the face of the climate crisis. A similar double orientation (epideictic and persuasive) can be identified in all the speeches presented in Chap. 1. However, in regard to persuasive purpose, several exceptions can be noted. For instance, originally, TED talks were concerned not so much with persuasion as with the passing on of knowledge (cf. TED’s slogan “ideas worth sharing”). The same can be said about 3MT presentations. The information age brought about by the Internet saw the birth of new formats whose principle purpose is to share knowledge. Among the divisions made within the pedagogical tradition of public speaking, “persuasive” and “informative” speeches constitute two umbrella categories which are particularly relevant. Within the category of “persuasive genres” we can place speeches whose primary goal is to persuade the audience to do something—for example, vote for a political candidate, buy a product, invest money, adopt a certain ideology or behaviour. And within the category of “informative genres” we can place speeches that aim to educate/share knowledge, and play an important role in the dissemination of

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information, such as TED talks and 3MT presentations. The latter category goes well beyond the traditional sector of education and academia per se. In terms of social media, the general distinction between persuasive and informative genres allows us to distinguish, for example, between the advocacy that informs the social media oratory cited in Chap. 1, and other social media content, such as that produced by science YouTubers (a category identified by Riboni (2020)), although, as will be demonstrated in the discussion of social media oratory (Chap. 11), the two categories can overlap.

A Discourse-Analysis Framework for Modelling Genre The umbrella categories of persuasive and informative genres beg further narrowing down according to the specific genre. As genre corresponds to a relative and dynamic, “staged” social process (cf. definition by Martin (1992) cited above), it can be modelled further by drawing on the framework developed by Maingueneau (2002), who distinguishes three levels of analysis, each of which corresponds to a specific “scene.” The term “scene” is used to systematise the dynamic process whereby different parameters of genre such as sector, speaker status and target audience combine, and will or will not permit variation. Such dynamism underscores the approach developed within enunciative pragmatics, as developed within the French context, which places a focus on the reflexivity of the discursive act (Angermuller, 2014). According to the model proposed for genre analysis, staging occurs simultaneously within each of the following scenes: (i) an “enclosing scene,” (ii) a “generic scene,” and (iii) a “scenography.”

Enclosing Scene The enclosing scene is determined by the institutional context, and coincides with a specific sector of activity. In the case of oratory, the most frequent enclosing scenes are political, diplomatic/civic, religious, media, educational/academic, corporate, and social. The concept of enclosing

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scene does not stop at the face value of “sector of activity.”4 It goes further, bringing into sharp focus the central identity of the actors who belong to a particular institutional context, and which is founded on one or several core values that make up a “community of reference.” In this, the enclosing scene highlights the specific capacity in which both speaker and addressee are called upon to interact. For example, in the context of oratory, are orator and audience coming together as citizens (in the case of a political enclosing scene)? as worshippers (religious enclosing scene)? as members of a company (corporate enclosing scene)? or as friends (social enclosing scene)? Each of these “identities” is informed by underlying values which justify such an affiliation—for example, values of friendship (social enclosing scene) or values underpinning a particular faith (religious enclosing scene). For instance, an educational/academic enclosing scene brings together individuals who adhere to the value of knowledge (e.g. either in terms of a “humanist quest” or as a means to better themselves and their chances in life). In contrast, a corporate enclosing scene brings together not only members of a particular company, but all those who share the goal (in American corporate culture at least) of hard work and reaping profit (although such a goal is now generally packaged under the more palatable “responsibility” banner and the vocation to improve people’s lives). However, in some cases, it is easier to single out common values than to put a precise nominal label on the identity that institutes the enclosing scene. Enclosing scenes can be difficult to identify on social media, particularly when users choose a user name that is a pseudonym rather than their real name. At the same time, however, account names can operate to position the user-orator with respect to a specific enclosing scene. For instance, when Boris Johnson speaks via his Instagram account “10downingstreet,” he speaks in his institutional role as prime minister, and his incorporation into a political enclosing scene is explicit. However, when he speaks on the account named “borisjohnsonuk,” it can be assumed that he is distancing himself from his institutional persona, and hence from a (purely) political enclosing scene.  “Enclosing scene” overlaps partially with Reisigl’s (2008) above-mentioned “fields of action,” which in fact correspond to subfields of action within the superordinate field of political action. 4

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Generic Scene The identity inherent to the institutional context—or enclosing scene— determines a first layer of staging of any instance of discourse. Another layer is provided by the genre itself—or the generic scene.5 While the enclosing scene is founded on a shared identity, the generic scene is defined by specific participant roles (for both speaker and addressee), and time and place variables, which are all closely linked to the purpose of the discourse. Time and place variables relate to both the general context (e.g. an eighteenth-century British political speech entails a different generic scene to that of a twenty-first-century American one) and also to the duration of the speech (e.g. three minutes as opposed to 14 minutes) and the setting of the delivery (e.g. Parliament, a stage in a lecture hall, a street rally). These contextual factors inform other distinctive variables of the generic scene within the discourse itself, such as its internal organisation, language choices and multimodal resources. To reach this level of generic staging and hence be considered among the determining criteria that transform a communication practice into a discursive genre, such variables need to have reached a high level of stabilisation. A number of examples of (stabilised) generic staging can be recognised within the political enclosing scene. One of the most striking examples is provided by U.S. presidential inaugural addresses. In terms of participant status, the inaugural address involves a speaker who has just been elected president and is taking up office. The audience plays the role of witness to a ritual and historic moment. In terms of purpose, the inaugural symbolically enacts the speaker’s status as leader. Time and place are also completely stabilised: at least since modern times, whatever the year and whatever the president, U.S. presidential inaugural addresses take place on the same day (January 20th) and in the same setting (in front of the Capitol). They also demonstrate a relative amount of regularity in terms of their duration: the majority last for around 20 minutes (in contrast, for instance, to the much longer State of the Union address given by the President each year in front of Congress, which is closer to 60 minutes,  The terms “genre” and “generic scene” are therefore treated as synonyms here, with the latter insisting on the relative and dynamic construction of the entity. 5

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and constitutes another generic scene). In addition, variables relating to the internal organisation of the speech and language choices form set routines. Let us compare two inaugural addresses delivered almost 60 years apart, that delivered by John F. Kennedy in 1961, and that delivered by Donald Trump in 2017. Kennedy’s speech begins with a list of terms of address, the names of dignitaries, some of whom stand behind the orator and form part of the setting of the delivery: Vice President Johnson, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Chief Justice, President Eisenhower, Vice President Nixon, President Truman, reverend clergy, fellow citizens, we observe today not a victory of party, but a celebration of freedom—symbolising an end, as well as a beginning—signifying renewal, as well as change. For I have sworn before you and Almighty God the same solemn oath our forebears prescribed nearly a century and three quarters ago. (J.F. Kennedy, inaugural address, 1961)

Trump begins in the exact same way: Chief Justice Roberts, President Carter, President Clinton, President Bush, President Obama, fellow Americans, and people of the world: thank you. We, the citizens of America, are now joined in a great national effort to rebuild our country and to restore its promise for all of our people. Together, we will determine the course of America and the world for years to come. We will face challenges. We will confront hardships. But we will get the job done. Every four years, we gather on these steps to carry out the orderly and peaceful transfer of power, and we are grateful to President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama for their gracious aid throughout this transition. They have been magnificent. […] (D.  Trump, inaugural address, 2017)

In addition, both speech openings herald the formality of the speech, displaying elaborate language and structures based on accumulation, parallelism, and contrast (e.g. “not a victory of party, but a celebration of freedom”; “We will face challenges. We will confront hardships. But we will get the job done”). Such stability and formality at the linguistic level is echoed at that of the delivery: like Kennedy, Trump speaks in front of assembled dignitaries, standing before a lectern upon which is placed a

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visible microphone. These two speeches have not been chosen at random. The example of Donald Trump’s inaugural address is insightful because it contrasts with other speeches delivered by Trump. In his campaign speeches and in a number of those pronounced after he became president, and also when he officially lost the election in 2020, Trump refused certain constraints associated with the respective generic scenes (and sometimes with a political enclosing scene generally), precisely in order to assert his status as an “outsider.” While U.S. presidential inaugural addresses achieve a level of generic staging that is rarely equalled, other examples of relatively stabilised routines that each found a distinctive discursive genre include, as already mentioned, the U.S. presidential State of the Union address—which can be compared with the monarch’s address at the State opening of parliament in the Westminster system. Specific circumstances can give rise to a generic scene that is circumscribed to a particular period of time. President Roosevelt’s weekly radio addresses during the Great Depression are one such example. Recently, the COVID-19 pandemic engendered specific communication practices on the part of public authorities. For instance, during the six weeks of the first 2020 lockdown, a daily Coronavirus press briefing (Point Presse) was given in France by the French Director General of Health (who was both senior civil servant and Professor of Medicine): a ritualistic setting (e.g. transparent Plexiglas lectern carrying the government banner, the European flag and the French flag positioned behind the speaker), as well as heavy use of statistics “contributed to [the] feeling that the crisis was under control” (Maingueneau, 2022)—and, it can be argued, also informed a specific generic scene over that frame of time and space. Outside the political enclosing scene, the example of the commencement address provides an interesting case in point. Commencement addresses (of which some famous, recent examples can be viewed on YouTube, including those delivered by Barack Obama, Steve Jobs, Oprah Winfrey, Steve Jobs, Meryl Streep, or Tom Hanks) take place within the context of a university. They are delivered on campus, during a graduation ceremony, in front of academics, graduates and their families. They are therefore informed by an academic enclosing scene. However, they do not involve an orator who belongs to an academic enclosing scene, but an

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orator who belongs to the field of politics, the media, or the business or art worlds. These speeches derive their meaning precisely from the fact that the orator does not belong to an academic enclosing scene but represents a position of alterity, and embodies an example of success in a specific sector of activity. In their speeches, the orators celebrate the graduates and provide them with practical advice as the latter start out in the world. In this, they nevertheless reflect and contribute to promoting the values common to the world of education and academia. This explains, for instance, why Barack Obama’s commencement address does not resemble a political speech, or why Steve Jobs’ address does not resemble a corporate keynote. A propos of keynotes, this format, first developed by Steve Jobs and then imitated by other business leaders (cf. Chap. 3), constitutes a generic scene that belongs to a corporate enclosing scene. The orator is a business leader who takes to the stage to embody the company, its values and its products or services. It is notably defined by its delivery and multimodal components: unlike the U.S. president who delivers his inaugural address from a lectern, there is no lectern here and the orator moves freely about the stage. Delivery also typically integrates a slideshow and product demonstrations. Language is informal, and a number of linguistic routines can be identified (Rossette-Crake, 2019, p.  211; 213). It qualifies as a generic scene because all these elements are replicated in other contexts by other speakers who pursue a similar purpose.

Scenography A third and final level of staging concerns that located at the level of the scenography. Unlike the usual definition of the word (“scenography” is “the art or job of designing and creating scenery for a show or event”6), scenography does not refer here to a static scenery, but to the way speakers choose to address the audience and perform their speech. This is where we can account for the variation that is permitted or not within a specific genre, which also contributes to its meaning-making potential, and  Cambridge English Dictionary.

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which typically pertains to choices to do with delivery, discourse structure, and language. Some generic scenes have a preferred scenography or impose a set scenography, as illustrated by the example of U.S. presidential inaugurals, which leave very little room for variation. Other generic scenes require that the speaker construct his/her own singular, endogenous scenography, or leave them with the freedom to move away from the set scenography—an opportunity seized, for instance, by Donald Trump in a number of his speeches as president. Campaign speeches require that the orator construct his/her own endogenous scenography in order to distinguish him/herself in the minds of electors from the other political candidate(s). For instance, a lot is read into the meaning behind the venue chosen by a candidate (e.g. choice of town, choice of outdoor stadium or indoor auditorium, etc.). Innovations such as the holograms and immersive experiences that were experimented by the French politician Jean-Luc Mélenchon (cf. Chap. 5) are also the result of choices made at the level of his endogenous scenography. In the case of the afore-mentioned commencement addresses, humour engenders a distinctive parameter of variation. While some orators such as Steve Jobs choose to remain serious throughout their speech, others use humour as a device to create complicity with the audience, with additional variation depending on the degree of humour used: Meryl Streep is humorous throughout much of her speech, while Barack Obama uses it in a more circumspect way.7 Use of humour often goes hand in hand with language choices that integrate informality. In terms of language, which is perhaps the area that allows for the most choice, variation can be modelled according to the concepts of Rhetorical staging and Dialogic staging (Chap. 9).

 See: Steve Jobs’ 2005 address at Stanford, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc; Meryl Streep’s 2010 address at Barnard College, Columbia, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-­ a8QXUAe2g; Barack Obama’s 2016 address at Howard University, https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=_K4MctEmkmI 7

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Multiple Scenes, and New Types of Enclosing Scenes Up until now, we have discussed some prototypical generic scenes. These coexist alongside many practices in which various social actors stake a claim to more freedom and/or creativity, resulting in formats that do not necessarily fit neatly into specific categories. For instance, speeches can simultaneously integrate several enclosing scenes. Let us take the example of a speech that pays tribute to a colleague pronounced by a manager at the colleague’s retirement party. When the speaker pays tribute to the future retiree as “colleague,” the speech integrates a corporate/professional enclosing scene. But if the speaker includes a tribute to the colleague on a more personal level, and evokes values of not only work but also friendship, the speech integrates a social enclosing scene. Similarly, investor pitches typically enact a corporate enclosing scene: they occur in a corporate context and reflect the values of corporate culture (the participants come together to do business and make money). However, when investor pitches become the object of reality TV shows (e.g. when budding entrepreneurs sell their business plan to a panel of investors during the (British) BBC programme “Dragons’ Den,” or the (American) ABC “Shark Tank”), a media/entertainment scene is superimposed upon the corporate one.8 Within the political sphere, during the time he was president, Barack Obama delivered a eulogy after the Charleston massacre, in June 2015. Typically, a eulogy enacts a religious scene—at least when it occurs within the institution of the Church. The Charleston killings actually occurred within an Episcopian Church, and its victims were members of the Church. When Obama delivered his eulogy during the televised funeral service, he was surrounded on the stage by members of the Episcopian Church. While his speech integrated a political scene—he was speaking as political leader of the nation after a national tragedy—it was natural for Obama to incorporate into his speech a religious scene. However, the religious scene took the upper hand when Obama broke out into song and ended his speech by singing a cappella several verses of the hymn “Amazing Grace,” stepping as it were into the shoes of an  “Dragons’ Den” first aired in 2005, and “Sharks Tank” in 2009.

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African-American preacher. The force of the speech, which received much attention in the media, derives from the way Obama chose to interlace political and religious scenes so closely (see Rossette, 2018). Conversely, speeches can integrate several generic scenes. Let us take, for instance, the speeches delivered during the COP26 opening ceremony. The speech given by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres at the COP26 opening ceremony may follow several of the fixed routines associated with welcome addresses, but it also includes a call to action to combat climate change. The same can be said about the speech delivered by Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who precedes the UN Secretary General and takes the floor in the capacity of prime minister of the country hosting the conference. For these two speeches, we can posit a footing within two generic scenes, that of welcome address and that of a persuasive speech advocating a political agenda in relation to the climate crisis. In regard to the latter, a general and rather loosely defined generic scene can be posited, that of “climate advocacy speech,” in which we can incorporate the other speeches delivered during the ninety-minute opening ceremony, as well as the now large body of advocacy speeches whose purpose, whatever the context (e.g. Greta Thunberg’s various statements, TED talks delivered at the TED Countdown conference, etc.), is to raise awareness and change behaviour in regard to the climate crisis. The climate advocacy generic scene integrates a new type of enclosing scene linked to climate activism, which unites a multiple and diverse group of social actors around shared environmental values. A similar category may be posited for women’s advocacy/diversity advocacy. Within the climate advocacy generic scene that is enacted during COP26, variation can be noted at the level of the scenography, which can be explained by the fact that the event brings together various types of social actors (e.g. dignitary versus grassroots climate activist) and different formats (e.g. face-to-face performance versus projection of the recorded video performance of a remote speaker) (cf. Chap. 3). In comparison, at a first level of formatting, the various speeches delivered alongside that of Angela Davis at the Women’s March on Washington make up a more homogeneous set of oratory: all the orators are physically present, and stand behind a lectern. However, variation is introduced in terms of

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the status of the social actor (e.g. academic, politician, movie actor, etc.), speech length, content, language, and so on.

 igital Communication and the Decompartmentalisation D of Generic Practices As demonstrated over the previous pages, there are examples of oratory, particularly pre-digital oratory, that lend themselves to an appraisal in terms of discursive genre. However, if communication practice implies, by definition, variation and creativity, both at the individual, speaker level (cf. the above examples of the retirement speech, or Obama’s eulogy) and at the societal level (cf. “climate advocacy,” “diversity advocacy”), these are amplified by the digital medium, which hence calls into question the pertinence of genre analysis. The Web is “a place in which new forms of genericity are at stake” (Maingueneau, 2010, p. 34, quoted in Chap. 1), which makes it difficult to apply a traditional conceptualisation of genre to digital communication. There are two main reasons for the increased variation that coincides with the digital medium. First, the technology multiplies the possibilities of variation—as exemplified by the different formats of the speeches at COP26 (face-to-face, video recordings, face-to-face with slideshow and music, etc.). Secondly, because it is participatory, Web 2.0 is informed by a new information order (cf. Chap. 7) and is giving rise to a decompartmentalisation in terms of specialised discourses and discourse communities. Akin to the disruptive business models engendered by the Internet (cf. digital services), digital technologies are disrupting the generic categories of communication—not in the sense in which the term is often used in the context of communication (i.e. as a form of disinformation— see Bennett & Livingston, 2020), but in the way it is transforming expectations, and therefore, generic categories. Because of the impetus on information-sharing, in which any individual can potentially play a part, specialised discourses are being replaced by non-specialised ones, or at least reorganised around the new purpose of catering to a non-specialist audience. For instance, social media oratory has appropriated the field of political advocacy, just like that of

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science, leading to a “science participation model”—which, moreover, has introduced communication as an essential part of the job of scientists (Riboni, 2020 : 68).9 Other examples are provided by the New Oratory formats. The 3MT presentation stages specialists—researchers—who address a non-specialist audience and therefore need to make their research understood by people outside the specialist community. Investor pitches exemplify the shift in discursive communities in the way they have become the object of reality television shows. These programmes have taken to a new level the decompartmentalisation of corporate discourse performed by corporate keynotes and product launches, which are filmed and uploaded to the Internet, and are the object of much commentary in the general media. Investor pitches appear on prime-time television, and as such have entered (along with the figure of the entrepreneur) popular culture, exemplifying, for instance, the “interdiscursive alignment” based on the “ongoing colonisation of various areas of the public sphere by discourses originating in the context of corporations” (Koller, 2008, p. 169). Discourse communities are therefore in flux, a point highlighted by one commentator, who talks of “a digital technology conversion [that] re-patterns human thought and community” (my emphasis).10 While before the digital era, enclosing scenes corresponded to fairly stable categories (e.g. “academic,” “corporate”), and to a certain extent preceded the discursive genre, it now seems as if they are constantly being redesigned and renegotiated around emerging sets of values which are evermore co-­ constructed through the very discourse that they uphold. Also of note is the fact that new categories of social actors—YouTubers, Instagrammers, TikTokers, Deezers, and so on—are being forged and that their names are coined out of the very communication networks in which they take part.  Social media has also appropriated the field of political journalism, as illustrated by the example of French YouTuber Hugo Travers, who interviews politicians and members of the government in videos that are comparable to television journalism, but that he qualifies as “vlogs.” See, for instance, his interview with the French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe in 2017, https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=6cHq4YJzk4g [accessed 03.11.2021]. 10  B. Robinson, “The Marriage of Religion and Technology: Reading Apple’s Allegorical Advertising,” Jan. 27 2014, https://secondnaturejournal.com/the-marriage-of-religion-and-technologyreading-apples-allegorical-advertising/ 9

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Linked to this are the multiple identities that individuals now take up, which means that an individual can no longer be circumscribed to merely one category of social actor. For instance, a singer or movie star can step into the shoes of the political activist, as exemplified during the 2017 Women’s March on Washington. This may make it somewhat artificial to attempt to differentiate between pre-discursive social categories: what counts in terms of the enclosing scene are the values shared by participants, which the content of the speeches brings to the fore. Finally, decompartmentalisation of communities also has to do with the collapse of the private/public divide (cf. Chap. 7), and the fact that private content can “spill over” into the public domain. Now, any individual can decide to film any type of content and upload it to social media. Where does this leave the circumscription of the identity of a potential speaker as participant and as part of an identifiable enclosing scene? In addition, the digital medium fosters a number of communication formats which cannot be reduced to one specific purpose or content type, and therefore cannot be considered to enact a specific generic scene. TED talks are one such example. On the one hand, TED talks display an incredibly high level of conformity in terms of format and staging, according to a long list of specifications that are imposed by TED as part of their branding. This intense formatting is what provides TED talks with their cohesion. However, on the other hand, TED talks vary in purpose, ranging from (purely) informative, to persuasive. They therefore prove closer to the status of a “hypergenre.” A hypergenre groups together instances of communication that adopt a similar format for a variety of purposes. Examples of hypergenres include letters, emails, blogs, and so on. Webinars are another example (Rossette-Crake, 2022). The status of a “hypergenre” (Maingueneau, 2010) resembles quite closely what Fairclough (2003, p. 68) calls a “disembedded genre.” In contrast, there are a small number of digital oratory formats that share a common purpose, display a surprisingly high level of formatting, and therefore unequivocally enact specific generic scenes. This is the case of New Oratory formats such as keynotes, investor pitches and 3MT presentations. The high degree of formatting of the two latter categories can be explained by the fact that these speeches are delivered as part of competitions, which impose specific constraints so that the competitors

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can begin on an equal footing. 3MT presentations display homogeneity not only in terms of social actors (all the orators are PhD researchers), but also in terms of the time variable (e.g. the three-minute duration highlighted in the name) and formatting (e.g. all the orators speak to one slide). They leave very little room for endogenous formatting. In this, they can be contrasted with other generic scenes that are specific to the digital medium, such as YouTube “unboxing” videos described by Attruia (2021). These videos (in which YouTuber influencers are filmed unboxing merchandise that they have generally received from sponsors) reflect a number of routines which inform the generic staging (e.g. formulaic language used to thank the brand), and at the same time require that each speaker construe his/her own endogenous scenography, as part of “the co-construction of a shared, ritualised digital space” (Attruia, 2021, p. §41). An important question pertains to social media oratory. For instance, how can the posts of Boris Johnson, Michelle Obama and Charli D’Amelio be accommodated into the framework of generic staging developed here? And, is it pertinent to do so? For instance, Boris Johnson’s selfie video, filmed from a plane, cannot be compared, in terms of purpose or other variables (e.g. time and place, formatting) with any other type of previously established generic scene within a political enclosing scene. The same can be said about Volodymyr Zelensky’s various “war” addresses posted to social media. These examples by national leaders (a category of social actor which, in order to appear legitimate, is arguably quite conservative in terms of communication norms) highlight the unique and unprecedented space provided by social media. To accommodate these types of short videos that are posted to social media, we can posit, within the category of social media oratory, the existence of a hypergenre, qualified here as “embodied shorts.” An embodied short features an orator who physically appears and speaks to the camera. The specialised digital term “short” (cf. short video format) has been chosen in order to highlight the concision of these videos, of which the exact length can vary.11 In line with the definition of a hypergenre, embodied  Even if the current time limit of shorts on social media is 60 seconds (relevant in June 2022), the hypergenre category of “embodied shorts” includes videos that can exceed this limit. 11

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shorts can fulfil a number of purposes. For instance, we can distinguish a subset of embodied shorts that serve the cause of activism and awareness-­ raising, which will be discussed in Chap. 11.

6.2 Culture, Power, and Diversity (Or Lack of It) Oratory and Culture Some Cultural Considerations As social practice, the speech formats with which this book is concerned reflect a number of stakes in relation to both culture and power. Boromisza-Habashi et al. (2016) note that public speaking is a “culturally embedded practice.” Specific questions concern how cultural differences are negotiated in the face of globalisation, and the globalised discourse practices that have developed due to the World Wide Web. The term “culture” is understood here not only in the sense of national culture but also in terms of value, belief, and behavioural systems specific to any given community (e.g. “corporate culture”; “youth culture”). Web 2.0 has ushered in a new “cultural space” in the sense of Foucault (1970): that of “digital culture.” If culture “provides its members with meaningful ways of life […] encompassing both public and private spheres” (Kymlicka, 1996, p. 76), as well as “an anchor for their self-identification and the safety of effortless secure belonging” (Margalit & Raz, 1990, p.  448), where does the digital cultural space leave an individual in terms of his/ her own identity, which—perhaps more than societal culture—is determined by the digital communities in which s/he participates? Before the digital revolution, oratory and self-presentation had a stronger hold within certain national cultures when compared with others. For instance, in English-speaking countries such as the United States, Canada, and Australia, primary school pupils through to university students have always been encouraged to give various types of oral presentations, participate in debating tournaments, and use these formats to discuss and

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debate opinions and ideas. In contrast, in the French education system for example, rhetoric and the expression of personal ideas have traditionally been developed via writing exercises, which remain “academic and technical” instead of being “professional and personal” (Chaplier & O’Connell, 2015).12 National cultures also show preferences for specific speech types and formats. For instance, TED talks are representative of the American culture in which they emerged in that they promote speeches as a form of entertainment. More generally, English-speaking cultures are well-known for their tradition of “social and duty speeches” (Anderson, 2004, p. 307) that are delivered at social occasions (weddings, birthdays, retirement parties, corporate Christmas parties, etc.) (referred to by Cox (1863) as “social oratory” or “dinner party oratory”; cf. previous section). Other culturally informed components relate to content. Humour (also mentioned in the previous section) is a specific characteristic of speeches delivered by members of English-speaking cultures. For instance, in many contexts, from politics to the workplace, jokes are used to lighten up the atmosphere and create complicity with the audience. However, jokes would be considered inappropriate in cultures which foster authority and distance. Other elements that can be circumscribed to a specific national culture involve rituals of speech openings or closings, such as the formula “God bless America,” used to close political speeches in the United States, or “Vive la République! Vive la France” (“Long live the Republic! Long Live France!”) in France. Of course, these expressions not only constitute a cultural variable, they are also the object of generic variation: they are used in the specific context of ceremonial speeches that belong to a political enclosing scene. Other cultural differences can be noted in terms of delivery style: for instance, native English speakers will most likely avoid reading from a script, a difference that stands out at international academic conferences, for example, whereas academics will tend to read from a script if they come from other backgrounds, depending on their field of scholarship,  Interestingly, recent changes in French school curricula, such as the introduction into the high-­ school leaving certificate (baccalauréat) of a prepared oral presentation (“le Grand Oral”), have led specialists of curricula and rhetoric in the United Kingdom to look to the example of France in the promotion of public speaking skills in schools (see: https://speakingcitizens.org/). 12

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Cultural factors also influence phenomena that inform the speaker-­ audience relation. American audiences will typically look at the orator throughout the presentation, which is not necessarily the case in other cultural zones.13 In regard to audience participation, a case in point is that of university lectures on the island of Java, where, as the lecturer speaks, students repeat out loud to one another and in real time the ideas that they find pertinent (reported in Boromisza-Habashi et al., 2016)— behaviour that would be surprising and be considered impolite for a member of Western culture. Participant roles are one of the questions addressed by Boromisza-­ Habashi et al. (2016) in their ethnographical study of public speaking practice. They contrast cultures that promote a “norm of authority” with those that reflect a “norm of authenticity.” The former hold distance and objectivity in high esteem, and place emphasis on “eloquence, tradition, authority, and community,” while the latter “prompt the speaker not only to speak in an authentic manner but also to be the type of authentic person to whom the audience can easily relate” (Boromisza-Habashi et al., 2016, pp. 28–29). The norm of authority also casts participants in “more complex and interrelated interactional roles” (ibid., p.  27). The two norms are reflected not only in choices relating to content and language, but also in conditions of access to the public speaking floor. For instance, some American Indian communities are characterised by a norm of authority, which can explain why only the male elders of these communities are entitled to endorse the role of orator (Carbaugh, 2005).

Anglo-American Communication Culture For Boromisza-Habashi et al. (2016), the norm of authenticity informs “Anglo speech communities.” Of course, major cultural differences exist within the English-speaking world, and it would be wrong to place on a par the American and British cultures, or those of other English-speaking

 For instance, a manager was surprised by the lack of eye contact he received from his audience during a business presentation in Greece in 2021 (personal communication, 2021). 13

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countries.14 Nevertheless, I will refer here to “English-speaking” or “Anglo-American” cultures, on the basis of the current hold exerted by the zone of the United States on digital practices, particularly in regard to spoken communication. “Authenticity”—a catchword in twenty-first-­ century marketing and branding (cf. Chap. 7)—connotes not only communication that is perceived as genuine as opposed to fake, but also speakers who foster a personal viewpoint. Boromisza-Habashi et  al. (2016) link it to the general impetus placed on the dissemination of personal ideas that informs the public speaking stage in the United States. The observation by these authors ties in with the notions of individuality and egalitarianism that are ascribed to the national culture of the United States, according to Hofstede’s dimensions of national cultures (Hofstede & Hofstede, 2005).15 Hofstede’s anthropological study, which originally draws on data from within international organisations, ranks the culture of the United States as the most individualist. In individualist societies, “the ties between individuals are loose: everyone is expected to look after himself or herself and his or her immediate family” (Hofstede & Hofstede, 2005, p. 76). Interestingly, the authors note that individualist societies encourage, for instance, the use of the personal pronoun “I.”16 Moreover, according to another of Hofstede’s categories, the United States corresponds to a culture of “low power distance,” and hence fosters equality, accessibility, and approachability—other components that are coherent with the norm of authenticity identified by Boromisza-Habashi et  al. (2016). If Hofstede’s categories need to be adopted with caution (they reflect a static rather than a dynamic view of culture),17 they do point to

 The cases of second and third generation immigrants raise a number of issues which cannot be covered in this book. 15  In the ranking of cultures with respect to the dimension of individuality, the United States is followed directly by the other English-speaking countries Australia and Great Britain (in that order) (Hofstede & Hofstede, 2005, p. 78). 16  Similarly, Kearney and Plax (1996) apply to the field of public speaking “I-type” cultural types, which “promote individual initiative and achievement by reinforcing the right of every individual “to be his or her private property, thoughts, and opinions” (Samovar & Porter, 1995, p.  89— quoted in Kearney & Plax, 1996, p. 51). 17  Within organisational studies, for instance, scholars warn of “the necessity to adopt multi-level views when examining the effects of culture” (Miska et al., 2018). 14

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some general cultural trends that appear to be confirmed by public speaking practice. In addition, the norm of authenticity and the adoption of a personal viewpoint that are characteristic of current American culture not only appear to be relatively recent (but ever more prominent) developments, but also correspond to features of the current dominant, global communication culture. In regard to political oratory, Reisigl (2008, p.  261) notes its “increasing personalisation.” Authenticity and personal voice are also central to the communication culture that the cultural critic Deborah Cameron (2000) associates with the period of “high” or “late” modernity. She analyses this culture as a type of permanent quest for authentic, integrated, and presentable selves. According to the norms of such a culture, speakers need to present themselves as a coherent entity, the product of “innate character,” together with a meaningful life experience: The individual’s ways of talking are part of the whole biographical package; indeed I will argue that they are commonly understood as rather direct products of innate ‘character’ combined with individual life experience (the sort of person someone is together with the sorts of things they have done).” (Cameron, 2000, p. 6)

The communication culture of late modernity can but be closely informed by the “networked individualism” (Castells, 2002, quoted in Jones & Hafner, 2021, p. 211) that is promoted by the Internet, and the resulting shift from societies organised around communities, to a “network society”, “in which people are conceived as individuals who align themselves with other people based on their own self-interests” (Jones and Hafner, ibid.).

Power and Diversity Access to the Public Speaking Floor Cultural stakes are part of the negotiation, assertion, and maintenance of power which are an integral part of discourse practice (Fairclough, 1989),

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and which are played out in oratory in very specific ways. In addition to the speaker’s own choices, particularly language choices (cf. the “transparent structural relationships of dominance, discrimination, power and control when these are manifested in language” (Wodak, 2006, p. 53)), an inherent amount of power play is attached to the very setup of oratory, which confers power on one speaker, who holds the floor, cannot be interrupted, and is given a platform to speak to a wide audience (cf. Chap. 2). Other power-inducing choices are made by third-party institutional actors, such as the organisers of public speaking events, as exemplified, for instance, by the variation in the level of the stage (cf. Chap. 4), where a high podium increases not only the physical but also the symbolic elevation of the orator, while this is not the case when the choice is made to lower or remove the podium altogether. Organisers/hosts are also placed in a position of control via a number of technical options provided by the digital interface. For instance, video-conferencing and webinar platforms allow hosts to control many aspects of the interaction, by muting microphones or turning off participants’ cameras, or by limiting access to screen-sharing or to the chat box. Other options relate to the identity of participants, such as the possibility to display profile photos or access the list of participants. And for the participants, when they do have the possibility, they can choose to turn off their screens so that they cannot be seen. The different options of these video platforms introduce complex power relations. For instance, they can place speakers in a position where they cannot see all the faces of the members of the audience, or where they are required to answer questions without seeing the participant who asked it, and/or knowing their identity. More generally, from a diachronic viewpoint, not all social actors have benefitted from the opportunity to access the public speaking floor. If, in some cultures (cf. previous section), access to the floor is only granted to certain groups of males, the historical oratory canon associated with the English-speaking and Western worlds is monopolised by male orators, reproducing the perception that oratory was traditionally a masculine domain (Spender, 1980). As noted in Kennedy’s New History of Classical Rhetoric:

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Classical rhetoric was largely a male phenomenon […] Women were not allowed to speak in the law courts or political assemblies in Greece or Rome; public speaking by women was largely restricted to a few queens ruling in their own right in Greek-speaking portions of Asia Minor or in Egypt. (Kennedy, 1994, p. 93)

Exclusion of females is echoed at the level of representation. Ballif and Moran (2005, p.  2) note that “canonical rhetorical history has represented the experience of males, powerful males, with no provision or allowance for females.” These authors follow in the steps of Buchanan (2005) and Glenn (1997)—the latter of whom notes that “rhetoric always inscribes the relation of language and power at a particular moment (including who may listen or who will agree to listen, and what can be said)” (Glenn, 1997, pp. 1–2)—to propose a systematic retelling of rhetoric from the point of view of women orators, as well as an “inclusionary rhetorics of the future, rhetorics that will account for the regendered rhetorical terrain on which feminist archaeologists and researchers have already begun to identify women’s bodies.” Similar lack of scholarship has been deplored in regard to African-American oratory (Leeman, 1996; Ronald & Richardson, 2003), with the exception of the many studies that have focused uniquely on Martin Luther King, who in fact corresponds to just one (albeit omnipresent) example of a deeply rooted tradition that has had considerable influence on mainstream oratory. Of course, access to the public speaking floor has been radically changed, and continues to be transformed, by digital oratory (cf. Chap. 1). Now, thanks to social media oratory in particular, potentially anyone can claim a public voice. As outlined by Pfister and Soliz (2011, p. 250), thanks to its “many-to-many” setup, “[t]he internet has ‘democratised’ representation by allowing individuals to represent themselves and their various groups rather than simply being represented.” Among the social actors who have been able to seize a public voice in unprecedented ways, two categories stand out: (i) groups representing “citizens” (and notably young people), in opposition to public authorities or States—as exemplified by the Arab Spring of 2010; (ii) females. Young people and females are particularly “taking the floor” on online forums (Herring, 2010). And

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females are far from a minority among the many influencers who, like TikToker Charli D’Amelio, are speaking out via social media oratory.

New Challenges However, if social media has “democraticised” the public space, the latter is now fraught with new types of problems. Web 2.0 incurs a “web of problems” (Mosco, 2017, p. 6): it represents “an open world, one that is disrespectful, noisy, and sometimes so chaotic that many see it as a huge, uncontrollable, and dangerous mess (Cardon, 2010, p. 2018—quoted in Vicari, 2021).18 Difficulties incumbent to Web 2.0 include that of trying to make one’s voice audible amongst the sheer quantity of digital content, the lack of control in terms of accuracy and quality of the information, as well as the hidden control and manipulation on the part of various actors. In addition, if communication on social media “supports the expression of a wide variety of opinions without artificial narrowing” (Pfister & Soliz, 2011, p. 249), we have recently seen the polarisation of opinions and the exacerbated polemic dimension to online debates (Amossy & Burger, 2011), as well as the generalisation of “digital hate” (Udupa et al., 2021). In terms of social media oratory, with the power associated with the role of orator also comes ethical responsibility: Digital public speaking combined with social media is now a vital source of information. In a world that is so reliant upon getting its education and news from online sources, those engaging in public speaking have a grave ethical responsibility. Posts on social media can spread around the world in seconds, and the accuracy of these can have either an enriching or damaging effect on the cultural landscape.19

In addition, if social media platforms were first hailed positively because of the possibilities they offered for the democratic sharing of  My translation from the French.  A. Winstead, “How Public Speaking Has Changed Due to Digital and Social Media,” Aug. 13, 2021, https://speakerhubhq.medium.com/how-digital-public-speaking-has-changed-dueto-­social-media-9fb94ef3ef89 (quoted in Chap. 1). 18

19

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ideas and opinions, this has been partly replaced by the criticism and wariness of scholars and users alike (cf. “clicktivism,” Chap. 1). As pointed out by Origgi (2015): Digital social networks foster the illusion of an epistemic egalitarianism that readily leads to an epistemic anarchism where everyone feels entitled to debate any subject, to speak in public and to assert their more or less justified positions on the basis of objective data or specialised skills. (Origgi, 2015: §28—quoted in Vicari, 2021; my translation and emphasis)

And while digital oratory’s enactment of activism presents a potential tool to enduce social change, at the same time, it perhaps brings a false sense of empowerment, akin to the “make-believe empowerment” identified by Taras (2015) in regard to television. This does not escape social media users, as intimated by one comment posted to the chatbox next to the video of the COP26 opening ceremony: “Apart from speaking, what these people do [sic]?” Another potential illusion pertains to the “virtuous circle” whereby the Internet enables those who are already civically engaged to become more so, but has no effect on those who are disconnected from public affairs (Norris, 2000). Linked to this is the notion that social media serve (simply) as echo chambers,20 a hypothesis supported by some findings (Edwards, 2013; Quattrociocchi et al., 2016), but nuanced by others (e.g. Barberá et al., 2015). And, returning to the question of culture, if digital oratory reflects more diversity in terms of the types of speakers who are taking the floor, it does not necessarily enact a diversity of communication cultures, and hence raises problems in terms of cultural hegemony.

Anglo-American Hegemony and the Corporate World Digital oratory extends beyond the spaces associated with traditional cultural zones, coinciding with the globalised space provided by the World  Echo chamber: “an environment in which a person encounters only beliefs or opinions that coincide with their own, so that their existing views are reinforced and alternative ideas are not considered” (Oxford English Dictionary). 20

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Wide Web, as well as the “new spaces” offered by the virtual realm and the “(re)conceptualisations of intercultural encounters” (Pfister & Soliz, 2011, p.  249) or the “virtual cosmopolitanism” (Sobré-Denton, 2015) they bring with them. The digital orator caters to online communities that span distance and time, whereby “the need to persuade specific audiences has become far less important than the ability to reach many audiences” (Gurak & Antonijevic, 2009, p. 500). Interestingly, appealing to a wide audience that is not limited to any one specific culture is a competence that is now developed in tertiary digital communication courses. So where does this leave culture—both at the national level and at more local levels? The question of culture and globalisation is complex. For Lecomte (2019), globalisation has changed the relationship between cultures (the cultural distance) and has led to an “intermingling” of cultures rather than to uniformisation. This ambivalence was amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic which, by definition, was a worldwide phenomenon, and saw, moreover, a relative degree of homogeneity across cultural zones and countries in their response to the sanitary crisis (e.g. lockdowns, remote work, online communication, etc.); however, at the same time, COVID-19 also proved a “catalyst” on culture by highlighting some fundamental differences embedded within cultural zones and national identities (Rossette-Crake & Buckwalter, 2022). In the specific case of digitalised discourse practices, it can be argued, following the position adopted by Janich (2017) in regard to professional discourses, that they reflect a high degree of standardisation. In his discussion of “discourse as a facet of globalisation,” Fairclough (2009) links globalisation to the “deterritorialisation” of local lives (and cultures) described by Tomlinson (1999), whereby “globalisation lifts cultural life out of its hitherto close connection with physical locality” (Tomlinson, 1999, quoted in Fairclough, 2009, p. 332). As Fairclough explains, this exposes agendas, perspectives, and values to the strategies “favoured by the powerful.” The web can be analysed as another mediator of globalisation, similar to the global communications industries of the 1990s that are pinpointed by Fairclough; as such, they duplicate the way the latter inform a “significant part of the emergence of a neo-liberal ‘global economy’” (Fairclough, 2009, p.  330). And, of course, late capitalism is

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identified elsewhere by Fairclough (1993) as the main vector of the “technologisation” of discourse (see Chap. 7). In his own discussion of the way “globalisation forces sociolinguistics to unthink its classic distinctions and biases and to rethink itself as a sociolinguistics of mobile resources […]” (Blommaert, 2010, p.  1), Blommaert points to the “polycentric environment” that globalisation provides for English speakers (ibid., p. 22). In the case of digital oratory, standardisation goes hand in hand with the adoption of certain cultural norms that are underscored by Anglo-American culture, resulting in a lack of cultural diversity and an increase in Anglo-American cultural hegemony. This is particularly illustrated by certain New Oratory formats (Rossette-Crake, 2020), many of which first developed in the United States, of which a sub-category belongs to the American corporate sector—although the embodied shorts of social media oratory are currently providing more space for individual creativity, and possibly cultural variation (cf. Chap. 11). The Anglo-American cultural hegemony that appears to be confirmed by a number of digital oratory practices provides a contemporary variant, in the neoliberal, digital era, of the linguistic hegemony ascribed to the English language in its connection with capital. In his study that retraces the English language’s “historical connection to capital,” O’Regan (2021) underlines the status of English in its normative standard form associated with Britain and the United States due to the hegemonic roles of these countries. Interestingly, as regards the current context, the author talks of speakers who are “coerced” into slick, “finessed” formal spoken presentations (including academic presentations, and personal pitches for job interviews), that he places on a par with the discourse practices of call centres. In both cases, power is exerted on individualist voices, which are “trampled upon and coerced into ‘finessed’ formulations […] often by processes of power and exploitation” (O’Regan, 2021, p. 204).21 Indeed,  O’Regan explains that the power asserted by forms of spoken language is more recent compared to that asserted by written forms of language. The author also argues that when it comes to spoken language, the process is experienced as more “violent” because speech holds greater stakes in the formation of identity (cf. the example of multilinguals), and also because spoken utterances represent “the more authentic voice […] by being closest to their innermost ‘real-time’ feelings and dispositions” (O’Regan, 2021, p. 204—in reference to Kelly-Holmes, 2016). 21

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one way of interpreting the new public speaking practices that have emerged via the digital medium is to consider them as further examples of the commodification of language (Heller & Duchêne, 2016) that are, typically, carried out in the “global commodity” that is the language of English (Cameron, 2021), and which, moreover, share the same stakes as other neoliberal discourse practices. Of course there is an irony here, particularly when it comes to digital activism that advocates for inclusion and diversity via standardised digital oratory setups that do not allow for diversity in their formatting. Among the stakes associated with neoliberal discourse practices, a specific issue concerns the presentation of the self, which is the subject of the following chapter.

References Amossy, R., & Burger, M. (Eds.). (2011). Introduction: la polémique médiatisée. Semen, 31, 7–24. Anderson, M. (2004). Lend Me Your Ears. Vermilion. Angermuller, J. (2014). Poststructuralist Discourse Analysis: Subjectivity in Enunciative Pragmatics. Palgrave Macmillan. Attruia, F. (2021). L’autorité des jeunes influenceurs du Web dans le genre de l’« unboxing » : un cas d’étude français/italien. Argumentation et Analyse du Discours, 26. https://doi.org/10.4000/aad.5118 Ballif, M., & Moran, M. (Eds.). (2005). Twentieth Century Rhetoric and Rhetoricians. Praeger. Barberá, P., Jost, J., Nagler, J., Tucker, J., & Bonneau, R. (2015). Tweeting from Left to Right: Is online Political Communication More Than an Echo Chamber? Psychological Science, 26, 1531–1542. Bennett, W., & Livingston, S. (2020). The Disinformation Age. University of Washington Press. Blommaert, J. (2010). The Sociolinguistics of Globalization. Cambridge University Press. Boromisza-Habashi, D., Hughes, J., & Malowski, J. (2016). Public Speaking as Cultural Ideal: Internationalizing the Public Speaking Curriculum. Journal of International and Cultural Communication, 9(1), 20–34. Boromisza-Habashi, D., & Reinig, L. (2018). Speech Genres and Cultural Value in the Anglo-American Public Speaking Course as a Site of Language

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Socialization. Journal of International and Intercultural Communication, 11(2), 117–135. Buchanan, L. (2005). Regendering Delivery: The Fifth Canon and Antebellum Women Rhetors. Southern Illinois University Press. Cameron, D. (2000). Good to Talk? Living and Working in a Communication Culture. Sage. Cameron, D. (2021). The Commodification of Language: English as a Global Commodity. In T.  Nevalainen & E.  Closs Traugott (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of the History of English (pp. 352–262). Oxford University Press. Carbaugh, D. (2005). Cultures in Conversation. Lawrence Erlbum Associates. Cardon, D. (2010). La Démocratie Internet. Promesses et limites. Seuil. Castells, M. (2002). The Internet Galaxy: Reflections on the Internet, Business, and Society. Oxford University Press. Chaplier, C., & O’Connell, A.-M. (2015). ESP/ASP in the Domains of Science and Law in a French Higher Education Context : Preliminary Reflections. The European English Messenger, 24(2), 61–76. Corbett, E. (1990). Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press. Cox, E. (1863). The Arts of Writing, Reading and Speaking, in Letters to a Law Student. John Crickford. Darics, E., & Koller, V. (2019). Social Actors “To Go”: An Analytical Toolkit to Explore Agency in Business Discourse and Communication. Business and Professional Communication Quarterly, 82(2), 214–238. Edwards, A. (2013). (How) Do Participants in Online Discussion Forums Create ‘Echo Chambers’?: The Inclusion and Exclusion of Dissenting Voices in an Online Forum about Climate Change. Journal of Argumentation Context, 2, 127–150. Fairclough, N. (1989). Language and Power. Longman. Fairclough, N. (1993). Critical discourse analysis and the marketisation of public discourse: the universities. Discourse and Society 4(2), 133–168. Fairclough, N. (2003). Analysing Discourse: Textual Analysis for Social Research. Routledge. Fairclough, N. (2009). Language and globalization. Routledge. Foucault, M. (1970). The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences. Pantheon Books. Glenn, C. (1997). Rhetoric Retold: Regendering the Tradition from Antiquity through the Renaissance. Southern Illinois University Press.

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Guilbert, T. (2014). Les genres du discours dans l’articulation des approches qualitatives et quantitatives. Corela, 15. https://doi.org/10.4000/corela.3577 Gurak, L. J., & Antonijevic, S. (2009). Digital Rhetoric and Public Discourse. In A. A. Lunsford, K. H. Wilson, & R. A. Eberly (Eds.), The SAGE Handbook of Rhetorical Studies (pp. 497–508). Sage. Heller, M., & Duchêne, A. (2016). Treating Language as an Economic Resource: Discourse, Data and Debate. Sociolinguistics, 139–156. https://doi. org/10.1017/cbo9781107449787.007 Herring, S.  C. (2010). Who’s Got the Floor in Computer-Mediated Conversation? Edelsky’s Gender Patterns Revisited. Language@Internet 7, article 8. http://www.languageatinternet.org/articles/2010/2857 Hofstede, G., & Hofstede, G. J. (2005). Cultures and Organisations: Software of the Mind. McGraw Hill. Janich, N. (2017). Genres in the Business Context: An Introduction. In G.  Mautner & F.  Rainer (Eds.), Handbook of Business Communication: Linguistic Approaches (pp. 42–61). de Gruyter. Kearney, P., & Plax, T. (1996). Public Speaking in a Diverse Society. Mayfield. Kennedy, G.  A. (1994). A New History of Classical Rhetoric. Princeton University Press. Koller, V. (2008). Identity, Image, Impression: Corporate Self-promotion and Public Reactions. In R. Wodak & V. Koller (Eds.), Handbook of Communication in the Public Sphere. de Gruyter Mouton. Kymlicka, W. (1996). Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights. Oxford University Press. Lecomte, P. (2019). Contribution to the Virtual Round Table on Globalisation and Linguistic and Discursive Practice in the Professional Context. In F. Rossette & M. Pujol (Eds.), Langues et pratiques du discours en situation professionnelle (pp. 211–227). Lambert Lucas. Leeman, R. (1996). African-American Orators: A Bio-Critical Sourcebook. Greenwood Press. Maingueneau, D. (2002). An Academic Genre. Discourse Studies, 4(3), 319–342. Maingueneau, D. (2010). Types of Genres, Hypergenre and Internet. In M. Jose Luzon, M.  Ruiz-Madrid, & M.  Villanueva (Eds.), Digital Genres, New Literacies and Autonomy in Language Learning (pp.  25–42). Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Maingueneau, D. (2022). Responding to the Pandemic: A Discourse Analysis Approach. In F.  Rossette-Crake & E.  Buckwalter (Eds.), COVID-19,

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Communication and Culture: Beyond the Global Workplace (pp.  21–36). Routledge. Margalit, A., & Raz, J. (1990). National Self-Determination. Journal of Philosophy, 87(9), 439–461. Martin, J. (1992). English Text: System and Structure. John Benjamins. Miska, C., Szöcs, I., & Schiffiner, M. (2018). Culture’s Effects on Corporate Sustainability Practices: A Multi-domain and Multi-level View. Journal of World Business, 53(2), 263–279. Mosco, V. (2017). Becoming Digital: Toward a Post-Internet Society. Emerald Publishing Limited. Norris, P. (2000). A Virtuous Circle: Political Communication in Postindustrial Societies. Cambridge University Press. O’Regan, J. (2021). Global English and Political Economy. Routledge. Origgi, G. (2015). La réputation. Qui dit quoi de qui. Presses universitaires de France. Pfister, D.  S., & Soliz, J. (2011). (Re)Conceptualizing Intercultural Communication in a Networked Society. Journal of International and Intercultural Communication, 4(4), 246–251. Quattrociocchi, A., Scala, C., & Sunstein, R. (2016). Echo Chambers on Facebook. SSRN [Preprint]. Retrieved February 16, 2021. https://doi. org/10.2139/ssrn.2795110 Reisigl, M. (2008). Rhetoric of Political Speeches. In R.  Wodak & V.  Koller (Eds.), Handbook of Communication in the Public Sphere (pp. 243–270). de Gruyter Mouton. Riboni, G. (2020). Discourses of Authenticity on YouTube: From the Personal to the Professional. Edizioni Universitarie di Lettere Economia Diritto. Ronald, J., & Richardson, E. (2003). Understanding African American Rhetoric: Classical Origins to Contemporary Innovations. Routledge. Rossette, F. (2018). Intégrer une communauté dans une autre : Barack Obama et Amazing Grace. Argumentation et Analyse du Discours, 21. https://doi. org/10.4000/aad.2799 Rossette-Crake, F. (2019). Public Speaking and the New Oratory. Palgrave Macmillan. Rossette-Crake, F. (2020). The New Oratory: Public Speaking Practice in the Digital. Neoliberal Age. Discourse Studies, 22(5), 571–589. Rossette-Crake, F. (2022). COVID-19 and the Rise of Digitalised Spoken Communication: The Example of Webinars. In F.  Rossette-Crake &

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E. Buckwalter (Eds.), COVID-19, Communication and Culture: Beyond the Global Workplace (pp. 135–153). Routledge. Rossette-Crake, F., & Buckwalter, E. (2022). COVID-19, Communication, Culture and the Workplace: Multiple Spaces, Multiple Interfaces. In F. Rossette-Crake & E. Buckwalter (Eds.), COVID-19, Communication and Culture: Beyond the Global Workplace (pp. 3–17). Routledge. Samovar, L.  A., & Porter, R.  E. (1995). Communication between Cultures. Wadsworth. Sobré-Denton, M. (2015). Virtual Intercultural Bridgework: Social Media, Virtual Cosmopolitanism, and Activist Community-Building. New Media and Society, 18(8), 1715–1731. Spender, D. (1980). Man Made Language. Routledge. Taras, D. (2015). Media, Power, and Identity in Canada. University of Toronto Press. Tomlinson, J. (1999). Globalization and Culture. Polity Press. Udupa, S., Gagliardone, I., & Hervik, P. (2021). Digital Hate: The Global Conjuncture of Extreme Speech. Indiana University Press. Vicari, S. (2021). Introduction: Autorité et Web 2.0. Argumentation et Analyse du Discours. https://doi.org/10.4000/aad.4936 Wodak, R. (2006). Critical Linguistics and Critical Discourse Analysis. In J. Östoman & J. Ver-schueren (Eds.), Handbook of Pragmatics (pp. 50–70). John Benjamins.

7 Oratory as Social Practice (II): Presentation of the Self in a Digital, Neoliberal Age

7.1 Promotion and Exaltation of the Self The New Economy and Reputation Whether or not they belong to a corporate enclosing scene, contemporary (digital) oratory practices are informed by a number of corporate stakes, one of which is the focus placed on the person of the speaker. In keeping with the widespread adoption of personalised communication culture (cf. Chap. 6), the speaker becomes an instrument for purposes of corporate and/or personal branding. Be it the CEO who is now called upon to put a public face—and body—on the company, the 3MT presenter or TED speaker whose performances serve their personal branding, or social media orators whose professional success depends on the integration of elements from the personal sphere, digital oratory is inherently linked to an enactment of the self. Personal branding responds to the economic forces of what is referred to alternatively as the new economy (Heller, 2003), the neoliberal economy (Holborow, 2015; McElhinny, 2016), fast or new capitalism (Gee et  al., 1996), or late capitalism (Fairclough, 1993; Duchêne & Heller, © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 F. Rossette-Crake, Digital Oratory as Discursive Practice, Postdisciplinary Studies in Discourse, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18984-5_7

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2012; O’Regan, 2021). Fairclough (1993, p.  142) identifies interconnected developments in the discursive practices of late capitalist society, in particular: (1) the “technologisation” of discourse, or the redesigning of discourse practices according to efficiency; (2) the decline of relationships based on authority, which results, for instance, in the need to constantly negotiate them; (3) the move towards discourse as “a vehicle for ‘selling’” that informs “the general reconstruction of social life on a market basis,” and manipulates interpersonal meaning for strategic effect, especially in the context of self promotion which is “becoming part-and-­ parcel of self-identity.” In Life on the Screen (1995), Sherry Turkle is another author to underline very early on the central issue of identity in the digital era, an era where one person can have many screen identities, publish content anonymously or under pseudonyms, but at the same time needs to manage their online reputation as part of the personal branding that now shapes professional lives (and which is referred to in business circles as “impression management”). Indeed, if the early Internet celebrated anonymity, it is now a major tool for self-promotion, playing out “the presentation of the self ” (Jones & Hafner, 2021, p. 212) and exemplifying to a far greater extent than before the Goffmanian maxim that social identities are always performances.1 The new economy is described as a “reputation economy.” In 2011, an article in Forbes magazine headlines “The reputation economy is coming—are you prepared?” The article defines the reputation economy as “an environment where brands are built based on how they are perceived online and the promise they deliver offline,” and as “a marketplace where professionals are treated like products, and are rated, commented on, and judged based on reputation.” The author describes the forces that are at play in the following way: I believe that in order to compete in the global economy, you have to have an online personal brand. After you create that presence, you have to maintain it throughout the course of your entire life, before someone else does  Study of social media arguably marks a renewal of Goffmanian-inspired theory—as heralded, for instance, by Pearson’s (2009) article titled “All the World Wide Web’s a stage: The performances of identity in online social networds.” 1

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it for you. We are living in a world now where visibility creates opportunities and reputation builds trust. Submitting a resume to a job board, or cold calling randomly, will increasingly become ineffective until it simply doesn’t work at all.2

These words, written by an actor within the marketing sector, are, moreover, typical of corporate discourse and corporate newspeak (e.g. “compete,” “opportunity,” “ineffective”—with the recent additions: “visibility,” “trust,” “reputation”). These lines highlight the hold of commodity culture, which extends to people, according to one of the characteristics of the new work order. Indeed, the above comment can be linked to another remark, made by a hiring manager, quoted by Gee et al. (1996) in their discussion of the new work order: “Let me put the difference between hiring processes then [i.e. before the new work order] and now in the most chilling way I can think of. Today, it’s not only what you know that counts, it’s what kind of person you are” (Champy, 1995, p. 157, quoted in Gee et al., 1996, p. 17) (original italics).

The New Work Order and the Self as Enterprise As indicated by one of the opinions just quoted, construing a personal brand is a life-long process. It echoes the “continual reinvention of the self ” that is characteristic of neoliberalism (Holborow, 2015),3 proves inherent to the question of identity on social networks (Jones & Hafner, 2021, p. 215), and responds to the forces that underpin the new work order. The new work order is defined by an increasingly competitive, global, mobile and precarious workforce (Gee et  al., 1996). It places “huge stress on the need for lifelong learning and the need continually to adapt, change, and learn new skills” (ibid., p. 6). Demand for flexibility and life-long learning goes hand in hand with up-skilling and  D. Schawbel, “The reputation economy is coming—are you prepared”? Feb. 28, 2011, Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/danschawbel/2011/02/28/the-reputation-economy/?sh=2ca1 cecc5ae5 3  Reinvention of the self goes hand in hand with the invention of new areas of expertise and new job titles that brush with the neologism—as exemplified, for instance, by the position occupied by TED speaker Sophie Howe (cf. Chap. 1), who is “Future Generations Commissioner for Wales.” 2

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multiskilling (Kelly, 2013), and is part of a “brave new world of invention, individual energy and motivation” (Holborow, 2015, p.  76)—a world of work based on project management, and missions that are constantly changing and being (re)negotiated. And if it celebrates diversity and customisation, diversity is “often a customised artefact of high-tech marketing” (Gee et  al., 1996, p.  43)—as attested, for instance, by the standardisation of public speaking formats (cf. previous chapter). The new work order places an increased value on human capital, according to the Foucauldian concept of “self as enterprise” (Kelly, 2013), as well as Foucault’s neoliberal homo economicus, who is “an entrepreneur of himself, being for himself his own capital, being for himself his own producer, being for himself the source of [his] earnings” (Foucault, 2008 [1979], p. 226; quoted in O’Regan, 2021, p. 191). Drawing on Foucault’s prediction that each person will become ‘a sort of permanent and multiple enterprise (Foucault, 2008, p. 241), Holborow (2015, p. 72) speaks of “the neoliberal reinvention” of the entrepreneur, who has become “the social icon of our neoliberal age” and is “now seen as the benign improver of society and the kind of person we could all aspire to being” (ibid. p.  74). Holborow speaks of a “semantic stretching” of the concept of “entrepreneur,” which has now become an umbrella term that extends far beyond the corporate world. The very concept of “self as enterprise”—like that of “personal branding”—emphasises the intrusion of the professional domain into the intimate, personal sphere, which is discussed further below. Such staging—and exaltation—of the self—is made possible by the technology, as exemplified by the iconic “selfie,” which of course now refers to both selfie photographs and selfie videos. The former have been criticised for the ways they foster a culture of narcissism (Gunthert, 2015), illustrate “the absurdity of a life continuously documented and the emptiness of a communication transformed into self-branding” (Turkle, 2013), and reproduce features of commercial discourse as a new form of “global discourse” (Aslaug Veum, 2017).4 Just like the selfie, much digital oratory exemplifies the credo of “live so that others will hear of you” (Newberger  For instance: “The typical way of representing oneself on Instagram appears to be surprisingly similar to visual representations in advertisements and image banks” (Aslaug Veum, 2017, p. 86). 4

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Goldstein, 2014, p. 127). TED talks, for instance, have been described as “artistic performances” which are “intimate, narcissistic and self-centred” (Uhl, 2014, p. 263) (my emphasis). The new work order also marks the move from hierarchical to horizontal relations, and the decline of relationships based on authority (Fairclough, 1994), which find a clear echo in the participatory culture enacted by Web 2.0, and the move from specialised to less specialised discourses (cf. Chap. 6). The new economy is also a “new knowledge economy” (McElhinny, 2012), or an “information economy,” a term coined within the field of digital rhetoric (Lanham, 1993, p. xi), in which knowledge is no longer the property of “experts” to be transmitted “vertically.” Importantly, economic interests are rarely absent from the participative model. As noted, for instance, in regard to the YouTube platform, whose “participatory culture is not a gimmick or a sideshow, it is absolutely core business” (Burgess & Green, 2009, p. 6), economic interests cannot be dissociated from a number of the digital oratory formats (e.g. TED talks, corporate keynotes, investor pitches).

Digital Oratory and Corporate and Personal Branding Let us examine some of the ways the digital speaker has become an instrument of corporate and personal branding, each of which, as highlighted above, is now intimately linked to the other. For instance, corporate branding espouses the personal when CEOs take centre stage to personify the company’s values. Keynotes are indicative of the prominent role that CEOs play in “stakeholder” communication, which, in the new economy, has replaced “shareholder” (or specialised) communication,5 as well as the emphasis placed by the new work order on human capital, where the CEO embodies the company’s values, and, as such, puts an individual, human face on the company. Other formats belonging to the generation of the New Oratory provide mouthpieces for the constant renegotiation of projects, and attest to the pivotal role fulfilled by language in the “negotiation revolution”  Stakeholder communication targets the wider community of individuals, particularly consumers, who recognise themselves in the company brand. 5

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(Fisher et al., 2011). Delivered as part of competitions, 3MTs and investor pitches are indicative of a world where we are constantly on the look out for new ideas in order to reinvent ourselves, and where we also need to compete in order to convince potential business partners. Moreover, in the era of start-ups and digital marketing, engineers no longer simply design and manufacture new products, they have also become entrepreneurs, and play a personal role in the financing and the marketing/branding of the product. Similarly, the 3MT presentation epitomises the self-branding that is now necessary for academics, particularly young researchers starting out in their career (e.g. 3MTs are often a gateway to obtain post-doctoral contracts). 3MT presentations are not unlike TED talks, which act “as a kind of shop window for speakers,”6 and provide a space where every speaker can (re)invent him or herself (cf. Chap. 10). These various genres and hypergenres provide a microphone for speakers that allow them to realise and showcase their own entrepreneurship. And strikingly, some of the formats have themselves become brands. “3MT” is a registered trademark of the University of Queensland, which showcases it in its own institutional branding. Similarly, while TED labels itself as a “non-profit” and disassociates itself from business and political interests, it has developed the “TED talk” as a quasi brand. The step towards personal branding has been accelerated by social media oratory. By definition (cf. Chap. 1), social network sites “allow individuals to construct a public or semi-public profile.” Video fosters content that is more “ego-focused” then text (Herring & Demarest, 2011).7 The staging of the self that is inherent to social media video content is underlined by the slogan developed in the early days of the YouTube platform: “broadcast yourself ” (Bouillot, 2016). In her study of authority on YouTube, Riboni (2020), who speaks of “digital performances of the self,” identifies, among the main means for establishing authority, the use of self-branding techniques; these techniques help  A. Hickman, “Conference Speakers and the Digital Revolution,” April 19 2017, https://www.jla. co.uk/conference-speakers-digital-revolution/#.XFvzCc17lPb 7  Herring, S. and Demarest, B. Unpublished (2011) Mode Choice in Multimodal Comment Threads: Effects on Participation and Language Use. This unpublished study on comment threads, in which the authors compare audio and video comments and text comments, is referred to by Herring and Androutsopoulos (2015, p. 142). 6

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YouTubers move from the status of practitioner of a hobby to that of communication professional or influencer, who is “extremely skilled at embedding promotional messages within their content,” and is able to “seamlessly integrate” sponsorship into the content of their videos (Riboni, 2020, p.  83).8 Next to these “micro-celebrities,” other social media orators include professionals who are either established in their activity or in the process of launching a new activity. These professionals use social media in order to develop their personal brand. A prime example is the practising nutritionist whose video content in discussed in Chap. 11. Finally, branding is not completely absent from instances of (semi-­ digitalised) podium oratory. For example, when Angela Davis delivers her speech at the Women’s March on Washington rally (cf. Chap. 1), she participates in an event that has been construed akin to a brand. “Women’s March” exploits digital marketing strategies (website, hashtag, logo—all of which are referencing on the poster attached to the lectern from which Davis speaks),9 and participants in the rally are encouraged to wear pink hats, which create a further form of visual identification for members of a community that is being constructed both online and offline.

7.2 The Collapse of the Public/Private Divide “Public” Speaking Gone “Private”? In lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic, numerous social actors— from managers, employees, teachers and students, to webinar hosts, New Oratory speakers and politicians—went online and spoke from their homes and/or other private spaces. Speakers spoke not only from home offices but also from their living rooms, kitchens, and sometimes their bedrooms. For instance, Sophie Howe’s fully digitalised TED talk cited  Use of YouTube as a business activity is underlined by a number of guidebooks written by marketing experts, who devote more space to aspects such as target audience, branding, accounting or advertising than to the actual content of the video itself. 9  In contrast, there is no poster on the lectern from which Martin Luther King speaks in the 1963 rally that also took place in the streets of Washington. 8

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in Chap. 1 is visibly delivered from her home (we can see plants, picture frames and a doorway in the background). Similarly, a webinar titled “The Future of Transport—Challenges and Opportunities,” jointly organised by the American international technical professional services firm Jacobs, and the French high-tech multinational Atos,10 is introduced by the host speaker (the vice-president and head of sales at Jacobs), who is sitting in what appears to be her living room (a sofa can be seen in the background to the right of the screen; together with bookshelves, paintings on the wall, soft lamps, etc.). And let us not forget the example of the 2020 3MT competition finals (cf. Chap. 4) that begins with the host academic sitting in his dressing gown by his living room fire. And since the end of lockdowns, speakers have continued to allow audiences into their homes or private spaces virtually. This also applies to public figures, such as politicians, as exemplified by Boris Johnson when he speaks from his aircraft seat, former first lady Michelle Obama who speaks from the sofa of her living room, Volodymyr Zelensky at the window of his presidential residence, or French President Emmanuel Macron, who is filmed speaking from the backseat of his chauffeur-driven car, during a YouTube series as part of the 2022 French presidential campaign.11 On social media and elsewhere, “private” components have crept into public communication, resulting in what may be described as “public” speaking gone “private.” Again, there is a close link between the corporate world and the workplace. The pandemic has simply accelerated the collapse of the divide that once existed between professional and personal space and time (and our professional and personal lives) (Rossette-Crake & Buckwalter, 2022a),12 a collapse that had begun pre-pandemic (Darics, 2016), and is incumbent on technological advances, including those preceding Web 2.0.  October 27, 2020; 342 views as of October 17, 2021; available at: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=rSCcMDOCi2A [accessed June 14, 2021]. 11  Extract from the second episode of an eight-episode series of videos available at: https://www. youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOitQA7zrTQXWoKZ5a-DcUOtvO3yV4AbS [accessed 06.06.2022]. 12  The increased blurring of the frontier between private and professional spheres is likely to be one of the many long-during legacies of the pandemic, which is not without negative consequences for workers. See, for instance, the analysis of the labour sociologist Danièle Linhart in Rossette-Crake and Buckwalter (2022b). 10

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Back in 1997, Weintraub and Kumar (1997, p. xi, quoted in Lange, 2008) note that communication technologies are “eroding the boundaries between ‘publicity’ and ‘privacy’ in fundamental ways.” Of course, the change has been considerably accelerated by the social networks, whose orators were the first to invite us into private settings,13 a staging which went hand in hand with an emphasis on personal and privately oriented content: “one of the central features of participation in social networks is the convergence between the private and the public sphere, manifested in the disappearance of the boundaries delimiting private utterances” (Herring et al., 2013, p. 10). In so doing, social media have displaced the cursor in terms of the types of content that it is acceptable to share in the public sphere. In her interrogation of the “publicly private” and “privately public” setups that are underscored by YouTube videos, Lange (2008, p.  365) emphasises the complexity of the terms “public” and “private”: “how ‘public’ a video is” depends not only on the size of the audience it reaches, but also on the relevance of its content for the collectivity within the general societal context, as well as “how much information a person yields about their identity” (quoted in Chap. 2). However, if typically private elements are “things that we are able and/or entitled to keep hidden, sheltered, or withdrawn from others” (Weintraub & Kumar, 1997, p. 6, quoted in Lange, 2008), how should we qualify the types of content (as well the way they are delivered) which, up until now, speakers had not revealed about themselves and that they now make accessible, notably via the social networks? Drawing on Nissenbaum’s (2004) concept of “contextual integrity” which states that people have expectations about the type of content that is appropriate in a specific context (and which is liable to vary across time, place and culture), Lange (2008) introduces the concept of “the fractalisation of the public and private.” For instance, users/audiences will have expectations of what types of information can be shared on YouTube, which are not the same as user expectations in other contexts. The difficulty is that norms that typically first apply to  Similarly, French philosopher Michel Serres (2015, p. 10) notably describes the digital sphere as a “revolution of places,” whereby one “common” space has been replaced by the invention of new places, including a “new private sphere,” which has, moreover, also made it necessary to invent a “new public sphere.” 13

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actors on social networks (e.g. influencers) are being adopted by other categories of social actors (e.g. politicians), sometimes in contexts outside social media. Be it in terms of time, space or content, the collapse of the private/ public divide participates in the way identity and selfhood are being challenged in the wider context of the digital age, where there is no longer a distinction between “public” and “private” self, but where the self is at the same time more “fragmented” (Mirowski, 2013, p.  92, quoted in Holborow, 2015).14

Speaking from the Backstage Backstaging First, let us focus on the collapse of the public/private divide in terms of spaces. Instead of speaking from a stage—that is, a frontstage—digital orators can speak as it were “from the backstage.” The term “backstaging” is used here when speakers exploit the meaning-making potential of private spaces, the Goffmanian “back regions,” as opposed to the “frontstage”—which are hence turned into “places” (Jones & Hafner, 2021, p. 120—cf. Chap. 4).15 Backstaging is typical of social media content, including social media oratory, beginning with that produced by influencers (cf. Chap. 11). For instance, Tiktoker Charli D’Amelio “mostly films them [her videos] in ordinary spaces like her bedroom”16 (my emphasis). This is the case of D’Amelio’s video cited in Chap. 1, just like that of Immy Lucas (“Immy”), a British YouTuber, who delivers a similar  Fragmentation also governs our personal lives, which, within the new word order (Gee et al., 1996, p. 34) (cf. Chap. 6), now “turn out to be a portfolio of projects […], not one linear progression along a single line.” Conversely, the personal and the subjective are being introduced into the public/professional sphere, with many founding entrepreneurs viewing “their businesses as a direct form of self-expression.” Source: D. Shaywitz, “No, most CEOs shouldn’t be on Twitter,” Sept. 28, 2012, Forbes Magazine Online. 15  I use this term differently from the way Sundo and Hegedorn-Rasmussen (2008) talk about the “backstaging” that underscores the “experience economy.” 16  T.M. Andrews, “Charli D’Amelio is TikTok’s biggest star. She has no idea why,” May 26, 2020, The Washington Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/05/26/ charli-damelio-tiktok-star/ 14

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message about the same topic (“It’s not enough not to be racist”), posted around the same period, in which she speaks sitting on her bed (dressed similar to D’Amelio in a casual tracksuit top),17 confirming the trend that is also ascribed to the YouTuber, who “most of the time is sitting in a private space at home. Bedrooms, offices and living rooms are the most common backdrops for this type of video” (Araüna et al., 2021). A considerable number of examples of social media oratory, particularly those delivered by young people, are filmed from the archetypal space-invested-­ as-a-place (cf. Chap. 4) of the teenager: their bedrooms. Distinct from the “glass bedroom” metaphor that refers to cases of private exchanges that are inadvertently made public (Pearson, 2009), the aforementioned social media posts consciously exploit the meaning potential of personal spaces-turned-places. Significantly, social media makes use of the term “backstage” as a hashtag, and experts recommend a number of related hashtags: for instance, according to one website, hashtags such as #backstagelife #behindthescene #lifeonset #ontheset #backstages allow publishers of content to “get popular and boost [their] view.”18 Indeed, the backstaged videos can be distinguished from other videos by the same influencers, which are filmed in less personal, more public settings (e.g. outdoors), and reflect a greater concern with aesthetic appeal (settings are brighter and more colourful, the speakers wear makeup, are dressed less casually, etc.). In contrast, backstaging is a tool to construe intimacy, and increase a sense of authenticity. In the case of the two examples cited above, which are advocacy-based, this can prove particularly productive: by investing personal space, the orator comes across as particularly sincere, as if she is laying herself bare. As noted by Araüna et al. (2021), adopting private settings creates an “apparent proximity and trust between the performer and the public” (my emphasis). As well as promoting authenticity (discussed in more detail below) and intimacy, backstaging can also be seen to help establish an “affinity space” in

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcpVioQYFZ0 [accessed February 3, 2022].  Sources: https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/backstage/?hl=en; https://top-hashtags.com/ hashtag/backstage/ [accessed April 27, 2022]. 17 18

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order to construe a sense of community between participants (Gee, 2005—cf. Chap. 3).19 Of course, backstaging needs to be understood in the way it articulates the private space of the social media actor and the public sphere. Asked whether he views his activity as public speaking, or as some other type of speaking (e.g. “private,” “intimate”), one actor on social media (the nutritionist and creator of content discussed in Chap. 11) answers: “I feel more like I’m speaking in public. It’s like talking from my window to people in the street.”20 This image is significant: it underlines the role of the private space, and the fact that the speaker does not leave his/her private space, as well as the movement from private to public space that articulates both dimensions. Backstaging is not limited to the embodied shorts of influencers. The various examples quoted earlier (from TED speakers and webinar hosts, to politicians) all exhibit a setup that can be qualified as backstaging in that the personal setting (whether it is enforced, due to lockdowns, or deliberately chosen) construes intimacy rather than distance, and constitutes a resource that the orator can exploit as a rhetorical tool in order to foster trust and sincerity. A striking example is provided by the above-­ mentioned series of YouTube videos published as part of Emmanuel Macron’s 2022 presidential campaign. Although it does not qualify as oratory (it is made up of interviews, which therefore constitute dialogic speech), the strategy of this series, titled “The candidate” (“Le candidat”), is clearly to provide a “behind the scenes” account of the candidate’s (short) campaign, in order to trigger the interest, and the adherence, of voters. Instead of focusing on the candidate’s public appearances, the videos feature “backstage” scenes with collaborators and campaign aids, and the thread is provided by a number of interviews with the candidate in which he relates his experience of the campaign as it unfolds, and which are filmed in personal spaces, and include personal attributes (e.g. his car, his office, walking up a small staircase with his dog, etc.).  The term “backstaging” can also be extended to refer to the staging of any attributes belonging to the backstage, such as the way cameras and other filming equipment are made visible in the video, as described by Riboni, who refers to the Goffmanian dichotomy of frontstage/ backstage in her discussion of YouTubers. 20  Personal communication (June 2022). 19

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Returning to digital oratory, backstaging instantiates the metaphors of the campfire and the dinner table which are evoked, for instance, in the context of TED talks (Anderson, 2016, pp. x; 10). Indeed, in this respect, TED talks are emblematic: they correspond to an “unveiling of the intimate,” in which “personal elements” lead to a “confusion of registers” (Uhl, 2014, p. 261) (as illustrated, in terms of content, by the extremely personal topics evoked in some TED talks, such as when a neurobiologist recounts her own personal experience of a stroke, or when a transgender woman recounts how her parents accepted her change of gender—examples discussed in Chap. 10). Backstaging is indicative of the current, personalised communication culture, which includes a shift towards more personal, private content, and is also indicative of digital communication more generally. The latter fosters a “heightened degree of intimacy” that “surpasses the level of affection and emotion of parallel (face-to-face) interaction” (Jones, 2004, p. 17), and that can be explained by the way intimacy is being (re)distributed between online and face-to-face communication (Turkle, 2012).21

“ Everyday Life as Public Performance”: The Paradox of Microcelebrity and Authenticity Backstaging renegotiates the assymetrical speaker-audience relation inherent to oratory. Quite literally, it brings speakers down from their pedestal, and proves, in the case of social media, a useful strategy (cf. the hashtag that allows digital orators to “boost” views) by contributing to their portrayal as someone who could potentially be a member of their audience. Indeed, this type of persona is notably that promoted by “microcelebrities,” influencers who have reached a great number of followers (e.g. Charli D’Amelio has more than 100  million subscribers), who “inhabit the ambiguous position of being friends and fans at the same time, or […] members of ‘communities’ and members of ‘audiences’” (Jones & Hafner, 2021, p. 219). For instance, according to the  According to Turkle (2012), there has been a “flight” from face-to-face conversation; this has resulted in a “craving of intimacy” which has, in turn, led to a false type of intimacy that is mediated digitally. 21

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following testimonial by another TikToker, Charli D’Amelio has succeeded in being perceived as a “normal girl”: [A]sk TikTok star Madi Monroe, who will tell you “literally everybody on the Internet sees Charli as just like a normal girl. They look at her, and they’re like ‘Oh, my gosh, I could do that, too.’ (My emphasis)22

Like that of other influencers, the appeal of YouTubers draws on their status as “us amateurs” as opposed to “them professionals,” where “them professionals” refers to professional actors of the traditional broadcast media, viewed as untrustworthy, notably because they are driven by economic motives (Riboni, 2020, p. 134). This translates into video content that promotes “a casual visuality aiming at amateuristic immediacy” (Reichert, 2014, p. 105, cited in Riboni, 2020, p. 118). In other words, the videos deliberately play on “amateur” status, in terms of the persona of the speaker, which can extend to elements of the communication setup itself. Microcelebrity is defined as “a heightened consciousness of everyday life as a public performance” (Gamson, 2011, p. 1068, quoted in Jones & Hafner, 2021). Similarly, Attruia (2021, p. §15) speaks of the way influencers are “captured in the accomplishment of an ordinary action” (my emphasis in each case) (e.g. taking a photo, visiting the museum, playing a video game, unpacking a gift).23 In the examples of social media oratory quoted above, backstaging, like the adoption of a casual dresscode by the speaker, are some of the elements that construe “ordinariness.” Ordinariness is embedded in the notion of authenticity (“projecting the impression that they [speakers] are ‘ordinary people’ doing the things that they would ordinarily do” (Jones & Hafner, 2021, p.  220)). A  T.M. Andrews, quoted supra.  To describe current digital culture, Newberger Goldstein (2014, p. 127) speaks of an “ethos of the extraordinary” that results from the way life is enlarged, and ordinary, everyday actions are made extraordinary, in order to “withstand time’s drowning out the fact that [we] once had been” (Newberger Goldstein, 2014, p. 127). Interestingly, “ordinariness” appears to be a defining feature of the TikTok platform which differentiates it from Instagram, according to one actor on social media, who “didn’t feel as if she could be herself ” on Instagram (in her words, on Instagram “You have to be on vacation, […] or doing something extravagant,” source: J. Parham, “TikTok and the Evolution of Digital Blackface,” Aug. 42,020, Wired, https://www.wired.com/story/ tiktok-evolution-digital-blackface/ 22 23

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c­haracteristic of “Anglo” public speaking culture (Boromisza-Habashi et al., 2016—cf. Chap. 6), and a tool of contemporary marketing (e.g. in the tourism sector), authenticity has received considerable attention in discourse studies and sociolinguistics (e.g. van Leeuwen, 2001; Bucholtz, 2003), and has been revisited in relation to the digital context (e.g. Androutsopoulos, 2015; Hower, 2018). Authenticity is the product of “constantly negotiated social practices” (Bucholtz, 2003, p.  408); it is construed dynamically and is “the result of an ongoing performance of identity” (Hower, 2018). Within the digital medium particularly, authenticity is construed as part of the performance: Being authentic on the internet is not about being ‘real’. Social media users are, in fact, often very tolerant of other uses making themselves ‘better’ than they really are online […] It seems that what is really meant by being ‘authentic’ online is being able to perform attributes and behaviour associated with sincerity and openness, and also to disclose fears and vulnerabilities that other people can relate to. (James & Hafner, 2021, p.  221) (My emphasis)

Significantly, the disclosure of fears and vulnerabilities as part of the performance, which is tied into the notion of a speaker who lays him/her bare, is illustrated not only by social media oratory, but also other forms of digital oratory (e.g. the two aforementioned examples of TED talks). In her study of YouTubers, Riboni (2020, p. 136) describes the “edited self ” that is “carefully curated and monitored,” and identifies some core discursive and rhetorical strategies that YouTubers adopt, in order to appear authentic (these range from narrative style, emotional tone and conversational greetings and leave-taking, to the construal of imperfection and self-deprecation). She adds that “[t]he ability to come across as authentic is what distinguishes popular content creators from the multitude of others who also upload posts on the platform, but are not capable of appearing equally genuine and relatable” (p.  133). In other words, authenticity becomes a criterion of differentiation, in keeping with the “culture of authenticity” that defines postmodern society, whereby every individual strives for an authentic self that is faithful to one’s own originality (Taylor, 1992). If backstaging and the performance of everyday life renegotiate the assymetrical speaker-addressee relation inherent to

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oratory, this does not result in a simplification of the latter, or its removal. When oratory combines with the digital medium, it is still very much the product of a delicate balancing act. Authenticity informs the ethos of the digital speaker (cf. Chap. 8), and one means to grasp its ambivalence is to observe the way it is construed discursively, according to modelling based on the discursive categories of Rhetorical and Dialogic Staging (Chap. 9). Before turning to analyses based on these discursive tools, this chapter concludes by referencing two other factors that also condition the presentation of the self in the digital, neoliberal age, which can also be linked to economic stakes.

7.3 Digital Oratory and Other Economic Stakes An Economics of Attention … And Speed As noted earlier, the new economy is also an “information economy,” which has ushered in a new information order. The new information order is based on an “economics of attention,” where “attention is the commodity in short supply” (Lanham, 1993, p. xi). The participatory model of information-sharing that underscores digital technologies has resulted in a “cognitive surplus of sharing and problem solving (Shirky, 2008), and in a situation where “access to knowledge expands while attention spans contract” (Robinson, 2014). This has increased the pressure on individuals who are faced with “ever greater amounts of information processing in their daily working lives and as part of their socially networked subjectivities” (O’Regan, 2021, p. 190, quoting Fuchs, 2014). The attention economy results in a “quest for visibility which corresponds to a threat of invisibility” (Jones & Hafner, 2021)—a viewpoint reiterated in a blog about public speaking in the digital age: “[a]t a time when everyone has a voice, extra effort is required to rise above the noise.”24

 A. Winstead, “How Public Speaking has Changed due to Digital and Social Media,” Aug. 13, 2021, https://speakerhubhq.medium.com/how-digital-public-speaking-has-changed-due-tosocial-media-9fb94ef3ef89 24

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Indeed, Lanham argues that because attention spans are put to the test, a key stake of contemporary rhetoric concerns the stylistic devices which regulate attention. Indeed, in the case of social media oratory, getting audiences to watch until the end of a video proves a real challenge, and orators are constantly inventing new strategies in order that they do so (cf. Chap. 11). Style is dictated by concision and speed: “[p]eople spend far less time inventing arguments and far more time distributing short bits of information, as rapidly as possible, to an extremely wide audience” (Gurak & Antonijevic, 2009, pp. 499–500) (my emphasis). This description sums up much social media, including social media oratory, in which speakers are no longer necessarily the sources of content but instead are mediators (cf. the digital sharman), who comment on, relay, recycle and repackage information. Emphasis has been displaced from the rhetorical canon of invention to that of delivery, whereby “[e]lectronic technology has made the fifth canon of delivery (medium) take on the urgency of simultaneous communication” (Welch, 1999, p. 26). The trend towards ever-shorter formats applies to numerous communication practices, and was accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, when attention spans were further challenged by the massive switch to online communication for activities relating to almost all aspects of our lives. Moreover, in the electronic era, oratory had already turned to the demands of concision, by integrating into podium oratory soundbites (formulaic and innovative uses of language that would be included in news bulletins—a first type of “snippet” referred to by Gurak and Antonijevic (2009, p. 497—quoted in Chap. 1) as characteristic of the digital medium). In regard to digital oratory, concision is a defining criterion of most (pre-pandemic) New Oratory formats. Time limits are imposed for competitions, such as the eponymous three-minute-thesis presentation, or investor pitches, which can be as short as 60 seconds. From the moment they were first launched, TED talks imposed a maximum of 18 minutes, considered to correspond to the limit of an audience’s attention span, which is well above the average length of TED talks of more recent times. The move towards short formats is epitomised by social media video. The term “short” refers to videos on social media that are limited in length (e.g. 15 seconds, 30 seconds, 60 seconds). TikTok and Instagram seem to

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have set the trend, while YouTube videos are typically longer, although in 2021 YouTube made it possible to upload “YouTube shorts,” videos of 60 seconds maximum (which also imitate TikTok and Instagram selfie video in that they are filmed in portrait mode). Instagram has progressively increased the length of its “reels,” which take their name from the object on which film is wound (but, interestingly, another meaning of the word refers to a fast, collective dance),25 from 15 seconds (in 2020) to 90 seconds (as of June 2022). Concision and speed are connoted by the very name of TikTok, which echoes the onomatopoeia in English of the beating of the clock (“tick tock”). Significantly, unlike videos posted on YouTube or Instagram, the duration does not appear on TikTok videos, which adds to the sense of speed and instantaneity. Speed is also accentuated by the fact that, due to their very short length, a short characteristically breaks off immediately after the speaker has uttered the final word. Another characteristic of shorts is their infinite looping—they continue to play over and over again until the user exits the platform, or scrolls down to another video. Finally, instantaneity is accentuated by the fact that a limited lifespan is placed on some videos. This is the case of “stories,” which disappear from the platform after 24 hours, and are, moreover, ephemeral (they can only be viewed once). Stories (the term “clip” is also used) allow users to tell a story or to update their status. Similarly, a reel is considered by social media professionals to have a lifespan of seven days from the date of posting, after which they are rarely viewed, and are considered irrelevant. In some ways, the story and the reel provide modern variants of kairos (the ability, recognised in classical rhetoric, to seize the opportune moment, and to link a speech to the here-and-now of the delivery—cf. Chap. 4). These very short lengths result in a very tight argumentation structure (cf. Chap. 11), producing a format that we will qualify here as “nutshell” oratory, or “vignette” oratory. Digital oratory is underpinned by concision and an acceleration of time which both respond to the “logic of speed” described by the philosopher Paul Virilio (e.g. 2000). Vililio predicts that this logic will lead to a  Reel: (1) “a round object around which you wind such things as thread, wire or film”; “a fast Scottish, Irish or American dance, usually for two or four couples” (Oxford English Dictionary). 25

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financial, political and social breakdown, due to the “collective amnesia” that results when one news item is swept away the following day by another. Virilio associates this with the potential danger represented by an (exaggerated) appeal to emotion, which is present in social media oratory, and can partly be explained due to the adoption of show-like formats.

“Showledge” What can be seen as another consequence of participatory culture and the need to cater to a non-specialist audience is the heightened display of theatricality or show which, in some contexts, comes close to what is qualified as “infotainment.” Some typical examples are provided by the New Oratory formats, beginning with keynotes. Keynotes have been described by one commentator in the media (from a non-English speaking country) as “not just presentations, but representations […] during a keynote, the company’s big boss presents new products in a very theatrical way. It’s an extremely efficient and well-orchestrated show, of undeniable media impact.”26 In the case of 3MT competitions, academics “turn into presenters and are cheered on by the audience, in what comes close to a sound-and-light show and echoes reality TV.”27 These descriptions can also be applied to the speeches performed, for instance, at the COP26 opening ceremony, which are delivered with musical and visual ­accompaniments, and make use of other effects, such as voice-over and multiple screens. Digital oratory often packages knowledge for a non-specialist audience within a show-like format that will be referred to here as “showledge.” Showledge transmits knowledge as part of a full sensory experience, to be “delivered” to the audience, and participates in the “experience economy”  French news article “La Keynote d’Apple, c’est quoi?” LCI, 9 September 2014. Available at: http://www.lci.fr/high-tech/la-keynote-dapple-cest-quoi-1557946.html [accessed 8 November 2018] (my translation). 27  M. Miller, “‘Ma thèse en 180 secondes’: les doctorants, de nouvelles stars,” June 6 2016, Le Monde, https://www.lemonde.fr/campus/article/2016/06/01/ma-these-en-180-secondes-les-doctorants-­ ces-­nouvelles-stars_4929927_4401467.html 26

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(which follows closely on the heels of the knowledge economy) (Sundo & Darmer, 2008, p. 2), as well as the phenomena of micro-celebrity—or what is even considered, in the case of YouTube, as a “superstar economy.”28 Interestingly, several digital setups present speakers as pseudo-stars: for instance, winners of the 3MT are presented as “research stars,”29 and the competition is presented on one university website as “a competition that will “make you a research rockstar presenter.”30 Alternatively, winners of investor pitches can be designated according to the name of the first organisation to launch start-up weekends: “techstars.”31 Showledge includes a heightened appeal to and instrumentalisation of the emotions—what Virilio refers to as a dictatorship of emotions, predicted too by the 1952 editorial (quoted in Chap. 2): in both cases, concern is voiced in regard to democratic debate and democratic life. Showledge also appeals particularly to our sense of sight. This is materialised by the multiplication of multimodal resources, particularly the many types of projection of content on screens listed in Chap. 5. It is also realised by a number of props which appear on stage with the speaker, including products that are the object of product demonstrations during keynotes, the red carpet and “TED” letters on the stage of TED talks, or the promotional backdrop with the “3MT” logo. And it is no coincidence that one of the most popular social media platforms, Instagram, places particular emphasis on aesthetics: Instagram “encourages users to focus much more on the aesthetic aspects of their lives” (Jones & Hafner, 2021, p. 216). All of these components are symptomatic of the “society of the spectacle” (Debord, 1967), or the “videosphere” (Debray, 2004), a world dominated by the visual dimension—one that is dictated by appearances, in which we have “rediscovered the human body” (ibid.). Of course, it can be argued, following Jones (2020, p. 20), that “[t]he fact that we are living in a “visual age” has become somewhat of a cliché.” 28  N. McAlone, “How to make millions as a YouTube star,” Jan. 2, 2016. https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-make-money-as-a-youtube-star-2015-12?r=US&IR=T [accessed April 25, 2022]. 29  See, for example, profile of the 2018 University of Queensland winner, retrieved from https://bel. uq.edu.au/article/2018/09/awards-celebrate-bel-research-star 30  University of Alabama in Hunstville: retrieved from https://www.uah.edu/events/icalrepeat. detail/2018/10/26/7436/-/three-minute-thesis-and-dissertation-competition 31  https://www.techstars.com/

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Nevertheless, visual culture is influencing oratory in ways that are perhaps unexpected and which may have wide-reaching consequences on communication practice—as exemplified by the fact that, thanks to the option of captions provided by social media platforms (cf. Chap. 5), audiences now have the possibility of no longer listening to speeches but simply watching them without the sound, which highlights a fundamental shift in division of labour between the verbal/aural channel and the visual channels. Some of the issues discussed over the previous pages can be modelling by discourse analytical tools. These are presented over the following two chapters. We will first turn to the question of the presentation of the self as it is instantiated by way of the concept of discursive ethos.

References Anderson, C. (2016). TED Talks: The Official TED Guide to Public Speaking. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Androutsopoulos, J. (2015). Negotiating authenticities in mediatized times. Discourse, Context & Media, (8), 74–77. Araüna, N., Tortajada, I., & Willem, C. (2021). Feminist Youtubers in Spain: A Public Space for Building Resistance. In C.  Scarcelli, D.  Chronaki, S.  De Vuyst, & S. Villanueva Baselga (Eds.), Gender and Sexuality in the European Media: Exploring Different Contexts Through Conceptualisations of Age. Routledge. Aslaug Veum, L. (2017). The Selfie as a Global Discourse. Discourse and Society, 29(1), 86–103. Attruia, F. (2021). L’autorité des jeunes influenceurs du Web dans le genre de l’« unboxing » : un cas d’étude français/italien. Argumentation et Analyse du Discours 26. https://doi.org/10.4000/aad.5118 Boromisza-Habashi, D., Hughes, J., & Malowski, J. (2016). Public Speaking as Cultural Ideal: Internationalizing the Public Speaking Curriculum. Journal of International and Cultural Communication, 9(1), 20–34. Bouillot, C. (2016). YouTube “Broadcast Yourself ”: Le début de la révolution vidéo sur Internet. 50Minutes.fr. Bucholtz, M. (2003). Sociolinguistic Nostalgia and the Authentication of Identity. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 7(3), 398–416. Burgess, J., & Green, J. (2009). YouTube: Online Video and Participatory Culture. Polity Press.

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Champy, J. (1995). Reengineering Management: The Mandate for New Leadership. Harper Business. Darics, E. (2016). Writing Online: A Guide to Effective Digital Communication at Work. Business Expert Press. Debord, G. (1967, 2002). The Society of the Spectacle. Georgia: Red and Black. Debray, R. (2004). Transmitting Culture. University of Columbia Press. Duchêne, A., & Heller, M. (Eds.). (2012). Language in Late Capitalism: Pride and Profit (Vol. 1). Routledge. Fairclough, N. (1993). Critical Discourse Analysis and the Marketisation of Public Discourse: The Universities. Discourse and Society, 4(2), 133–168. Fairclough, N. (1994). Conversationalisation of Public Discourse and the Authority of the Consumer. In R.  Keat, N.  Whitely, & N.  Abercrombie (Eds.), The Authority of the Consumer (pp. 235–249). Routledge. Fisher, R., Ury, W., & Patton, B. (2011). Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In. Penguin. Foucault, M. (2008). The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the Collège de France 1979–1979 (G. Burchill, Trans. & M. Senellart, Ed.). Palgrave Macmillan. Fuchs, C. (2014). Digital Labour and Karl Marx. Routledge. Gamson, J. (2011). The Unwatched Life Is Not Worth Living: The Elevation of the Ordinary in Celebrity Culture. PMLA, 126(4), 1061–1069. Gee, J. (2005). Semiotic Social Spaces and Affinity Spaces: From The Age of Mythology to Today’s Schools. In D.  Barton & K.  Tusting (Eds.), Beyond Communities of Practice: Language, Power and Social Context (pp. 214–232). Cambridge University Press. Gee, J., Hull, G., & Lankshear, C. (1996). The New Work Order: Behind the Culture of the New Capitalism. Routledge. Gunthert, A. (2015). The Consecration of the Selfie. Études Photographiques [Online], 32 | Printemps 2015, Online since 16 July, Connection on 14 January 2022. http://journals.openedition.org/etudesphotographiques/3537 Gurak, L. J., & Antonijevic, S. (2009). Digital Rhetoric and Public Discourse. In A. A. Lunsford, K. H. Wilson, & R. A. Eberly (Eds.), The SAGE Handbook of Rhetorical Studies (pp. 497–508). Sage. Heller, M. (2003). Globalization, the New Economy and the Commodification of Language and Identity. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 7(4), 473–492. Herring, S., Stein, D., & Virtanen, T. (2013). Introduction. In S.  Herring, D.  Stein, & T.  Virtanen (Eds.), Pragmatics of Computer-Mediated Communication. De Gruyter Mouton. Herring, S., & Androutsopoulos, J. (2015). Computer-mediated Discourse 2.0. In D.  Tannen, H.  Hamilton & D.  Schriffin (Eds.) The Handbook of Discourse Analysis, Volume II (pp. 127-151). John Wiley & Sons Inc.

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Holborow, M. (2015). Language and Neoliberalism. Routledge. Hower, K. (2018). The Construction of Authenticity in Corporate Social Media. Language@Internet, 15, article 3. urn:nbn:de:0009-­7-­47693 Jones, R. (2004). The Problem of Context in Computer Mediated Communication. In P. LeVine & R. Scollon (Eds.), Discourse and Technology: Multimodal Discourse Analysis (pp. 20–33). Georgetown University Press. Jones, R. (2020). Towards an Embodied Visual Semiotic. In C.  Thurlow, C.  Dürscheid, C. & F.  Diémoz (Eds.) Visualizing Digital Discourse: Interactional, Institutional and Ideological Perspectives. : De Gruyter Jones, R., & Hafner, C. (2021). Understanding Digital Literacies: A Practical Introduction. Routledge. Kelly, P. (2013). The Self as Enterprise: Foucault and the Spirit of 21st Century Capitalism. Routledge. Lange, P. (2008). Publicly Private and Privately Public: Social Networking on YouTube. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13, 361–380. Lanham, R. (1993). The Electronic Word: Democracy, Technology and the Arts. University of Chicago Press. McElhinny, B. (2012). Silicon Valley Sociolinguistics? Analyzing Language, Gender and Communities of Practice in the New Knowledge Economy. In A.  Duchêne & M.  Heller (Eds.), Language in Late Capitalism: Pride and Profit (Vol. 1, pp. 230–260). Routledge. McElhinny, B. (2016). A Heartfelt Approach: On and Beyond Neoliberalism. Ethos, 44(2), 186–191. Mirowski, P. (2013). Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste: How Neoliberalism Survived the Financial Crisis. Verso. Newberger Goldstein, R. (2014). Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won’t Go Away. Pantheon Books. Nissenbaum, H. (2004). Privacy as Contextual Integrity. Washington Law Review, 79(1), 101–158. O’Regan, J. (2021). Global English and Political Economy. Routledge. Pearson, E. (2009). All the World Wide Web’s a Stage: The Performance of Identity in Online Social Networks. First Monday, 14(3). https://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/download/2162/2127 Reichert, R. (2014). Evaluation and Self-evaluation on YouTube: Designing the Self in Make-up Tutorial. In C. Suhr (Ed.), Online Evaluation of Creativity and the Arts (pp. 95–111). Routledge. Riboni, G. (2020). Discourses of Authenticity on YouTube: From the Personal to the Professional. Edizioni Universitarie di Lettere Economia Diritto.

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Robinson, B. (2014). The Marriage of Religion and Technology: Reading Apple’s Allegorical Advertising https://secondnaturejournal.com/themarriage-of-­religion-and-technology-reading-apples-allegorical-advertising/ [accessed 14.10. 2021]. Rossette-Crake, F., & Buckwalter, E. (2022a). COVID-19, Communication, Culture and the Workplace: Multiple Spaces, Multiple Interfaces. In F. Rossette-Crake & E. Buckwalter (Eds.), COVID-19, Communication and Culture: Beyond the Global Workplace (pp. 3–17). Routledge. Rossette-Crake, F., & Buckwalter, E. (2022b). Concluding Virtual Round-Table Discussion: COVID-19, Communication, Culture and Work Practice. In F. Rossette-Crake & E. Buckwalter (Eds.), COVID-19, Communication and Culture: Beyond the Global Workplace (pp. 237–247). Routledge. Serres, M. (2015). Thumbelina, The Culture and Technology of Millenials (D. W. Smith, Trans.). Rowman & Littlefield. Shirky, C. (2008). Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organization without Organizations. Penguin. Sundo, J., & Darmer, P. (2008). Introduction to Experience Creation. In J. Sundo & P. Darmer (Eds.), Creating Experiences in the Experience Economy (pp. 1–12). Edward Elgar. Sundo, J., & Hegedorn-Rasmussen, P. (2008). The Backstaging of Experience Production. In J.  Sundo & P.  Darmer (Eds.), Creating Experiences in the Experience Economy (pp. 83–109). Edward Elgar. Taylor, C. (1992). The Ethics of Authenticity. Harvard University Press. Turkle, S. (1995). Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet. The University of Michigan Press. Turkle, S. (2012, April 21). The Flight From Conversation. The New York Times. Turkle, S. (2013, December 15). The Documented Life. The New York Times. www.nytimes.com/2013/12/16/opinion/the-­documented-­life.html Uhl, M. (2014). La mise en scène du conférencier comme acte performatif : des conférences-performances artistiques aux TED Talks. In M.  Quidu (Ed.), Epistémologie du corps savant, Tome II : La recherche scientifique comme expérience corporelle (pp. 251–270). L’Harmattan. van Leeuwen, T. (2001). What Is Authenticity? Discourse Studies, 3(4), 392–397. Virilio, P. (2000). The Information Bomb. Verso. Weintraub, J., & Kumar, K. (1997). The Theory and Politics of the Public/ Private Distinction. In J. Weintraub & K. Kumar (Eds.), Public and Private in Thought and Practice (pp. 1–42). University of Chicago Press. Welch, K. (1999). Electric Rhetoric: Classical Rhetoric, Oralism, and a New Literacy. MIT Press.

8 Ethos, or the Discursive Enactment of the Presentation of the Self

8.1 The Weight of Discursive Ethos—And “Interdiscursive Ethos” Ethos is concerned with speaker credibility and the trust that the audience subsequently places in the speaker. Defined as persuasion by “moral character,” by a speaker who delivers “in such a manner as to render him worthy of confidence” (Aristotle, Rh. 1355b), ethos had already been earmarked by Aristotle as “the most effective means of proof ” (ibid.). But when it comes to digital oratory, ethos has taken on an even more central role, both as argument based on an appeal to the specific character and personality of the speaker, but also more generally, in the broad sense of embodied rhetoric—that is, rhetoric underscored by the adoption of a personal voice, which goes hand in hand with a staging of the person of the speaker. Questions of ethos and authority constitute a growing area of scholarship in relation to social media, notably online video (e.g. Martins Flores & Muniz de Medeiros, 2018; Riboni, 2020; Vicari, 2021). Within the field of digital rhetoric, there is a general consensus in regard to the ever more central role of ethos. For Gurak and Antonijevic (2009, p. 501),

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 F. Rossette-Crake, Digital Oratory as Discursive Practice, Postdisciplinary Studies in Discourse, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18984-5_8

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“for the majority of online information—everyday information—ethos is simply the most powerful and important of the classical appeals, the one that holds up best and is most explanatory of the bulk of digital rhetoric.” According to the digital model of horizontal transmission of knowledge, the digital rhetor contrasts with the traditional rhetor who construed argument according to the “topics” that inform logos. Instead, the digital rhetor places less focus on the appeal to reason, and more on pathos and ethos—particularly ethos. The digital rhetor adopts the role of a shaman-­ like mediator (Morey, 2016—quoted in Chap. 3), whose persuasive force is more intuitive and spiritual, and depends on the very person of the speaker. As will be discussed further below, digital oratory—like digital rhetoric more generally—sidelines “pre-discursive” ethos, which is achieved by the social and professional status of the orator and the reputation that precedes him/her, and increases the weight placed on “discursive” ethos, which is construed within the discourse itself. Discursive ethos is summed up in the words of Aristotle, who notes that “[t]he orator persuades by moral character when his speech is delivered in such a manner as to render him worthy of confidence” (Aristotle, Rh. 1355b). Such concerns are highlighted in contemporary public speaking pedagogy. For instance, Lucas (2015, pp. 334–6) writes that speakers are instructed to establish confidence in several ways: by displaying competence on the topic, by making a connection with the audience, and by speaking “with conviction.” At the same time, (discursive) ethos has also been understood as something far more innate, associated with the more general “effect” of the discourse (“But this confidence must be due to the speech itself, not to any preconceived idea of the speaker’s character” (Aristotle, Rh. 1355b))— an aspect partially sidelined by public speaking manuals but invested by discourse analysis, for which a rough parallel can be established with Goffman’s concept of “speaking personality” (Goffman, 1981, p. 199). Ethos hence appears as a reflexive process, which can be brought into sharp focus by an enunciative pragmatics approach (Angermuller, 2014): it is the “self-image that the orator discursively constructs to increase the effectiveness of the speech act” (Amossy, 2014, p. 82)1—a self-image that  My translation, as are the other quotes made in this article taken from works published in French.

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is “staged” (“mise en scène”) via a number of discursive tools, notably that of language. Within a systemic functional framework, Fairclough (1993) integrates it into his textual analysis, where it is located within the interpersonal meta-function and plays a role in the construction of social identity. The issue of social identity is also taken up by Maingueneau (2002), for whom ethos is “a way of saying that reflects a way of being” (Maingueneau, 1999, p. 80) and is “displayed” rather than “expressed” (ibid. p. 77). This author underlines the link between ethos, identity, and discursive genre, whereby the speaker’s legitimacy derives from the conformity to both a “generic ethos” (i.e. to the expected ethos within a particular genre), as well as the values shared by the discursive community at the level of the enclosing scene to which the genre is attached (cf. Chap. 6). Ethos is therefore dependent on the materiality of the delivery (actio)—which, in the context of digital oratory, extends to being techno-­ savvy—and includes the way speakers appear truly engaged and thus embody their discourse (cf. Chap. 4). Much digital oratory—be it that of the generation of the New Oratory, or that of social media—provides a voice for previously unknown speakers, who therefore benefit from little pre-discursive ethos, and depend wholly on the credibility that they are able to build up within their speeches. In this, they share some of the features of the emblematic YouTube beauty vlogger, who does not so much provide a representation of the self but instead engages in a dynamic process of self-construal on screen—“visually constructing the self while on camera” (Riboni, 2020, p. 115). This (new) division of labour between pre-discursive and discursive ethos is again set against the backdrop of horizontality, where “[t]he authority of the central actors is no longer automatic, acquired and non-­ negotiable, but needs to be obtained in an open, disrespectful and noisy world” (Cardon, 2010, p.  218). It also follows the logic of the digital economy, where reputation is all-important but is constantly challenged; where identity, particularly on social networks, is “not static” and “must be constantly updated” (Jones & Hafner, 2021, p. 215)—all of which puts pre-discursive ethos to the test. Perhaps the most striking tools used by (embodied) digitalised speech, in order to discursively construct self-­ image and increase the effectiveness of the speech, are dress code and setting—which are indeed far from static. A prime example of this is

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Volodymyr Zelensky’s iconic khaki-coloured t-shirt worn for all his online addresses during the Ukraine war. This t-shirt, which replaced the dark suit and tie he had worn up until then since his election as president, (re)construed his ethos as a national leader closely connected to the soldiers and to the people. Another example is provided in a completely different context by Charli D’Amelio’s video post on TikTok, in which she appears casually dressed and without makeup, in contrast to most of her posts. Similarly, in terms of setting, when Michelle Obama speaks on her Instagram account, she is regularly portrayed sitting in a private setting, reconstruing her ethos as speaker who no longer coincides with the function of First Lady. Importantly, however, in some of these examples, it is also via repetition that a certain type of speaking persona is construed. For instance, it is the fact that Volodymyr Zelensky repeatedly wears the khaki t-shirt that it takes on significance, and transforms his speaking persona—just like the regularity with which Michelle Obama is filmed in a private setting. These effects of repetition create intertextual links across several instances of discourse. To highlight their specificity, the concept of “interdiscursive ethos” can be introduced. The concept of interdiscursive ethos can also be applied to the interplay between other types of discursive units, particularly those specific to social media platforms, such as comments, likes, and so on. These all prove necessary and contribute to a person’s reputation and following on social media, fulfilling to some extent the function assumed elsewhere by pre-discursive ethos. An orator’s credibility on social media depends on his/her ability to found a community, on the basis of visible signs of endorsement by other users— an “authority of the many,” based on an “incessant negotiation within the social space where the relations of power and domination between the members of this community take shape” (Attruia, 2021, pp. §6; §39). And as creators of social media content vie for followers, their adhesion depends not just on visible signs of approval (likes, comments, number of followers), but also on the way the content responds to the requirements of the sophisticated algorithms imposed by the platforms—a type of “algorithmic address” (Gibbons, 2021), a factor which has implications

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for interdiscursive ethos.2 In the case of influencers, once they have built up an interdiscursive ethos and have established a reputation, the ethos of each piece of content that they post results from the complex interplay between the discursive ethos developed within the specific post, and this interdiscursive ethos that precedes the post (but remains interdiscursive, rather then pre-discursive, because it depends directly on the communication practice carried out on the social media platform). To a certain extent, the notion of interdiscursive ethos helps to resolve the ambivalence that was highlighted in the previous chapter and which is attached to the enactment of authenticity on social media: a sense of the “ordinary” is construed via the discursive ethos, while originality and a sense of the extraordinary are construed thanks to the exceptional following that informs the interdiscursive ethos.

8.2 The Generic Ethos of the Digital Speaker In regard to discursive ethos, a number of components form the basis of what can be regarded as the generic ethos that has been forged by the digital speaker. Generic ethos can be modelled according to three interdependent dimensions (Maingueneau, 2014, §5) which relate respectively to: (1) extra-discursive categories (e.g. “father,” “doctor,” “American,” etc.) and discursive roles (e.g. television presenter, preacher); (2) pragmatic categories based on stereotypical socio-psychological traits (e.g. the slow pace of the country-dweller versus the fast pace of the city-dweller); and (3) ideology (e.g. “feminist,” “left-wing,” “neoliberal”). If the extra-­ discursive categories of speakers are subject to variation, a very general discursive role can be identified in that of the digital speaker, who performs for a remote, online audience (and sometimes, depending on the setup, at the same time for a F-F audience). This general role can combine with a more specific one, such as competitor within a competition, TED speaker, influencer addressing fans, and so on. In addition, the speaker ethos conforms to a number of norms within Anglo-American communication culture (cf. Chap. 6). As such, it reflects  For instance, constantly changing algorithms are a particularly notorious aspect of Instagram.

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socio-­psychological traits within the pragmatic dimension which are themselves informed by the extra-discursive category of “AngloAmerican.” Another influence in terms of an extra-discursive category is the figure of the entrepreneur, particularly the high-tech or start-up entrepreneur, whose influence now extends well beyond the business sector per se. And in turn, this category takes its cue from the ideological dimension, in cases where the discourse reflects, more or less directly, neoliberal values. In keeping with both Anglo-American communication culture, and the current pervading neoliberal context where the creed is one of “radical individualism” (Holborow, 2015), the ethos of the digital speaker is first and foremost personal. This personal voice combines with other components, such as a responsible, quasi moral stand, together with informality and friendliness, which can include humour. Digital oratory calls upon speakers to speak in their own name. In many speeches, focus is placed on the person of the speaker as of the very first utterance. For instance, in his keynote, Steve Jobs begins his iconic presentation of the first iPhone with a reference to himself: This is a day I’ve been looking forward to for two-and-a-half years. Every once in a while, a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything.3

Reflexive reference as an opening ritual may well be part of the conventions of the keynote genre, if that delivered by Jobs’ successor is anything to go by. In 2012, Phil Schiller begins his presentation of the latest model of the iPhone by sharing a personal impression, albeit succinctly (“It’s really neat …”): Good morning. It’s really neat to stand here and see all the Apple logos falling from the computer screens facing me. We’re here to talk about the iPhone.4

 Apple keynote, 9 January 2007.  Apple keynote, 2 September 2012.

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These openings can be compared to those encountered in social media oratory. The first utterances of Michelle Obama’s Instagram post (cf. Chap. 1) contains 3 instances of the first-person singular pronoun (“I”), which combines each time with a mental process (want,” “care,” “hope”): Hello everyone. I want to talk about an issue that I care deeply about. And I hope you do too. And that’s girls’ education around the world.

And similarly, Charli d’Amelio’s TikTok post (cf. Chap. 1) begins with how she views her personal (and rather ambitious) vocation: As a person who has been given the platform to be an influencer, I’ve realised that with that title, I have a job to inform people of the racial inequalities in the world right now.

Personal reference is also developed within the body of speeches, as part of their argument structure. This recurrent argument type is discussed in more detail in the following section. Already, we can observe how it proves a key strand in the thread of argument, as attested by one example of a 3MT presentation. In this particular instance, the winning presentation of the 2018 Asia Pacific 3MT finals, the speaker, who dedicated her PhD to researching a solution for a disease transmitted by mosquitoes, dengue, talks about herself, referring to how she was a victim of the disease, and giving details of her own experience: I was a victim of dengue myself—horrible experience—I had a high fever for three days, and the doctors, like the mosquitoes, took my blood again and again. And it was not until the fourth day that they could finally confirm I had the infection, and start proper treatment, but by then, I was even too weak to drink on my own, and had to be put on drips for a whole week. I felt helpless and afraid, but the worst part was having to witness other victims in my ward succumb to dengue, just because they were not treated in time. I was lucky to survive, and I felt that nobody should die from something as trivial as a mosquito bite, right? And so, I dedicated the next few years of my life to find a solution.5  Transcribed from the video available at: https://vimeo.com/292832662 [accessed 10 June 2019].

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The speaker uses subjective language (“horrible”), relates her feelings (“I felt helpless and afraid”), explains how she was a first-hand witness to victims who did not survive, and cites her personal reaction to this as the initial key motivation for her research. Moreover, the speech contains 11 instances of “I” in subject position. Eight of these appear in this passage, where “I” appears seven times as subject to a mental process, before then featuring at the end of this excerpt as subject to a material process (“dedicate”). In the ensuing examples within the second half of the speech, the speaker highlights her role as agent of the research process (e.g. “I developed …,” “I immobilised …,” “I transmit …”). These material processes stage the speaker as a subject who seizes opportunities and takes initiatives, in keeping with some of the connotations attached to the term “entrepreneur” (cf. “go-getter,” “mover and shaker” (Holborow, 2015, p. 74)). Discursive ethos that is personal—and subjective—is indicative of the “synthetic personalisation” that Fairclough (1993) ascribes to technologised discourse practices that are typical of late capitalist society. The subjectivity that is construed via reference not only to personal opinion but also (and this point will also be addressed more specifically below) to feelings and emotions, informs a sense of sincerity and authenticity which serve to guarantee the high level of commitment that is expected of today’s speakers. Again, late capitalist ideology can be identified in the inscription of another attribute of the entrepreneur, who is “the benign improver of society and the kind of person we could all aspire to being” (Holborow, 2015, p.  74), and who, by taking initiatives, is a change-­ maker, where change is oriented positively. This is made explicit by the way the speaker appears committed to an elevated, noble cause—a cause which is, moreover, underscored by a system of beliefs. For instance, the above-quoted 3MT presentation ends by underlining the contribution made by the PhD research to public health—and, by extension, to society at large (“This technology is a huge step forward in the future of dengue diagnostics”). Together with markers of degree indicating intensity (cf. “a huge step forward”), the impact of the speaker’s actions, either individually or collectively, also falls under the scope of what can be qualified as “upscaling.” For instance, when D’Amelio addresses “racial inequalities in the world right now,” this not only reflects

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her stand—common to many influencers—whereby she sees herself as an initiator of positive change,6 but also “upscales” her discourse and places it at a global level. Similarly, in a corporate keynote, Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, makes reference to changing the world: [W]e created Everyone Can Code, with free teaching and learning resources so that everyone can learn to code. It’s been so successful it’s now available to tens of millions of students around the world. Just imagine what this new generation of coders will create. Whatever it is, I’m sure that it’s going to change the world.7 (My emphasis)

A common credo of corporate keynotes, like many instances of corporate discourse, is that of “making the world a better place.” This has developed at the macro-discursive level into the prominent body of social responsibility discourses, which correspond to a focus of corporate discourse scholarship. A moral or ethical stand is intimated by reference to a belief system and its underpinning set of values, as construed, for instance, by the very frequent collocation “we believe.” In the corporate context, the collocation is particularly prevalent in investor pitches. For example, it appears twice in a winning investor pitch delivered at a MIT Start-up weekend in 2010: We’ve built a web-based work platform that organises work across people and across organisations, because we believe that is where work is heading. We also believe that each organisation has a unique way of doing things, so we’ve just built the platform on which you build the functionality and the applications.8

 As noted by one stakeholder, Social network director for North America at Grey Advertising Agency, Kenny Gold, “[s]he [d’Amelio] could so easily just cash in, do stuff ad hoc and charge per post. But she wants to influence societal change” (quoted in: T. M. Andrews, “Charli D’Amelio is TikTok’s biggest star. She has no idea why,” May 26, 2020, The Washington Post). 7  Tim Cook, CNBC Keynote, June 4, 2018. Transcribed from video https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=1-G1M-EassA [accessed 3 March 2019]. 8  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBNJh2rOOlI [accessed 10.06.2019]. 6

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Outside the corporate context, the same collocation appears in social media oratory, such as Michelle Obama’s post on Instagram: We believe that the millions of girls around the world who aren’t in school today can make a profound difference for their families, their communities, and our entire world.

These last two examples present a speaker who is invested with a moral mission, and who arguably embodies the American work ethic, whereby business ventures claim to be not only motivated by profit but also by high moral stakes in the community they serve (D’Iribarne, 2019). In addition, adherence to a belief system is not only part of fast capitalism’s “stress on vision” (Gee et al., 1996, p. 32), but can also be linked to the empowerment of workers and the construal of an “enchanted workplace” that typify the new work order (ibid.). Like the entrepreneur, who is “the kind of person we could all aspire to being” (Holborow, 2015, cited above), the digital speaker is the “kind of person” who is not only a good person in the ethical sense but who is also likeable and friendly. 3MT contestants are given the following advice: “[i]magine that you are explaining your research to a close friend or fellow student from another field” (my emphasis).9 Friendliness translates, for instance, in terms of approachability, as gauged by resources that realise informality, at both the multimodal level (e.g. in terms of dress code; for instance, it is recommended that TED speakers “dress down”: “[a]t TED, we like reasonably casual clothes, giving the sense that we’re all on a retreat together” (Anderson, 2016, p.  179) (and, moreover, ties are banned)), and within the discourse itself. Again, mirroring the demands of the new work order, which promotes the types of work which require “a pleasant demeanour” (Gee et al., 1996, p. 47), the digital speaker projects a likeable character. S/he smiles at the audience. This is reflected in choices made during filming (e.g. TED talks recommend the eye-level shot in order to construe the speaker “as your best friend” (cf. Chap. 3)). In addition, the digital speaker may well play on humour. Humour is construed by multimodal means, for instance, during the slideshow, such  https://threeminutethesis.uq.edu.au/resources/3mt-competitor-guide

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as the slideshow that accompanies the launch of the first iPhone quoted in Chap. 5, where a phone dial from 30 years ago appears on an edited photograph of an iPod. More often, humour is construed within the discourse. In the TED talk delivered by transgender woman Paula Stone Williams, humour is used to provide multiple moments of light relief within the discussion about her change in gender. (Interestingly, transcriptions of TED talks that appear next to the YouTube video include, between parentheses, indications of the reactions by the F-F audience, including laughter, which is thus clearly deemed to fulfil an important function): I have the unique experience of having lived life on both sides—(Laughter) and I'm here to tell you: the differences are massive. (Laughter) (Applause) So, I’ll start with the small stuff—like the pockets on women’s jeans. (Laughter) What! (Cheers) (Applause) (Laughter) I can’t put a phone in there. (Laughter) Paper clip, maybe. (Laughter)10

Jokes—and self-deprecation—which are both characteristic of Anglo-­ American public speaking culture (cf. Chap. 6), are showcased in the opening sequence of one of the most-watched TED talks, Ken Robinson’s talk on education: I have an interest in education. Actually, what I find is, everybody has an interest in education. Don’t you? I find this very interesting. If you’re at a dinner party, and you say you work in education—actually, you’re not often at dinner parties, frankly. (Laughter) If you work in education, you’re not asked. (Laughter) And you’re never asked back, curiously. That’s strange to me. But if you are, and you say to somebody, you know, they say, “What do you do?” and you say you work in education, you can see the blood run from their face. They’re like, “Oh my God. Why me?” (Laughter)11

In these examples, humour is used to create complicity, and construe an affable speaker ethos. It is also in keeping with the horizontal relation that  https://www.ted.com/talks/paula_stone_williams_i_ve_lived_as_a_man_and_as_a_woman_ here_s_what_i_ve_learned/transcript?language=en 11  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY 10

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is fostered by the digital speaker who, in order to address, for instance, a non-specialist audience, will not take up an authoritative stance, will downplay his/her status as specialist, and/or foster the “amateur” stance that is one component of the authenticity of the speaker on social media. Importantly, the same discursive ethos informs speeches delivered by speakers who do not originate from the Anglo-American cultural zone, whether they are speaking in English, or the local language that is their mother tongue. This is illustrated, for instance, by the speaker of the 3MT presentation quoted above, who is Malaysian (even if English is one of the official languages of Malaysia, and is most likely the speaker’s working language in academia). Let us consider the following short extract from a speech given to an audience of business and political leaders in Germany by Jack Ma, the Chinese businessman who founded Alibaba, the Chinese sales platform: We are at a great time of innovation, inspiration, invention and creativity. And I think everybody is working hard, trying to realise their dreams. […] And I strongly believe it’s not the technology that changes the world, it is the dreams behind the technology that changes the world. (Jack Ma, Pasifika Haina bridge conference, Germany, 2015)12

Here, the speaker speaks in his name, and the singular first-person pronoun appears in conjunction with mental processes (“I think”), including the verb “believe” (“I strongly believe”), intimating the ethical stance of a positive change-maker, at a global scale (“changes the world”). Alternatively, a personal, friendly, and often humorous ethos is fostered in digital speech formats delivered by native speakers of French. The following investor pitch (delivered directly in English), begins with the speaker giving his name and referring to aspects of his early life, which serve to introduce the commercial need to which his business provides a solution, and which he has seen first-hand: Hi, I am Julien Cote, the CEO of Wakeo. I grew up in the port environment, and I have seen how disorganised B2B supply chains are. That’s why  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfchqY5eiJE

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we decided to bring technology into this high potential market. We created Wakeo, a SaaS platform to bring real-time visibility over B2B transport flows, by sea, air, and road.13

Similarly, the speaker of the following example of a 3MT presentation, who won first place at national level and participated at the French-­ speaking world championships in 2021, includes self-references and uses humour, as well as an extremely (some might say excessively) embodied delivery style, as he physically acts out aspects of his presentation in a theatrical and comical way, smiling all the way through it. In fact, Paul Dequidt opens his presentation by referring directly to humour: he makes reference to his love of making jokes, and contrasts it with the serious nature of his topic of research, brain tumours. He succeeds in introducing this topic in a relatively light way, thanks in particular to his comical facial expressions. These can be considered somewhat ironic as they contrast with the ideational content, of which the solemnity is underlined by dramatic pauses: I have a problem. I love making jokes. But my thesis subject is not funny. If I try to present it on a ranking of different degrees of fun, this is the international final [hand indicates a high level], it’s really cool. Well, I’m working on brain tumors [hand indicates a lower level + pause], that affect children [hand indicates a lower level + pause], and young people, sometimes my age. And in the end they will die [hand indicates a lower level + pause], and the worst thing is that they don’t know it, because they are often not diagnosed in time. (Translation of the original French text)14

Here, the speaker ethos is underscored by self-reference, self-­deprecation, informality (the speaker wears black jeans and a t-shirt) and a particularly  Wakeo Pitch, Techstars Paris 201, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDLXeczhjBw  Original text in French: “J’ai un problem. J’adore faire des blagues. Mais mon sujet de thèse, il n’est pas drôle. Si je vous fais un axe du fun, là c’est la finale internationale, c’est trop bien. Et bien, moi je travaille sur des tumeurs célébrales [hand indicates a high lever], qui touchent des enfants [hand indicates a high lever], et des jeunes, parfois de mon âge. Et à la fin ils vont mourir [hand indicates a high lever], et le pire, c’est qu’ils ne le savent pas, parce que, souvent, ils ne sont pas diagnostiqués à temps. » Paul Dequidt, “Analyse de données RMN multimodales par intelligence artificielle pour la discrimination binaire du grade du glioma.” International MT180 2021, https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=Ch4zt_XXXDU 13 14

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embodied delivery (facilitated by the head microphone). The speaker comes across as extremely likeable, and relatable, and complicity is created with the audience. In addition, and similar to the example of the 3MT presentation quoted above, the speaker goes on to outline the work of his thesis by highlighting his role as agent of a number of material processes (in italics): My research started by going to observe radiologists. I showed them images, from all over France, and examined the shape, the texture and the contrast. I took these criteria and translated them into computer language to create my algorithm, which is now able to predict the patient’s condition.15

The parallels between this 3MT presentation delivered in French, and that pronounced in English by the Malaysian academic, point to how close they are in format, despite differences in language and cultural origin of the speaker, and attest to the standardisation that is typical of (global) digital speaking formats. Moreover, the examples that involve native speakers of French are particularly insightful in light of the small place that public speaking and the adoption in the spoken medium of a personal voice have traditionally held in French culture (cf. Chap. 6). They therefore highlight not only the way public speaking has permeated cultures in which, previously, it did not correspond to a widespread social activity, but also the relative degree of uniformity of both the formatting and the discursive ethos of the digital speaker, whatever the culture.

8.3 Argument by Personal Example, and Storytelling The adoption of a personal voice is often instantiated at the macro level of the text via argument by example based on the speaker’s experience. Unlike the fragmented utterances that proliferate in the digital realm,  Original text in French: “Mon travail de thèse a commencé en allant observer les radiologues. Je leur ai montré des images, un peu partout en France, et j’ai regardé la forme, la texture, le contraste. J’ai pris ces critères et je les ai traduits en langage informatique pour créer mon algorithme, qui est maintenant capable de prédire l’état du patient.” 15

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some types of digital oratory, particularly the New Oratory formats, provide an increasingly rare opportunity for speakers to develop their ideas, albeit within a constrained format and timeframe, over full-length, synoptic texts. Argumentation by example is prolific in oratory, as is the case in so much contemporary rhetoric (Arthos, 2003). And, compared to the other types of argument by example identified by Perelman and OlbrechtsTyteca (1969, pp. 471–495) (e.g. example based on an event, or example based on a previously existing rule), it is indeed examples that are based on an individual experience—and namely those involving the person of the speaker—that provide the backbone to much digital oratory. Argument by example based on the personal experience of the speaker is illustrated by the afore-quoted 3MT presentation about dengue disease. The speaker’s personal experience serves to exemplify the quantitative argument that immediately precedes it (“In a year, 390 million people fall victim to dengue. That’s like 16 times the population of Australia today. And 70% of deaths caused by the virus are due to one reason: a delay in detection. I was a victim of dengue myself […]”). The movement is general-to-specific, where “general” coincides with quantitative argument (and exhaustiveness) and “specific” coincides with the personal example, as part of a discursive pattern that can be represented thus: < general [quantitative + exhaustive] >> specific [personal] >

Even if this presentation is given by an academic, it in no way resembles a university lecture: not only does it not reproduce the distant, impersonal voice that traditionally characterises PhD writing and the wider body of academic discourse, but it also does not replicate the general practice of scientific rhetoric which aims at exhaustiveness by quoting a high number of examples (Corbett, 1990, p. 69); instead, it prefers “use of the rhetorical example” (ibid.). A similar < general > specific [personal] > pattern underscores the TED talk by urban landscape architect Kotchakorn Voraakhom (cf. Chap. 1). The speaker’s personal experience of climate change is set against the backdrop of the general scenario of climate change with which the speech opens: the home city of the speaker (in which she also grew up) appears at the end of a list of cities affected by climate change (“At this very moment, with every breath we take, major delta cities across the globe are

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sinking, including New York, London, Tokyo, Shanghai, New Orleans, and as well as my city, Bangkok […]”). Soon after, she links her vocation as a landscape architect to a childhood experience (cf. extract quoted in Chap. 1: “There is no coincidence that I am here as a landscape architect. As a child, I grew up in a row house next to the busy road always filled with traffic […]”), which prefigures the argument based on example (around minute 5 of the speech), whereby she goes into detail about a flood; she presents the flood as decisive in confirming her vocation (“But in the heart of this disaster, I found my calling. I cannot just sit and wait as my city continues to sink. The city needed me, and I had the ability to fix this problem”). The same general-to-specific movement is illustrated in a final example that will be quoted here, a TED talk titled “How do I deal with a bully without becoming a thug?” The speaker opens by referring to the issue of violence that she poses in general terms, listing various contexts in which it can appear: In half a century of trying to help prevent wars, there’s one question that never leaves me: how do we deal with extreme violence without using force in return? When you’re faced with brutality, whether it’s a child facing a bully in the playground, or domestic violence, or on the streets of Syria today facing tanks and shrapnel, what’s the most effective thing to do? Fight back? Give in? Use more force?16

The speaker then immediately goes on to refer to a personal childhood experience, an argument by example specifically pertaining to the context of the Cold War, which, similar to the example developed in the previous talk, is presented as having triggered the future vocation of the speaker: This question, “How do I deal with a bully without becoming a thug in return?”, has been with me ever since I was a child. I remember I was about thirteen, glued to a grainy, black and white television in my parents’ living room, as soviet tanks rolled into Budapest. And kids not much older than me were throwing themselves at the tanks and getting mown down. And I rushed upstairs and started packing my suitcase, and my mother came up  Scilla Elworthy, TEDx Exeter, August 5, 2012 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mk3K_ Vrve-E 16

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and said, “What on earth are you doing?” […] And so, I got some training, and went and worked in Africa during most of my twenties.

Alternatively, argument by personal example can be part of a pattern that moves in the opposite direction, that is, < specific [personal] > general >. This is illustrated in another TED talk which, if it is about science, does not begin with anything scientific. Instead, it starts with a personal anecdote, and with an experience to which the audience can easily relate—that of riding a bicycle—and with the question “is there anyone here who learned to ride a bicycle as an adult?” This question is immediately followed up by the story of the speaker’s neighbour, whom the speaker had observed trying to learn to ride a bike (“I have a neighbour uh who’s in the same predicament. […] She bought a bicycle, and I watched for a summer. I went to work, but when I was home I watched her […]”). The speaker gives a vivid, detailed account of the neighbour’s story, which, finally (at minute 4 of an 18-minute speech), leads to the general question he tackles in his work as a neurobiologist: And in the question I’d like you to think about is what’s the difference between my brain and the brain of this woman, who, as far as I can tell, is perfectly normal except she can’t ride a bicycle. Neurobiologists think about questions like this.17

Significantly, the build-up to this question takes up four minutes of an 18-minute speech. Most TED talks begin with speakers talking about themselves—even indirectly, as this neurobiologist does, by relating something that he had witnessed first-hand—before moving to the issue of general interest. In all the extracts quoted here, the personal example works to justify a thesis or an action. In some cases, it constitutes the main thread of argument that is picked up again and again throughout the talk, serving not only as a form of legitimisation in terms of ethical appeal, but also as the cornerstone to its argument structure. This is the case of the talk by Kotchakorn Voraakhom, who evokes a specific project that she worked on in order to transform her home city of Bangkok. She  Jeff Lichtman, “Connectomics,” TEDxCaltech, Pasadena, California, 2013. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F37kuXObIBU 17

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ends her speech with a moment of self-reflexion, combining personal ethos with the appeal to the emotions (cf. “my heart”) that underscores pathos: And yes, Thailand is home. This land is my only home, and that's where I firmly stand my heart.

Argument by personal example is particularly exploited in TED talks. In this context, it is referred to more commonly as “personal storytelling.” According to one commentator in the media, “[w]hat sets TED Talks apart is that the big ideas are wrapped up in personal stories and they’re mostly from people you have never heard of before.”18 According to one communication guide, personal storytelling is a key factor of a talk’s success.19 Similarly, the organisers of 3MT competitions recommend that competitors “tell a story” (“Present your 3MT as a narrative, with a beginning, a middle and end”).20 The notion of storytelling has become a tool for contemporary marketing, where it is compared to a “machine to make stories,” which tends to confuse testimonials and fiction, and “replaces true narrative by a simple exchange of anecdotes” (Salmon, 2007). If English-language oratory, particularly in the American context, boasts a strong tradition of “storytelling,”21 such storytelling now typically involves the person of the speaker—even in the sectors (and the corresponding enclosing scenes) where this would not necessarily be expected. Anne Perkins, political commentator for The Guardian, identifies personal testimonials, together with “being passionate and sincere,” as the “new Gettysburg” or modern-day benchmark for political speeches. Discussing the parliamentary speeches by British MPs that have gone viral on the Internet, she notes that “each time, the subject was something they [the speakers] knew at first-hand—they were talking about their constituents and the enormity of Westminster’s failure to understand and respond to  C.  Rose, April 19, 2015, 60  Minutes, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ted-talks-60-minutescharlie-rose/ 19  According to Gallo (2016), 65% of TED talks that go viral contain personal stories. 20  https://threeminutethesis.uq.edu.au/resources/3mt-competitor-guide 21  For instance, storytelling in American political rhetoric is said to hark back to the influence of the narratives of black slaves (Benoit à la Guillaume, 2012, p. 159). 18

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their needs” (my emphasis).22 Interestingly, this comment underlines the way the demands imposed by the digital medium (cf. the need to “go viral”) is influencing more traditional forms of oratory (for instance, oratory spoken from a podium, and/or involving a F-F audience). A new meaning has developed for the term “story” in the context of social media. Together with that of “sharing” (cf. Chap. 6), “story” is an iconic term of digital communication that is used to describe a “pervasive genre that people use to make sense of themselves and the surrounding world” (Page, 2018, p. 1). As noted in the previous chapter, “story” corresponds to a specific type of social media video content which is ephemeral (cf. a very short video that can only be viewed once, and disappears from the platform after 24 hours). Importantly, it involves content that is based on video rather than text. In her discursive analysis of various forms of “shared stories” which extend outside this video function, Page (2018, p. 9) refers to “atypical forms of narrative” which, moreover, cannot be analysed according to the frameworks of narrative scholarship (e.g. since Labov (1972)—see an overview in Juzwik (2012)). For Jones and Hafner (2021, p. 216), the ephemeral stories that are disseminated via the video function “encourage users to see their lives not in terms of one long coherent narrative, but rather as a series of episodes, each day presenting a new opportunity for them to be a character in a new story.” These stories conform to the general trend foreseen, for instance, by French philosopher Jean-François Lyotard (1979), who announced the end of “grand narratives,” and who, moreover, professed a preference for the plurality of small narratives—that is, those which are replacing the “totalitarianism” of the former grand narratives.23 Again, storytelling can be linked to the horizontal model promoted by current digital culture, and the fragmented nature of the new narratives to the new capitalist mindset, and more specifically to new-capitalist project management, whereby both professional and personal lives “turn out to be a portfolio of projects

 A. Perkins, “The secret to Jess Phillip’s great political speech? Wit and authenticity,” Feb. 1, 2019, The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/feb/01/jess-phillips-speechlabour-mp 23  Political considerations are also present in the analysis of storytelling provided by Goffman (1981, p. 152), who observes that “there is a democracy implied in narration.” 22

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[…], not one linear progression along a single line” (Gee et  al., 1996, p. 34). It is therefore not surprising that argument by personal example—or what is referred to outside traditional rhetorical categories as personal storytelling—has been taken to new extremes by social media oratory. Two examples of videos posted by British YouTubers provide insights into the phenomenon. The first, a video posted by YouTuber Jack Harries titled “Let’s talk about mental health,” exhibits the same movement < specific [personal] > general > that was identified in the previously quoted TED talk. The speaker begins with the following words: The other day, my friend confided in me. She said that she’d been feeling depressed, and, worse than that, she’d been feeling incredibly alone in her situation. This struck a chord with me because not too long ago I too was feeling depressed, and I too was feeling incredibly alone and somewhat ashamed of my feelings. So I started to ask a few friends about whether or not they’d already experienced depression, or any other symptoms related to mental health. […] Mental illness is a thing. It exists. In fact, one in four people will experience a mental illness in their lifetime.24

Despite the concision of the format (the video is just over three minutes in length), the content is synoptic (there is a beginning-middle-end-type narrative structure—e.g. “the other day” and a series of past-tense processes), and serves a tight argumentation structure, that typical of “vignette oratory” (cf. Chap. 7). The speaker starts by referring to the example of a friend who “confides” in him. This moves him emotionally (cf. “This struck a chord with me”), and provides a point of entry into his own personal example: he says he shares similar feelings, which he makes explicit (“depressed,” “incredibly alone,” “ashamed”). The personal example of the speaker serves to introduce an issue—mental illness—that is shared by many (“one in four people will experience a mental illness in their lifetime”). A video posted during the pandemic by British YouTuber Immy Lucas also begins with the speaker sharing her personal feelings and experience,  Jack Harries: “Let’s talk about mental health” posted January 25, 2015; 1,691,144 views by May 7, 2022, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkZiBnL0h7Y 24

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this time with respect to the ongoing lockdown. The speaker admits to feeling “like actual rubbish” and “terrible,” before turning to her audience to express empathy towards them (“I hope you guys are OK, I fully understand that this is an incredibly hard time”), and then introducing the topic of discussion, linked to the theme of her YouTube channel, sustainability: Hey guys, welcome back to my channel and thank you for joining me for another video. So, I feel like actual rubbish today and I—it’s weird, the whole lockdown thing has had me over here [speaker gestures with right hand], being super productive, and feeling actually ok, to today feeling like everything is terrible and—[sigh] basically long story short, I hope you guys are ok, I fully understand that this is an incredibly hard time, especially if we are thinking about sustainability, and even the question how to be sustainable during a pandemic can be overwhelming. So thank you for joining me for today’s video, this is going to be some thoughts and feelings, and how to actually move through this situation, and think about sustainability, how you want to move forward.25

If, in the two extracts just quoted, the resulting discourse finds an echo in the “emotional connection” and intimacy that are part of the “experiential involvement” specific to conversation (Chafe, 1982; Tannen, 2007, reviewed in Koester, 2022), it also reflects phenomena typical of social media communication. In the extracts, speakers disclose their personal problems, according to one of the resources that serve to construe authenticity (cf. speakers “disclose fears and vulnerabilities that other people can relate to”—James and Hafner (2021, p.  221), quoted in Chap. 7). Similarly, the extracts exemplify the strategies identified by Riboni (2020) that allow YouTubers to appear authentic (e.g. narrative style, emotional tone and conversational greetings and leave-taking), and which overlap with the notion of discursive ethos developed over the previous pages. And the two last extracts also illustrate the “embodied and affective narratives” and “emotional, embodied belief ” that are a component of YouTuber discourse (Harding & Day, 2021). The speakers orchestrate a  Immy Lucas, “How to be sustainable during a pandemic,” posted April 10, 2020, https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=j_GBBJSrGDM 25

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personal and emotional connection with their audience, in which ethos and pathos work hand in hand. Pathos, or the appeal to the emotions, has always been a cornerstone of rhetoric, and of English-language oratory. However, what is new here is that, in keeping with the personalised ethos of the digital speaker, it is the speaker’s very own emotions that are being used as a rhetorical tool. Disclosure of personal emotions appears at odds with a number of generalisations made about Anglo-American communication culture. When it is “personal,” it is personal with respect to the domains of opinion and action, as opposed to that of deep feelings or emotion. In their public speaking manual, Kearney and Plax (1996) provide a snapshot of speaking norms pre-dating Web 2.0: they define various “co-cultures” that are part of the American landscape, including that of “Euroamericans.” The latter are described as being preoccupied “with facts and evidence as opposed to emotional appeals. They tend to distrust people who overemotionalise an argument or a message” (Kearney & Plax, 1996, p. 60)26 (and a similar disinclination for sharing personal emotions is often cited as a trait of the British).27And this reticence is compounded when negative emotions are at stake. According to the scale developed in social anthropology by Hofstede and that was referred to in Chap. 6 (N.B. the United States is ranked at the top of the scale of individualist cultures), unlike collectivist cultures, individualist cultures encourage the sharing

 Kearney and Plax (1996) draw on Althen’s (1988—updated 2003) study on American cultural norms. Interestingly, if the expression of emotion is not typical of communication by “Euroamericans,” it is central to the “African American” co-culture, according to Hecht et  al. (1993) (also quoted in Kearney & Plax, 1996), who note that its members place importance on connecting and sharing, are “openly emotional” and “often project and emphasise their own individual style of communicating” (Kearney & Plax, 1996, p. 61). Similarly, they “tend to use personal testimonies when arguing a point” (ibid., p. 62). Finally, there is a predisposition for embodied delivery: “African Americans ‘move’” (ibid., p. 61). Just like the way African-American oratory has influenced oratory more generally (cf. Chap. 6), it would appear that the ethos of the contemporary digital speaker shares a number of characteristics with what was once referred to as “African American” (co-)culture. Such similarities warrant enquiry in subsequent studies. 27  A disinclination for sharing personal emotions is often cited as a trait of the British. For instance, according to the results of one survey, a significant segment of the British population believes that showing their emotions is a sign of weakness. Survey reported in L. Geddes, “Is being reserved such a bad thing?” May 18, 2016 https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20160517-is-being-reservedsuch-a-bad-thing 26

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of happiness but discourage the sharing of sadness (Hofstede & Hofstede, 2005, p. 94; Lim, 2016). However, the examples of video content examined here do not necessarily point to a paradigm change in terms of the expression of personal emotion. Even though the aforementioned cultural norms are discussed in a manual about public speaking, they pertain to real-life practice— that is, face-to-face communication as opposed to staged, formal presentations. Despite their appeal to personal experience and to emotion, when we watch and listen to the YouTubers quoted above, it cannot really be said that we feel as if we are being given access to the “innate” character or “the whole biographical package” of the speaker, together with his/ her meaningful life experience described by Cameron (2000) (cf. Chap. 6). Instead, the overall impression is more one of a representation. As illustrated by the “leap” in the second extract that is made between the reference to negative emotion and the issue of sustainability, the sharing of personal emotions is not drawn out, but is controlled and succinct; it serves an ulterior motive, and is part of the staged persona that is fostered for a rhetorical purpose. Another type of discursive (and therefore, staged) construal concerns the interpersonal relation between speaker and audience, to which we turn in the following chapter.

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Kearney, P., & Plax, T. (1996). Public Speaking in a Diverse Society. Mayfield. Koester, A. (2022). Why Face-to-Face Communication Matters: A Comparison of Face-to-Face and Computer-Mediated Communication. In F.  Rossette-­ Crake & E.  Buckwalter (Eds.), COVID-19, Communication and Culture: Beyond the Global Workplace (pp. 115–133). Routledge. Labov, W. (1972). Language in the Inner City. Univ. of Pennsylvania Press. Lim, N. (2016). Cultural Differences in Emotion: Differences in Emotional Arousal Level Between the East and the West. Integrative Medecine Research, 5(2), 105–109. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.imr.2016.03.004 Lucas, S. (2015). The Art of Public Speaking (12th ed.). McGraw Hill. Lyotard, J. F. (1979, 1984). The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge: University Of Minnesota Press. Maingueneau, D. (1999). Ethos, Scénographie, Incorporation. In R.  Amossy (Ed.), Images de soi dans le discours, La construction de l’ethos (pp. 75–101). Delachaux et Niestlé. Maingueneau, D. (2002). Problèmes d’ethos. Pratiques, 113–114, 55–67. Maingueneau, D. (2014). Retour critique sur l’ethos. Langage et société, 149, 31–48. Martins Flores, N., & Muniz de Medeiros, P. (2018). Nouveau type de stars, nouveaux actes de langage? La construction de l’ethos discursif de youtubeurs français à travers les rituels d’ouverture et de clôture de leurs vidéos. Information scientifique et diffusion des savoirs: entre fragmentations et intermédiaires, 15. https://journals.openedition.org/rfsic/4782?lang=en#citedby Morey, S. (2016). Rhetorical Delivery and Digital Technologies, Networks, Affect, Electracy. Routledge. Page, R. (2018). Narratives Online: Shared Stories in Social Media. Cambridge University Press. Perelman, C., & Olbrechts-Tyteca, L. (1969). The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation. University of Notre Dame Press. Riboni, G. (2020). Discourses of Authenticity on YouTube: From the Personal to the Professional. Edizioni Universitarie di Lettere Economia Diritto. Salmon, C. (2007). Storytelling. La machine à fabriquer des histoires et à formater les esprits. La Découverte. Tannen, D. (2007). Talking Voices: Repetition, Dialogue, and Imagery in Conversational Discourse (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press. Vicari, S. (2021). Introduction: Autorité et Web 2.0. Argumentation et Analyse du Discours. https://doi.org/10.4000/aad.4936

9 The Move from Rhetorical to Dialogic Staging

As outlined in the earlier chapters of this book, oratory can be analysed as the instantiation of several discursive divides, which relate directly to the interpersonal domain, as well as the temporal and spatial levels. The speaker is required to negotiate his/her positioning within these various discursive spaces. In terms of the intrinsically asymmetrical relation between participants that informs the interpersonal domain, several options are available. The speaker can, for example, choose to amplify the asymmetry and play on the symbolic distance between him/herself and the audience, and therefore enact the setup of Rhetorical Staging. Alternatively, the speaker can choose to symbolically reduce the distance with the audience, via the setup of Dialogic Staging. Each setup results in a strong sense of connection with the audience, but in each case, this is achieved in quite different ways. The first setup is typical of certain types of podium oratory, particularly within a political enclosing scene, where the asymmetry informs the status of the speaker as leader. However, with digital oratory has come the quasi-widespread adoption of Dialogic Staging, which is synonymous with the friendly, informal ethos of the digital speaker, as well as the declared horizontality of interpersonal relations that characterises the current context of communication (as well as that of work). © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 F. Rossette-Crake, Digital Oratory as Discursive Practice, Postdisciplinary Studies in Discourse, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18984-5_9

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9.1 Rhetorical Staging A “Superspeaker” and a “Superaddressee” Let us begin with extracts of two speeches that hold an important place within the canon of English-language political oratory, and which provide a contrast at many levels with most of the forms of oratory that are addressed in this book. The first extract is taken from one of Winston Churchill’s famous war speeches, namely the speech that he delivered to the House of Commons just after the evacuation from Dunkirk in June 1940. The second example is taken from a speech delivered by John F. Kennedy at Rice University, Texas, in which he reiterates the goal of the United States to get an American astronaut to the moon: We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender. (W. Churchill, Westminster, June 4, 1940) 1 We meet in an hour of change and challenge, in a decade of hope and fear, in an age of both knowledge and ignorance. The greater our knowledge increases, the greater our ignorance unfolds. […] We choose to go to the moon. We chose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things / not because they are easy, but because they are hard. Because that goal will serve to organise and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we’re willing to accept. One we are unwilling to postpone. And therefore, as we set sail, we ask God’s blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure that man has ever embarked. (John F. Kennedy, Sept. 12, 1962)2

These passages feature language that is elaborately crafted—what MacArthur (1996, p. xv) refers to in his speech anthology as the  Source: MacArthur (1996).  Transcribed from the video available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuW4oGKzVKc

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hallmarks of “the poetry and beauty of great literature” that are “spoken nobly and with eloquence,” or what Goffman (1981, p. 189) equates with “high style.” They cannot be assimilated with the discourse of (casual) spoken conversation (Eggins, 1994), and are clearly examples of elaborate orality (cf. Chap. 4). Each reflects a distancing, rhetorical, and sometimes epic style, a style that arouses emotion. This is achieved thanks to a high density of rhetorical figures, which traditionally found the rhetorical canon of elocutio. The lines from Churchill’s speech are built upon the very long series of anaphora (“we shall …”; “we shall fight …”), and those from Kennedy’s are constructed around a sophisticated interweaving of a number of figures, such as the repetition of an entire clause (“we choose to go to the moon”), parallel syntactic structures (“The greater […] the greater […]”; “Because that goal […] because that challenge […]”), and ternary structures and pairings (“change and challenge”; “hope and fear”; “knowledge and ignorance”; “organise and measure”; “energies and skills”)—sometimes in association with polysyndeton (“the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure”). In addition, there is an example of his trademark antithetical structure, in which a negative clause precedes an affirmative clause that is introduced by the coordinating conjunction “but” (“not because they are easy, but because they are hard”).3 This style is one of the distinctive features of Rhetorical Staging (Maingueneau, 2016; Rossette, 2014), a concept that stems from the theory of “scene of enunciation” (cf. Chap. 6), and that designates a setup which shifts participant roles to a higher plane. The status of the speaker is elevated to that of “superspeaker,” who addresses not only the direct, face-to-face audience, but also a “superaddressee,” one that is not physically present.4 All participants, including the speaker-turned-­superspeaker, are swept up into a wider community, united by a common cause, that  Kennedy’s most well-known antithetical clause is the line “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country” from his inaugural address of 1961. 4  If the” superaddressee” refers to addressees who are not physically present, it remains distinct from the entity of the remote, online audience which has been modelised since the early chapters of this book. It can, however, include a remote, online audience. The term “superaddressee” is adapted from Bakhtin (1981, p. 337)—“he who transcends the verbal interaction”—with the difference that the superaddressee includes the immediate audience. 3

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can be made explicit within the discourse (i.e. Kennedy evokes the “greatest adventure,” as well as “that goal [that] will serve to organise and measure the best of our energies and skills”), as well as shared values and/or a common conduct (i.e. Churchill evokes “confidence” and “strength”). Here lies one explanation for the transcending feeling associated with certain moments of oratory—particularly epideictic oratory, which, by definition, promotes and celebrates the values of a given community and generates a sense of communion (cf. epideictic oratory serves to “enhance […] values and thus to increase social bonding and solidarity of the cultural group” (Kennedy, 1994, p. 22), cited Chap. 6). Rhetorical Staging takes oratory’s defining divides one step further, to carve out an even wider space between participants, who are nonetheless brought together. There is a paradox in that a special connection is established between speaker and audience precisely because of the increased difference in positioning, and the fact that the speaker invests the higher ground (a point noted, for instance, in the nineteenth-century treaty by Cox (1863, p. 300), who remarks, in regard to his category of “platform” (or “mob”) oratory, that “[a] mob likes best the speaker who stands above his audience, and keeps above them […] The loftier the orator the more gratifying to the assembly is his deference to them”).5 And of course, the speeches quoted above mark significant moments in world history. The audience is made to feel part of something bigger, and that they are witnessing (and participating) in something of which the ramifications extend well beyond the here-and-now of the delivery. Rhetorical Staging also plays on the temporal threshold that underscores oratory, in order to carve out a defining oratorical moment for the community—one that not only amplifies the force of the discourse as social process (as an act and as an event), but is also characteristic of the way that, for members of the audience, oratory fosters a sense of belonging within the world. This is notably realised by a staging of the moment of  Superspeaker status is even more prevalent in the case of the pulpit oratory of the Church, where “[t]he Pulpit orator speaks, not merely as a man offering his own opinions to other men, but as one who bears a message from a higher authority than his own” (Cox, 1863, pp. 239–40). Indeed, as a superspeaker, the orator is viewed as a type of go-between, for instance, as spokesperson for a spiritual entity, which is the case of the preacher (Rosenberg, 1971, p. 36), as well as the “shaman” of ancient tribal song (Zumthor, 1983—quoted in Chap. 3). 5

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delivery via a concentration of deictic reference—as observed, for instance, in Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, where a concentration of deictic references works to exceed the immediate here-and-now, potentially “reappropriating” (Prasch, 2015) the text for future generations (cf. Chap. 4).

 he Gettysburg Address and the Staging T of the Signifier The Gettysburg Address is emblematic of the Rhetorical Staging of epideictic oratory, and is duly informed by the integration of the participants into an overarching community. This is construed from the very beginning: Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

The time adverbial “four score and seven years ago” stages the speech as pending on a defining moment within the American epic, with all previous events converging towards the moment instantiated by the speech.6 At the same time, the President-orator endorses the community in which he places himself and his audience (“our fathers”). The community is made up of the living and the dead, beginning with the very soldiers who lost their lives on the battlefield that is being consecrated. Lincoln is their spokesperson (cf. further in the speech: “that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain”). The Gettysburg also illustrates the distinctively elaborate style of language that informs Rhetorical Staging, which partly takes its name from the way it stages the (linguistic) signifier. Such staging plays on the very  This is echoed in Martin Luther King’s 1963 “I have a dream” speech, which also enacts Rhetorical Staging; it integrates a wider community, that of the American story, beginning with a reference to the century that separates the F-F audience from Lincoln’s important action (“Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation”); at the same time, a direct link to Lincoln is materialised by the context of delivery (King speaks from the Lincoln Memorial in Washington). 6

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materiality of oratory as a medium of performance, which is pleasing both aesthetically and aurally—for instance, Lincoln read aloud “to think his way into sounds” (Wills, 1992, p. 162).7 Lincoln’s address is considered to have ushered in the new, “lean” language (Wills, 1992) that became the benchmark for modern-day oratory in English. Well before the oratory performed via the “video shorts” of the twenty-first century, it offered an unprecedented tour de force in concision (it is ten sentences in length, according to its written transcript).8 It also marked a move towards more “vernacular rhythms” (ibid.). It remains ornately crafted, and contains a number of rhetorical figures. Rhetorical figures based on repetition present content as indisputable, and contribute to the authoritative ethos of the superspeaker. They also construe emotion, and appeal to the heightened sense of connection and communion that are specific to Rhetorical Staging—for instance, like all forms of discursive recurrence, which are instrumental in “bringing the audience to participate” (Engelhardt & Zumthor, 1984, p. 84), syntactic schemes are “instruments of thought and feeling,” and, in many cases (e.g. that of parallelism), convey “deep feeling or conviction” (Cockroft & Cockroft, 2005, p. 178). These figures are amplified during delivery at the vocal level—for instance, via marked prosody (see Debras & Rossette, 2019).9 Other forms of enhancement at the prosodic level that are characteristic of Rhetorical Staging include marked pausing (e.g. dramatic pausing; applause cues), as well as non-marked, regular pausing that inform, together with a slow speech rate and the lengthening of vowels, declamatory delivery style. For instance, here is the first line from the afore-cited extract of Kennedy’s speech, with the pauses indicated by slashes (/): We meet in an hour of change / and challenge, / in a decade of hope / and fear, / in an age of both knowledge / and ignorance. /

 Similarly, Kennedy’s speechwriter stated that “[t]he test of a text was not how it appeared to the eye, but how it sounded to the ear” (Sorensen, 1965). 8  Transcript reproduced in Wills (1992, p. 263), from which quotes in this chapter are taken. 9  For instance, in the various series of anaphora that are such a powerful and omnipresent component of Martin Luther King’s 1963 speech (anaphora is present in an average of two out of every three utterances of the speech), each repetition coincides with an escalation in pitch. 7

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As illustrated in this utterance, far from the prosody of conversational turn-taking, “declamatory” delivery style, is based on regular pausing that separates out elements belonging to the same syntactic unit (e.g. coordinated noun complements). It is also exploited in more contemporary examples—for instance, the first utterance of Barack Obama’s victory speech (Chicago, 2008): If there / is anyone out there / who still doubts / that America is a place where all things are possible, / who still wonders / if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, / who still questions / the power of our democracy,/ tonight is your answer.

The pauses indicated here measure on average 0.17 seconds and are accompanied by the lengthening of vowels just before the pause (e.g. /eə/ in “there”) (Rossette, 2015). This prosody lends solemnity. Regular pausing also realises social distance, and confers symbolic power on the speaker (Duez, 2003). It is therefore one of the resources for the superspeaker, adding to the general impression that the orator is, as it were, speaking “over the heads” of the direct audience.

Rhetorical Staging and Oratory Today Rhetorical Staging denotes a setup (transverse to many genres, both within and outside oratory—extending, for example, to poetry) that allows the speaker, via an elevated style and a symbolically elevated position, to make a strong connection with the audience, bring them together to form one entity, and make them feel part of something that transcends the here-and-now. It is important in the context of political oratory, conferring authority and allowing the speaker to endorse the role of leader of a community, and is compulsory, for instance, in the case of U.S. presidential inaugural addresses (cf. Chap 6). Rhetorical Staging is a setup that harks back to the oratory of classical times, and that arguably corresponds to a primitive, crucial function of communication. Whatever the era or the culture, the transcending dimension responds to the basic need to construe a community, as well as to “maintain social hierarchies within

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speech communities” (Boromisza-Habashi et al., 2016, p. 29). It also reflects a craving for the mystical dimension that is enacted through certain speech acts, which are “endowed with meanings not fully accessible to human beings” (Engelke, 2004, p. 14). More generally, formal speech, or elevated speaking style, is unjustly neglected, according to Cameron (2000, p. 182), who not only regrets the lack of attention given to the “formal and public speech” of the oral performance arts such as advocacy and oratory, but also notes that, in most contemporary studies of communication, “[t]he aesthetic and ludic qualities of spoken discourse are particularly neglected.” The speeches discussed above present particularly iconic examples of Rhetorical Staging. But the setup can be enacted to a lower degree, and may come to the fore in specific parts of a speech, such as during the captatio or peroration. For instance, it is applied in the speech delivered by Angela Davis at Women’s March on Washington, which not only features a number of rhetorical figures as well as a declamatory delivery style (slow and regular pausing), but also inscribes the speech within the wider community and the general historical context. The term “history” appears seven times in the first eight utterances of her speech, for instance: At a challenging moment in our history, let us remind ourselves that we the hundreds of thousands, the millions of women, trans-people, men and youth who are here at the Women's March […] We recognise that we are collective agents of history and that history cannot be deleted like web pages.

Similarly, the address by U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres at COP26 is informed by specific components of Rhetorical Staging, such as anaphora and parallelism (e.g. “Enough of […]”): It’s time to say: enough. Enough of brutalizing biodiversity. Enough of killing ourselves with carbon. Enough of treating nature like a toilet. Enough of burning and drilling and mining our way deeper.

And, perhaps rather surprisingly, a staging of the signifier is also present in parts of the discourse that underscores Charli D’Amelio’s TikTok video. In addition to the parallelism that appears in the opening lines,

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quoted in Chap. 1 (“A man was killed, his life was ended”), another example of parallelism (“His life should not be over and his name needs to be heard”) features in the sequence that immediately follows, as well as an example of accumulation (“a father, and a person, a human who lost their life […]”): His life should not be over and his name needs to be heard: George Floyd, a father, and a person, a human who lost their life because of the colour of their skin. We, people of all colours, need to speak up at a time like this.

It is difficult to believe that these lines are the product of improvised orality (cf. Chap. 4); they do not resemble casual conversation—for instance, in terms of lexical density (Ure, 1969; Stubbs, 1986). Instead, they are the product of elaborate orality, and connote the distancing of a formal, presentation mode via which the speaker takes as it were “the higher ground”—that which can serve a modern-day, digital superspeaker. Rhetorical Staging magnifies a mechanism that is inherent to oratory more generally. On a micro level, a member of the audience feels part of something bigger simply by the fact that s/he is one of a number of members of the audience. For the head of TED talks, public speaking induces a sense of belonging: it is “the literal alignment of multiple minds into a shared consciousness” (Anderson, 2016, p. xi). In the case of digital oratory, such a feeling is potentially amplified, due to the addition of a remote audience, and can also be augmented by other technical means, such as the use of holograms (cf. Chap. 5).10 It can be posited that these hybrid, technically mediated formats also allow for a superspeaker, and renew certain components of the traditional Rhetorical Staging setup. The majority of examples cited above belong to the category of podium oratory, delivered to a live audience, and relayed via television and/or the digital screen. However, the case of social media oratory (like other forms of fully digitalised oratory) is rather different. While it can integrate, at specific moments, some of the elaborate staging of the signifier and hence realises moments of Rhetorical Staging, social media particularly  At his “hologram multi-rally” when he speaks simultaneously at 12 venues (cf. Chap. 5), Jean-­ Luc Mélenchon is projected as a type of superspeaker on the screen located to one side of the stage at each of the venues; the screen presents his multiplied image. 10

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promotes a horizontal relation between speaker and addressee, as opposed to a vertical one—that enacted, symbolically, for instance, by the removal of the podium and the lectern. When politicians adopt social media, they set out to accomplish the opposite of what they do when they perform podium oratory, seeking instead to create a down-to-earth persona and establish a one-to-one relation with the audience/viewer. To do this, they typically enact a different setup—that of Dialogic Staging.

9.2 Dialogic Staging The Example of Two Instagram Posts The style of the speeches quoted above contrasts, for instance, with that of Boris Johnson’s March 2022 post on Instagram (the text version of both posts quoted here appear simultaneously as captions on the screen): Good morning folks, I’m on the way to the Munich Security Conference, where I’ll be urging unity in the face of potential Russian aggression in Ukraine, and that unity is absolutely vital if we are going to deter what I think would be an absolutely catastrophic act of aggression by Vladimir Putin. My message today is that there is still time to avert that disaster, that diplomacy can prevail. And that’s the message I’ll be taking to Munich. (Boris Johnson, Instagram, March 2022)

This post contains none of the rhetorical figures that are part of the classical canon of elocutio. Instead, the discourse replicates certain syntactic structures and markers that are typical of the dialogic speech of conversation. The first utterance of the post is a long clause complex displaying the recursive levels of embedding that is typical of the grammatical intricacy of spoken language (Halliday, 1985). The two uses of the coordinating conjunction “and” function in a way which is similar to its use as a discourse marker in speech (Rossette, 2013), the second of which (“And that’s the message I’ll be taking …”) characteristically introduces an utterance that re-elaborates meaning, and serves to wind up a discursive move.

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The passage also features an informal greeting, with a specific time reference to the moment of delivery/filming (“Good morning folks”). Similar observations can be made about a post on the Instagram account of Grassroots Law Project, a U.S. non-profit organisation that supports victims of injustice within the criminal legal system. In this post, the organising director of the non-profit opens casually (“Hi, my name is Chris Lazare”), introducing himself and then the work of the organisation: Hi, my name is Chris Lazare. I’m the organising director here at the Grassroots Law Project. Over the last year, we’ve helped support really important legislation all across the country that would introduce alternative first responders, like in Houston and San Diego and Philadelphia. But we want to continue to expand our efforts going into the new year.11

In the second half of the 51-second post, the focus shifts to the viewer: But first, let me tell you why it’s really important. If you’re suffering a mental health crisis, you’re 16 times more likely to die at the hands of the police. So why is it that we are calling police when our friends and family need better support? Instead we need to continue to push alternative first respondent policies all across the country. But we need your support to do that. Please consider chipping in to the Grassroots Law Project to continue to support our efforts in doing just that. Thank you very much. (Chris Lazare, Grassroots Law Project)

This passage contains 5 references to the second person (“you”; “your”), as well as a number of interactive forms. There is the direct interrogative (“So why is it that …?”) as well as two imperative forms (“let me tell you …”; “please consider chipping in …”). In addition, use of connectives echoes their use as discourse markers in conversation (“so”; 3 instances of “but”). Interestingly, this segment alternates between two camera angles: most of the video is filmed at a close angle (face and shoulders of speaker) but it cuts to a very close shot (face) for three short  Post on Instagram account “grassrootslaw,” Jan. 14, 2022, https://www.instagram.com/p/ CYHnrrXLE-2/ [accessed 19.02.2022]. 11

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moments, namely for: (1) the first utterance of this second half (“let me tell you …”); (2) when the speaker utters the complement (in end position of the utterance) “all across the country”; (3) the final utterance “Thank you very much” (the video also cuts to images of police when the speaker talks about them). The fast-paced alternation between angles parallels the back-and-forth nature of turn-taking in conversation. The very close shots of the speaker can, moreover, be analysed as construing interpersonal as well as textual (emphatic) meaning.

A Renegotiation of the One-to-Many Relation Unlike the transcending, elevated or “high” tone of Rhetorical Staging, the style of both of these Instagram posts proves closer to that of spoken conversation. It informs a different type of negotiation of the speaker-­ addressee relation. The one-to-many participant structure of oratory that is amplified within the setup of Rhetorical Staging is negotiated here to create the illusion of a one-to-one conversation. Social media orators foster a one-to-one relationship, in keeping with the interpersonal dynamic that founds the communities of social networks: “[a]udiences desire someone to speak at them, communities desire someone to speak with them” (Senft, 2008—quoted in Chap. 1). However, a similar dynamic informs the intimacy promoted by other formats of digital oratory. TED talks “could take place over the dinner table” (Anderson, 2016), and are, of course, labelled as “talks” as opposed to “speeches.” And just as TED talks enact “conversational sharing” (Anderson, 2016, p. 10), 3MT presenters are advised to adopt a “conversational” mode.12 In a study of TED talks, Scotto di Carlo (2014) discusses involvement of the audience and the establishment of proximity, and, drawing on Hyland (2010), analyses them as instruments of popularisation. The adoption of conversational style is well documented in regard to online communication more generally, and is part of the ways “speech concatenates through the different digital genres” (Bolter & Grusin, 1998—quoted in Chap. 2). For instance, the title of Peterson’s (2011)  https://threeminutethesis.uq.edu.au/resources/3mt-competitor-guide

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study asks the question “How conversational are weblogs?” For Riboni (2020, p. 121), YouTubers adopt “a conversational register” as part of what she identifies as the “acquisition of ‘ordinary expert’ identity,” which blends elements from expert discourse and from amateur discourse, and allows the YouTuber to enter into a “peer-to-peer” relationship with the public, that exemplifies “calibrated amateurism” (Abidin, 2017; quoted in Riboni). Conversational style enacts an interaction with and an involvement of the viewer that are at the basis of social media engagement.13 Engagement is defined as “some form of interaction between the customer and the brand,”14 or “the interactions and activity on content posted.”15 Interestingly, “engagement” (used in a similar sense) is part of the official judging criteria of 3MT presentations.

Staging an Interaction The extracts above illustrate the setup of Dialogic Staging (Rossette, 2016), whereby a dialogue is simulated within the monologic setup of oratory. Dialogic staging remains precisely that—staging. It is a rhetorical tool that does not orchestrate a real dialogue and is, moreover, not likely to be confused with one, because it retains some components of formal style and devices typical of oratory. For instance, if Boris Johnson’s discourse contains a long utterance that displays an example of grammatical intricacy, the rest of the (short) post is made up of short clauses, and includes one example of a rhetorical figure (pairing, via asyndeton: “My message today is that there is still time to avert that disaster, that diplomacy can prevail”). Similarly, the discourse of Chris Lazare is still monitored and rhetorical: he remains explicitly “in charge” (e.g. “But first, let me tell you …”), uses structured argument (“If you’re suffering … So why is it that …?”), and includes a rhetorical figure—the accumulation  A search on Google of the term “social media engagement” produced 401,000,000 million results (1 October 2019). 14   “What is social media engagement?” https://promorepublic.com/en/blog/glossary/what-is-­ social-media-engagement/ [accessed 05.06.2022]. 15  “What is engagement?” https://www.hopperhq.com/social-media-marketing-glossary/engagement/ [accessed 05.06.2022]. 13

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(and use of polysyndeton) in the ternary structure “Like in Houston and San Diego and Philadelphia.”16 He also makes characteristically oratorical references (cf. Chap. 4) to the here-and-now of the delivery (“I’m the organising director here at the Grassroots Law Project”)—as does Boris Johnson (“my message today …”). In addition, neither of the posts can be compared with the long-winded, drawn-out turns that can occur in casual conversation. Rather, they exemplify concision—the type of concision that can only be achieved when some degree of elaborate orality is involved in the production process. In this, they exemplify the new form of rhetoric that has been qualified here as “vignette oratory.” These present a tight, reduced argument structure: they provide “vignettes” of argument. Dialogical Staging goes hand in hand with the personalised speaker ethos examined in the previous chapter—which, moreover, preconditions it: the speaker needs to explicitly embody the first person in order to address the second person. For instance, in Boris Johnson’s post, the personal pronoun “I” is used 4 times, as well as one instance of the possessive determiner “my”; and on two occasions, the pronoun “I” is the subject of a verb that includes a progressive tense (“I’ll be urging …”; “I’ll be taking …”) that highlights the agency of the speaker. Similarly, Chris Lazare begins by introducing himself and his position. The setup of Dialogic Staging exemplifies the “rebirth of dialogue” that has been brought about by digital rhetoric (Zappen, 2005, pp. 146–61), whereby dialogue is conceived not so much as a mode of persuasion, but as a collaborative means of creating ideas, testing one’s own ideas and contesting those of others. A post-modern echo of the sophistic tradition, it is not only the counterpart of horizontal relations and participatory culture,17 but also corresponds to a linguistic enactment of the instability and relativity of knowledge that inform the digital realm (Welch, 1999).  Dialogic and Rhetorical Staging differ in the frequency of use of rhetorical figures, which are an indication of formal, staged language whatever the setup. A defining characteristic of Rhetorical Staging is the high density at which they are used, and the pragmatic effect that is induced by this high density. 17  Interestingly, in social media oratory, even the construal of the community that necessarily underpins oratory is realised by participatory means and is orchestrated by paratextual and multimodal components located outside the discourse of the speaker—via likes, number of views, and so on—which indicate the existence of other viewers. 16

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At the same time, Dialogic Staging informs oratory and other communication formats offline. For instance, it is exploited in some podium political speeches (Rossette, 2016). In fact, social media and the digital medium simply offer extremely marked examples of the more general trend towards the “conversationalisation” of public discourses (Fairclough, 1993) that was launched by the very beginning of technological mediation. For instance, Goffman (1981, p. 138) describes the way (radio and television) broadcasters style their talk “as though it were addressed to a single listener.” In the political context, the beginning of the change can be traced to President Roosevelt’s “fireside chats” of the 1930s. It was then spurred on by President Reagan’s “intimate” style, where “conversing” with a radio or television audience partly subsumed the “fiery” political oratory of the past (Hall Jamieson, 1984). Interestingly, a “less declamatory,” “more direct, spontaneous” style is considered to have been introduced into British political rhetoric during the course of the twentieth century; this style, which is “consonant with the idiom of the common man,” coincided with the rise of the Labour Party, and “further adaptation of government to the people.”18

Linguistic Markers of Dialogic Staging Dialogic Staging is enacted thanks to markers of personal reference (e.g. first- and second-person pronouns and possessive determiners), markers of interaction (e.g. direct interrogatives, imperative forms and discourse markers), as well as greetings and terms of address. In addition, it can incorporate lexical items belonging to an informal register, and, unlike Rhetorical Staging, rates of lexical density that prove closer to that of casual conversation (a low rate of lexical density is, for instance, a feature of Steve Jobs’ keynote presentations).19 These features partially overlap with the markers of “experiential involvement” that characterise  Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, entry for “rhetoric.”  According to one study, keynotes by Steve Jobs reflect a lower rate of lexical density compared to those of Bill Gates. See, for instance: D. Farber, “An exegesis of the Steve Jobs and Bill Gates keynotes,” Jan. 1, 2007. https://www.zdnet.com/article/an-exegesis-of-the-steve-jobs-and-bill-gateskeynotes/ 18 19

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conversation, in contrast to the markers of detachment that are specific to writing (Chafe, 1982), and that Koester (2022) draws on in her study of face-to-face and online business interactions. These also include vague language, hedges, and markers of hesitation. The markers of Dialogic Staging also overlap with the “conversational syntactic constructions” (e.g. parataxis, frequent repetition and paraphrase) that Tannen (1988) identifies as features of the extemporaneous production of an academic paper. And unlike the declamatory delivery style of Rhetorical Staging, the prosody of Dialogic Staging typically contains less pausing, and reflects a faster speech rate. For instance, in a previous study based on a corpus of formats which enact Dialogic Staging (keynotes, TED talks), and formats which enact Rhetorical Staging (political speeches, from John F. Kennedy to Barack Obama), the average speed of the first category is close to 150 words per minute (if not more), while the average speed of the latter category is closer to 100 words per minute (Rossette, 2015).20 Dialogic Staging is illustrated by the winning 3MT presentation about research to prevent the disease dengue, referred to several times in previous chapters. Towards the end of the passage quoted in Chap. 8, a pseudo-­ tag use of “right” pronounced on a rising intonation pattern, creates an appeal to the audience (“I was lucky to survive, and I felt that nobody should die from something as trivial as a mosquito bite, right?”). Moreover, the speech is launched by a direct interrogative (“Have you ever been bitten by mosquitoes?”). Direct interrogatives are no doubt the most effective means of enacting Dialogic Staging in order to simulate an interaction with the audience, particularly for prominent moves within the speech, such as the captatio and the peroration. For instance, Kotchakorn Voraakhom’s TED talk ends by the speaker talking about herself, and then finally appealing to the audience with a question (“And yes, Thailand is home. This land is my only home, and that’s where I  Interestingly, these rates are located in between those identified by Tauroza and Allison (1990), who compare dialogic speech (conversation and interviews) with monologic formats distinct from oratory (e.g. radio monologues, lectures). According to their data, radio monologues average 150 to 170 words per minute, and lectures 160 to 185 words per minute. At the other end of the spectrum lie the dialogic formats of interviews (160 to 210 words/minute), and of conversation (190 to 230 words/minute). 20

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firmly stand my heart. Where do you stand yours?”). Returning to the 3MT presentation, dialogic structuring comes to a peak when the speaker turns to the results of her research (markers of Dialogic Staging appear in italics): What I developed is a dengue sensor, which is able to detect the virus more accurately, and in a much shorter time. Meet my dengue detective. It holds three basic components: light, antibodies, and a tapered optical fibre which has not been used before. And all it needs from a patient is one tiny drop of blood. Now let me tell you how it works. Envision an underway glass tunnel—you know, the ones you walk through at aquatic exhibitions, with sharks and stingrays swimming all around you? Well now visualise this tapered optical fibre as that glass tunnel—immersed in that patient’s blood sample. And on the surface of this glass tunnel, I immobilised antibodies to capture the virus. Next, I transmit light, to travel through this fibre tunnel, and indicate the presence and quantity of the virus. And voilà! Dengue is detected and quantified.

Interactive forms include the imperative (“Meet my dengue detective”; “Well now visualise …”), as well as the rising intonation that simulates a question in an utterance where the interrogative is not rendered grammatically (“you know, the ones you walk through at aquatic exhibitions, with sharks, stingrays swimming all around you?”). The speaker talks the audience through the test that she has devised as part of her PhD; this is announced explicitly (“Now let me tell you how it works”). She theatrically signs off the demonstration with a borrowing from the French (“And voila!”). This excerpt also contains a high frequency of discourse markers (“now,” “you know,” “well”), borrowed from the beginning of turns in conversation. Turn-taking is hence simulated here, due to these discourse markers, as well as utterance-initial “and.” In addition, informality is injected into the discourse itself at certain moments, via specific lexical choices. For instance, the speaker of the 3MT uses the “sometimes vulgar”21 lexical item “suck” in the play-on-words at the beginning of the presentation, which reappears at the end: 21

 Merriam-Webster Dictionary.

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This technology is a huge step forward in the future of dengue diagnostics. Mosquitoes will still suck, but this sensor will detect the virus in time, case closed. Thank you.

The choice of such a term remains isolated; it has impact because it stands out against a lexical network that belongs to a relatively formal register. A particularly marked variety of Dialogic Staging can be identified when the speaker talks the audience as it were through his/her thought process. This is illustrated in the keynote in which Steve Jobs launches the first iPhone (again, relevant markers appear in italics): Well, how do you solve this [the problem of the user interface]? Hmm. It turns out, we have solved it. We solved it in computers 20 years ago. We solved it with a bit-mapped screen that could display anything we want. Put any user interface up. And a pointing device. We solved it with the mouse, right? We solved this problem. So how are we going to take this to a mobile device? What we are going to do is get rid of all these buttons and just make a giant screen. A giant screen. Now, how are we going to communicate this? We don’t want to carry around a mouse, right? So what are we going to do? Oh, a stylus, right? We’re going to use a stylus. No. No. Who wants a stylus? You have to get them and put them away, and you lose them. Yuck. Nobody wants a stylus. So let’s not use a stylus. We’re going to use the best pointing device in the world. We’re going to use a pointing device that we’re all born with—we’re born with ten of them. We’re going to use our fingers. (Steve Jobs’ keynote for the iPhone launch, 2007) 22

This extract illustrates the use of a series of questions and answers, as well as other forms of language: discourse markers such as “well” and “now”; “hmmm” which suggests that the speaker is engaged in a thought process; “oh” suggesting spontaneity, and so on. The audience is kept “on their toes” due to the high number of wh-questions and tag-like uses of “right,” and the fact that the mood of each sentence (i.e. affirmative, negative, interrogative) constantly changes. This technique is used notably during   Transcribed from video retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hUIxyE2Ns8 [accessed 03.03.2017]. 22

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product launches and investor pitches, in order to relive the stages of the thought process that led to the creation of the product or service, and present it as if it coincided with the moment of delivery. Such an example proves to what extent the meaning potential of the different interpersonal, temporal, and spatial parameters are intertwined. The extract from the keynote represents a prototypical example of the staging of a dialogue for rhetorical purposes, within a discourse that is therefore far from that of the genuine dialogue of conversation. It can be contrasted with other presentation styles which are less staged, such as that adopted by one of the main speakers of a webinar titled “How to Launch a Successful Startup,” organised by Stanford University.23 The introductory remarks pronounced by the in-house academic feature syntax that echoes that of spoken dialogue: clauses are strung together via discourse markers such as “and” and “so,” contain other discourse markers (“you know”; “sort of ”), markers of hesitation and self-correction (“um,” “uh”), colloquial, informal lexis (“cool”; “OK”), and include a direct interrogative: Thanks Hanna, and Dr. Fors, thank you so much for taking the time to spend with me today to chat about this really cool topic of entrepreneurship. So you know, I’d like to frame today’s discussion around um sort of uh for those familiar with late-night US television, um sort of a David Lieberman-style top ten in which we talk about some of the, the top ten things that can happen anywhere, and in this case if it’s possible I’d like to talk about the top ten things that can go wrong with a startup, talk about some failures, and I think by looking at those things that can go wrong, I think there’s a tremendous amount to learn there, in how to prevent the things from going wrong, and how to make them go right. And I know that there’s a few of these that you’re probably thinking are more important than others, and maybe we can spend a little more time on them. Does that sound OK?

In keeping with the interactive format of webinars, this extract exemplifies a monologic presentation style that integrates elements of  April 9, 2021, available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1vFaKwJTlQ [accessed June 14, 2021]. 23

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conversationalisation without enacting Dialogic Staging. The markers of hesitation and self-correction point to a mode of production that no doubt coincides with prepared or improvised orality. The majority of the utterances correspond to long clause complexes that reflect a high degree of grammatical intricacy. There is no sense of monitored, concise argumentation—no “staging.” Finally, the distinction between Rhetorical and Dialogic Staging provides another discursive means for mapping some of the ambivalence attached to the notion of authenticity (cf. Chap. 7: a speaker construes authenticity by appearing both “ordinary” and at the same time “original”). As illustrated by the extract of D’Amelio’s discourse that includes a moment of Rhetorical Staging, a speaker has the possibility of introducing, at specific moments within the same speech, markers that are characteristic of one setup or the other. In this way, speakers alternate between the setups of Dialogic and Rhetorical Staging, enacting as it were an “ordinary” speaker as well as, at specific moments, an “extraordinary,” superspeaker.

References Abidin, C. (2017). #familygoals: Family Influencers, Calibrated Amateurism, and Justifying Young Digital Labor. Social Media + Society, 3(2), 1–15. Anderson, C. (2016). TED Talks: The Official TED Guide to Public Speaking. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Bakhtin, M. (1981). The Dialogic Imagination. Four Essays. University of Texas Press. Bolter, J., & Grusin, R. (1998). Remediation: Understanding New Media. MIT Press. Boromisza-Habashi, D., Hughes, J., & Malowski, J. (2016). Public Speaking as Cultural Ideal: Internationalizing the Public Speaking Curriculum. Journal of International and Cultural Communication, 9(1), 20–34. Cameron, D. (2000). Good to Talk? Living and Working in a Communication Culture. Sage. Chafe, W. (1982). Integration and Involvement in Speaking, Writing, and Oral Literature. In D. Tannen (Ed.), Spoken and Written Language: Exploring Orality and Literacy (pp. 35–53). Ablex.

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Cockroft, R., & Cockroft, S. (2005). Persuading People: An Introduction to Rhetoric. Palgrave Macmillan. Cox, E. (1863). The Arts of Writing, Reading and Speaking, in Letters to a Law Student. John Crickford. Debras, C., & Rossette, F. (2019). “Now is the time”: The Interaction of Prosody and Syntax in Martin Luther King’s Speech “I Have a Dream”. In F. Coulouma & C. Viollain (Eds.), Paramétrer le sens en englais et en français, Marqueurs et structures : articulations et constructions (pp. 171–189). Lambert Lucas. Duez, D. (2003). Le pouvoir du silence et le silence du pouvoir : comment interpréter le discours politique. MediaMorphoses, 8, 77–82. Eggins, S. (2004; 1994). An Introduction to Systemic Functional Linguistics. : Continuum Engelhardt, M. C., & Zumthor, P. (1984). The Text and the Voice. New Literary History, 16(1) Oral and Written Traditions in the Middle Ages, 67–92. Engelke, M. (2004). Text and Performance in an African Church: The Book, “Live and Direct.” American Ethnologist 31, 76-91 Fairclough, N. (1993). Critical Discourse Analysis and the Marketisation of Public Discourse: The Universities. Discourse and Society, 4(2), 133–168. Goffman, E. (1981). Forms of Talk. University of Pennsylvania Press. Hall Jamieson, K. (1984). Eloquence in an Electronic Age: The Transformation of Political Speechmaking. Oxford University Press. Halliday, M. A. K. (1985, 1989). Spoken and Written Language. Oxford University Press Hyland, K. (2010). Constructing Proximity: Relating to Readers in Popular and Professional Science. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 9, 116–127. Kennedy, G. A. (1994). A New History of Classical Rhetoric. Princeton University Press. Koester, A. (2022). Why Face-to-Face Communication Matters: A Comparison of Face-to-Face and Computer-Mediated Communication. In F. ­Rossette-­Crake & E. Buckwalter (Eds.), COVID-19, Communication and Culture: Beyond the Global Workplace (pp. 115–133). Routledge. MacArthur, B. (1996). The Penguin Book of Historic Speeches. Penguin. Maingueneau, D. (2016). Apostrophe et Scène rhétorique. In A. Biglari & G. Salvan (Eds.), Figures en discours. Louvain-la-neuve. Peterson, E. E. (2011). How Conversational Are Weblogs? Language@Internet, 8, article 8. urn:nbn:de:0009-­7-­31201 Prasch, A. (2015). Reagan at Pointe du Hoc: Deictic Epideictic and the Persuasive Power of “Bringing Before the Eyes.” Rhetoric and Public Affairs 18 (2), 247-276

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Riboni, G. (2020). Discourses of Authenticity on YouTube: From the Personal to the Professional. Edizioni Universitarie di Lettere Economia Diritto. Rosenberg, B. (1971). The Art of the American Folk Preacher. Oxford University Press. Rossette, F. (2013). And-Prefaced Utterances: From Speech to Text. Anglophonia, 34, 105–135. Rossette, F. (2014). “Insanely great”: Exploring the Expression of High Degree in a Corpus of Oral English. http://bv.u-­bordeaux3.fr/pub/docs/group-­ degre/Rossette_HighDegreeInSpeech.pdf Rossette, F. (2015, June 30). The Grammar of Public Address: A Diachronic Study. From Gettysburg and “I Have a Dream” to Modern-Day Ted Talks and Keynotes. Unpublished Monograph, Presented at Sorbonne Université, to qualify for the Habilitation à Diriger des Recherches. Rossette, F. (2016). Rhetorical Versus Dialogic Staging: “Our Moment is Now”, or the Discourse That Made a President. Rétor 6 (2), 216–247. http://www. revistaretor.org/ Scotto di Carlo, G. (2014). The Role of Proximity in Online Popularizations: The Case of TED Talks. Discourse Studies, 16(5), 591–606. Senft, T. M. (2008). Camgirls: Celebrity and Community in the Age of Social Networks. Peter Lange. Sorensen, T. (1965). Kennedy. Reprinted in 2009 as Kennedy: The Classic Biography. Harper Perennial. Stubbs, M. (1986). Lexical Density: A Technique and Some Findings. In M. Coulthard (Ed.), Talking about Text. Discourse Analysis (pp. 27–42). Monograph no 13, ELR, University of Birmingham. Tannen, D. (1988). The Commingling of Orality and Literacy in Giving a Paper at a Scholarly Conference. American Speech, 63(1), 34–43. Tauroza, S., & Allison, D. (1990). Speech Rates in British English. Applied Linguistics, 11(1), 90–105. Ure, J. (1969). Lexical Density and Register Differentiation. In G. E. Perren & J. L. M. Trim (Eds.), Applications of Linguistics: Selected Papers of the Second International Congress of Applied Linguistics 1969 (pp. 443–452). Cambridge University Press. Welch, K. (1999). Electric Rhetoric: Classical Rhetoric, Oralism, and a New Literacy. MIT Press. Wills, G. (1992). Lincoln at Gettysburg, the Words That Remade America. Simon & Schuster. Zappen, J. (2005). Digital Rhetoric: Toward an Integrated Theory. Technical Communication Quarterly, 14(3), 319–325. Zumthor, P. (1983). Introduction à la poésie orale. Seuil.

10 TED Talks: A Case Study

TED talks constitute a truly social phenomenon. Perhaps more than any other format, they have put a modern face on the age-old practice of oratory, and have made public speaking popular—even “hip.”1 The talks correspond to an iconic format of digital oratory on multiple levels. They display typical formal characteristics (e.g. embodied delivery, storytelling, Dialogic Staging), and can be regarded as the product of the current neoliberal context and its ideology (e.g. branding and self-branding). They are emblematic of participatory digital culture, and figure among the sites “where people collaborate, learn, trade, and interact,” alongside, for instance, Wikipedia, eBay, Uber, Airbnb, and Reddit (Taras, 2015, p. 117). In addition, TED provides an interesting example of the way the hybrid setups of the New Oratory (i.e. those that catered to both F-F and remote audiences) adapted to the conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic, and espoused a fully digital setup. For these reasons, they are the object of the case study presented in this chapter. Interestingly, TED talks began not far from Silicon Valley, the birthplace of the corporate keynotes of the high-tech sector. The first  A. Hickman, “Conference Speakers and the Digital Revolution,” April 19 2017, https://www.jla. co.uk/conference-speakers-digital-revolution/#.XFvzCc17lPb. Quoted in Chap. 1. 1

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conference was organised in 1984, in Monterey, California, by architect and graphic designer Richard Saul Wurman. Just like the keynotes, the focus of the conference was on technology: it brought together leading scientists and included speakers from high-tech companies such as Sony and Pixar.2 However, it was not until the launch of the website in 2006 that TED developed into the format we recognise today, in accordance with the definition provided on the TED website: “[a] TEDx Talk is a showcase for speakers presenting great, well-formed ideas in under 18 minutes.”3 “TEDx”—the possibility to hold an independently organised event under a TED licence—was launched in 2009, and more than 20 years later, in 2022, over 100,000 talks have been given at more than 40,000 TEDx events.4 More than 3000 events are now held annually,5 and the most popular talks have received to date over 50 million views. Originally, TED brought together speakers from the fields of technology, entertainment, and design (hence the TED acronym) to talk about their professional area of expertise. Since then, however, it has expanded to include potentially any topic, that can be addressed by a speaker originating from almost any walk of life.6

10.1 Branding  he Intensive Formatting That Underscores T the TED Brand Even though TED labels itself as a “non-profit” and disassociates itself from business and political interests, it has developed its organisation and the “TED talk” as a virtual brand, complete with logo, slogan,  B.  Moran, “Richard Saul Wurman: TED’s Founder Discusses How It All Began”, March 18, 2014, American Express, www.americanexpress.com/us/smallbusiness/openforum/articles/richardsaul-wurman-teds-founder-discusses-how-it-allbegan 3  https://www.ted.com/participate/organize-a-local-tedx-event/tedx-organizer-guide/speakers-­ program/what-is-a-tedx-talk 4  According to the TED website, https://www.ted.com/participate/organize-a-local-tedx-event 5  https://www.ted.com/about/programs-initiatives/tedx-program 6  The only restrictions in terms of content concern political or religious agendas, or advertising for overtly money-making purposes. 2

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franchising (i.e. TEDx conferences), community management (as testified by its website), and has developed the storytelling behind the brand—as enacted, for instance, by the video “Go behind the scenes at TED2009,” another version of “backstaging” (cf. Chap. 7).7 In fact, it can be argued that TED corresponds to a type of commercialisation of both the act and the very concept of public speaking. In the face of the great variety of topics that are now addressed in TED talks, a sense of unity is provided by the intense formatting. While the talks now make for a “meticulously curated world,”8 formatting of TED talks evolved considerably between the 1980s, and became stabilised around the time when the talks moved online, in 2006. Early examples from the 1980s and 1990s feature speakers wearing suits and ties, standing behind a pulpit or sitting, as well as discourse that is marked by formality.9 However, back in the 1980s, delivery already included a slideshow, which remains a cornerstone of TED’s current visual identity, alongside other elements such as the iconic red, circular carpet, and the letters “TEDx” followed by the name under which the TEDx licence has been obtained (the colour of these letters is limited to red, black, or white). Next to these aspects of staging, the other main formatting constraint concerns the time limit of speeches, which is fixed at 18  minutes—a duration said to correspond to the maximum attention span of an audience. Branding is also underscored by corporate-style community management. According to its mantras of “ideas worth spreading” for “a global community,” TED focuses on reaching a world-wide community which includes potentially anyone: “It has become a place where big ideas find a global audience. It is known simply as TED. And TED talks are little presentations that anyone can watch online for free” (my emphasis).10  “Behind the TED talk 2009” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aASvyfFUMdk  N.  Heller, “Listen and learn. (Lior Zoref ’s talk in the Technology, Entertainment and Design conference)”, July 9, 2012. The New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/07/09/ listen-and-learn Quoted in Sugimoto et al., 2013. 9  Early talks retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/nicholas_negroponte_in_1984_makes_5_ predictions?referrer=playlist-­30_years_of_ted#t-53263; https://www.ted.com/talks/danny_hillis_ back_to_the_future_of_1994?referrer=playlist-30_years_of_ted 10  C. Rose, “TED talks”, 60 Minutes, April 19, 2015, retrieved from https://www.cbsnews.com/ news/ted-talks-60-minutes-charlie-rose/ 7 8

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However, this global audience is that of the “TED community,” borne out of, and completely dependent upon, the speeches. This explains other constraints of the TEDx format: conferences must include the screening of several videos of previous TED talks taken from their website, and must begin with an official promotional video which starts with the following voice-over: From Kenya to Columbia, from Iraq to Korea, in slums, in schools, in prisons and in theatres, every day, people gather at TEDx events around the world to hear the best ideas bubbling up in their communities. Today, you are part of a global conversation about our shared future.11

Rather than relating to any specific enclosing scene(s) or communities of reference that would exist independently, TED talks construe their own discourse community. In fact, they may be considered the precursors of a practice that would really come into its own as of the second decade of the twenty-first century with social media platforms. Construal of community is, for instance, achieved by user comments (Drasovean and Tagg 2015). The above-quoted voice-over also makes reference to the values that are fostered by the TED community, such as the integration of local communities, discussion of new ideas (that are “bubbling up”), and concern for a “shared future,” underlining the ethical stand that informs digital oratory, of which the effectiveness will be discussed below.

The Self-branding of Speakers For the speaker, a TED talk does not result in anything tangible like winning a competition, receiving financing, a qualification, and so on. However, because the talks are uploaded to the Internet, they work like a springboard for the speaker’s notoriety. They have come to be a major tool for personal branding, acting “as a kind of shop window for speakers.”12 The increasing stakes in personal branding coincide with a shift in  Transcribed from video retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-l1xtCMnpw  A. Hickman, “Conference Speakers and the Digital Revolution”, April 192,017, https://www.jla. co.uk/conference-speakers-digital-revolution/#.XFvzCc17lPb Quoted Chap. 7. 11 12

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emphasis within the topics of the talks, which have turned from research in technology and innovation (e.g. TED talks are at one point “so mainstream that it’s as if it is on an academics’ careers to-do list”),13 towards talks that are not necessarily delivered by academics, are linked more or less closely to the social sciences, and are closer to the sector of “self-help.”14 And interestingly, while officially, “TED speakers seek to make their ideas accessible to those outside their field” (Anderson, 2016, p. xii) (my emphasis), many talks now feature speakers who have gained authority in one field or profession, but talk about another topic altogether. For instance, a physicist can decide to talk not about physics but about finding happiness. In this case, confirmed expertise in one area makes the speaker legitimate to talk about something else. Now that many talks are given by social actors who are not academics, they not only allow previously unknown individuals to become known (according to one commentator in the media, the talks are “mostly from people you have never heard of before”),15 but also provide a space for speakers to (re-)invent themselves and carve out their legitimacy. On this point, it is worth visiting the speakers’ profiles that appear on the TED website. Alongside traditional job positions such as “social psychologist” or “neuroanatomist,” speakers now carry titles that appeal to a new nomenclature, such as “life coach,” “expert in leadership psychology,” or “quiet revolutionary.” These self-proclaimed titles are generally closely linked to the title of the talk, and therefore serve to legitimate it: for instance, a “career analyst” talks about “The puzzle of motivation,” a “lie detector” about “How to spot a liar,” or a “peace builder” about “Fighting violence with non-violence.” TED therefore offers a forum for personal  S. Kaplan, “Life in the afterglow of TED-talk fame”, Dec. 28, 2012, The Washington Post, https:// www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/life-in-the-afterglow-of-ted-talk- fame\n/2014/12/28/ dd57f708-683b-11e4-b053-65cea7903f2e_story.html 14  This point is illustrated by the titles of the 10 most watched talks (in order): “Do schools kill creativity?” (a 2007 talk that received 21 million views by 2022), “Your body language may shape who you are”, “How great leaders inspire action”, “The power of vulnerability”, “Inside the mind of a master procrastinator”, “How to speak so that people want to listen”, “The next outbreak? We’re not ready”, “Looks aren’t everything. Believe me, I’m a model”, “What makes a good life? Lessons from the longest study on happiness”, “10 things you didn’t know about orgasm” (source: https://www.ted.com/playlists/171/the_most_popular_talks_of_all [accessed 6.3.2022]). 15  C. Rose, quoted supra. 13

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branding where, as modern-day expert, consultant, or coach, speakers can create and legitimate their domain of expertise.

The Speaker: From Scientist to Guru Social science and “self-help”-oriented talks particularly favour a focus on the speaker and his/her personal experience. If this is characteristic of digital speaker ethos, it is taken to new extremes by TED, which enacts “a performance lecture” that “stages the speaker as part of a performative act” (Uhl, 2014), and uses a “combination of epiphany and personal testimony” (Bratton, 2013). The shift in focus from technological innovation to selfhelp also results in a speaker status that can be likened to that of mediator. In conjunction with the ethical stand and aim to “change the world” that is often asserted, the speaker can take on a quasi-religious, guru-like aura. TED shares with certain high-tech keynotes a religious connotation that has been identified by bloggers and the general media. As one commentator, who evokes an “evangelical intensity,” writes: The conferences have come to resemble religious meetings and the TED talks techno-spiritual sermons, pushing an evangelical, cultish attitude toward “the new ideas that will change the world.” Everything becomes “magical” and “inspirational.” […] The ideas most popular are those that pander to a metaphysical, magical portrayal of the role of technology in the world. (Jurgensen, 2012)

And technology, if it is not necessarily the main topic of the talk, provides a resource that reinforces the central role of the person of the speaker, for instance, via the projection of the speaker on multiple screens (a practice that TED inaugurated very early, at the “TED Global” conference in 2011—cf. Chap. 5). Interesting connections can be posited between TED talks and more ancient forms of orality. The guru-like persona of the TED speaker is reminiscent of the “digital shaman” (cf. Chap. 3), and shares some of the attributes of the superspeaker within the setup of Rhetorical Staging (cf. Chap. 9).

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10.2 Two TED Talks, a Decade Apart To illustrate the status of the TED speaker, as well as the way it is enacted discursively, let us look closely at two specific TED talks. The first, titled “My stroke of insight,” was delivered by neurologist Jill Bolte Taylor at the official annual TED conference, and belongs to the early period of TED talks (2008), soon after they started being uploaded to the Internet; this talk appears on the TED website in the list of the most watched talks.16 The second talk, by Paula Stone Williams, titled “I’ve lived as a man and as a woman—here’s what I’ve learned,” was delivered almost a decade later (2017) at a TEDx event.17 The presentations of the talks on the TED website indicate the key role the talks have played in (re)shaping the professional activities of each speaker, and, more generally, the leverage that the talks represent in terms of personal branding. For instance, on the TED website, Jill Bolte Taylor is presented as follows: Brain researcher Jill Bolte Taylor studied her own stroke as it happened— and has become a powerful voice for brain recovery.

In her profile, her official title, “neuroscientist” (or “neuroanatomist”), is replaced by the less specialised compound noun “brain researcher.” Her commitment to the community is also emphasised: she is both an example and a spokesperson (“a powerful voice for brain recovery”).18 The profile also contains links to her personal website, to her book, which was released the same year as her TED talk and bears the same name (since then, she has published a second book), and to her Twitter account. The personal website contains a section “As seen on,” in which TED appears as the first in a long list of media.19 In an earlier version of the personal website,20 the  In 2022, it was the 15th-most watched TED talk, with a total of more than 28 million views. Translated into 49 languages, it has generated nearly 5000 comments to date on the YouTube platform. View at: https://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_my_stroke_of_insight?language=en 17  By 2022, this talk had received more than 4.5 million views. View at: https://www.ted.com/talks/ paula_stone_williams_i_ve_lived_as_a_man_and_as_a_woman_here_s_what_i_ve_learned/ transcript?language=en 18  https://www.ted.com/speakers/jill_bolte_taylor 19  https://www.drjilltaylor.com/ [accessed March 2022] 20  http://www.drjilltaylor.com/book.html [accessed Nov. 2019] 16

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viewer could click to book Jill Bolte Taylor for a speaking engagement at a conference or public event. TED clearly served as a catalyst allowing this academic to become a professional speaker and join the “speaking industry.” As for Paula Stone Williams, it is interesting to note that, almost a decade after Jill Bolte Taylor, not one but several titles are required to present her—“Religious leader, counsellor, advocate”—and, instead of use of the coordinator “and” to signal the end of the list, the asyndetic linking of these nouns suggests that the list is not complete. Indeed, the list continues just below the titles, with the following sentence: Paula Stone Williams is a Pastoral Counselor and internationally known speaker on gender equity, LGBTQ advocacy, and religious tolerance.

Importantly, the activities of advocacy and counselling are (now) explicitly used to define the speaker—as well as the tautological reference to the activity of speaking (cf. “internationally known speaker”). Just like Jill Bolte Taylor’s profile page, that of Paula Stone Williams contains a link to her personal website, to a book she wrote (published in 2021), and to her Twitter account. And again, the personal website contains a section that allows the Internet user to book her for a speaking engagement (“To schedule Paula for your event”).21 These talks have been chosen for the purposes of this case study notably because they present exceptional cases of personal storytelling. As highlighted by the first-person references in the title of each talk (“My stroke of insight”; “I’ve lived as […] and here’s what I’ve learnt”), the content of the speeches are inextricably linked to the person of the speaker, each of whom addresses an issue that, in Anglo-American culture, belongs to the intimate sphere (i.e. (near-)death, or sexuality/gender). For Jill Bolte Taylor, the legitimacy to speak on the TED stage is based less on her institutional academic status than on the fact that she herself has suffered a stroke, the experience of which she shares here (hence the play-on-words in the title of the speech). Moreover, before she gets to the part about her own stroke (at minute 1.43), she begins by explaining why

 https://paulastonewilliams.com/about/ [accessed March 2022]

21

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she first decided to study neuroanatomy, a choice relating to her personal family circumstances: I grew up to study the brain because I have a brother who has been diagnosed with a brain disorder, schizophrenia. And as a sister and later, as a scientist, I wanted to understand, why is it that I can take my dreams, I can connect them to my reality, and I can make my dreams come true? What is it about my brother's brain and his schizophrenia that he cannot connect his dreams to a common and shared reality, so they instead become delusion? So I dedicated my career to research into the severe mental illnesses.22

Both talks relate extraordinary personal experiences. Significantly, the role of each speaker is synonymous with that of a mediator. Jill Bolte Taylor presents her near-death-experience and appears as mediator with respect to the realm of death (as well as that of human consciousness which links brain and body). Paula Stone Williams relates and compares how she has lived parts of her life as either of two genders, and can thus be considered a type of mediator between genders. Potentially, the status of Paula Stone Williams as mediator is reinforced by her position as religious leader. However, she makes hardly any reference to this (extra-­ discursive) category within her talk. And in no respect does her talk resemble that of a religious sermon. In fact, what is interesting in both talks is that neither speaker adopts the role of a superspeaker to “speak over” their audience, as they would do if they had adopted the setup of Rhetorical Staging. Instead, each talk epitomises Dialogic Staging, and construes a horizontal-type interaction with the audience, which is, moreover, taken to new levels. In addition to the other markers of interaction typical of Dialogic Staging (e.g. the above quote from Jill Bolte Taylor’s introduction contains first-person reference, direct interrogatives, and discourse markers), a key thread—and a highlight—of each speech is provided by extracts of reported speech. That is, the overall interactive discursive setup contains staged dialogue at an embedded level. In Paula Stone Williams’ speech, which adopts the tone of a confiding, intimate chat (e.g. the talk is not  Extracts in this section are taken from the official transcripts that appear on the TED website and respect the original punctuation (including exclamation marks). 22

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accompanied by a slideshow), reported speech (reproduced in italics here) is used early: I knew from the time I was three or four years of age I was transgender. In my naivety, I thought I got to choose. I thought a gender fairy would arrive and say, “Okay, the time has come!” But alas, no gender fairy arrived, so I just lived my life.

The speaker introduces the character of the “gender fairy,” to whom she gives a voice (“Okay, the time has come!”). This serves to illustrate her point, and presents some light relief, but it also introduces theatricality, and contributes to the overall interactive tone of the speech. Other parts of the talk contain very extensive segments of reported speech. For instance, as an example of the way males and females are treated differently within white American culture, she relates an incident she experienced the first time she boarded a flight as a female. The following extract contains 9 reporting clauses with the verb “said” that introduces the reported speech (in italics here): The first time I flew as Paula, I was going from Denver to Charlotte, and I got on the plane and there was stuff in my seat. So, I picked it up to put my stuff down, and a guy said, “That’s my stuff”. I said, “Okay, but it's in my seat. So, I'll just hold it for you until you find your seat, and then I’ll give it to you”. He said, “Lady, that is my seat!” I said, “Actually, it’s not. It’s my seat. 1D,1D. But I’ll be glad to hold your stuff until you find your seat”. He said, “What do I have to tell you? That is my seat!” I said, “Yeah, it’s not”. At which point the guy behind me said, “Lady, would you take your effing argument elsewhere so I can get in the airplane?” I was absolutely stunned! I had never been treated like that as a male. I would have said, “I believe that’s my seat”, and the guy immediately would have looked at his boarding pass and said, “Oh, I’m sorry”. I know that because it happened all the time!

Instead of this long segment, the speaker could have simply summed up the incident by focusing on the outcome (e.g. “When boarding my first flight as Paula, I had an unpleasant encounter with a male passenger who was in my seat and simply would not move. He didn’t believe me. This had never happened to me as a man”). However, staging the exchange in

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this way with the male passenger (in fact, the two male passengers) invites the audience into the scene, and works like a bridge to trigger a reaction from them. The video of this extract is punctuated regularly by laughter from the F-F audience, and concludes with cheering. In other words, the staged interaction within the speech serves to initiate an interaction between speaker and audience. Similar use of reported speech within the context of presentations has been identified in academic conferences, where “the enactment of characters” is “a particular attention-­getting technique” (Valeiras-Jurado & Ruiz-Madrid, 2019). In addition, the passage illustrates the use of humour that is specific to digital speaker ethos, and is particularly exploited by TED speakers (Scotto di Carlo, 2013), who use it as a resource to induce empathy, notably for persuasive purposes. At the very end of the talk, reported speech generates a different type of reaction, when the speaker uses it to recount an exchange with her father, who had first rejected her change in gender: As I stood to go, he said, “Paula”—he called me Paula—he said, “Paula, I don’t understand this, but I am willing to try”. My father is 93 years old, and he’s willing to try. What more could I ask? I hugged him so tightly. One man willing to give up his power because he knew what he knew, that he loved his child, and he was willing to do whatever it takes to honor the journey of another.

The juxtaposition between the reported speech which provides direct access to her father’s voice, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the speaker’s reaction and ensuing commentary, enhances the poignancy and the pathos of the passage. The speaker is both a character within the narrative, and a speaker addressing an audience. This passage marks the articulation between both levels, where the speaker-narrator pivots from the embedded dialogue to the audience, to whom she addresses the direct interrogative “What more could I ask?” Reported speech is also used in a powerful way by Jill Bolte Taylor. Her talk integrates more components of a formal performance—not only a slideshow, but also a prop in the form of a real human brain that is brought onto the stage early in the speech (the speaker takes it into her hands, creating an unsettling but powerful visual link between her

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personal experience and her empirical research). In addition, Jill Bolte Taylor’s delivery is particularly embodied and visually striking as she uses hand gestures to accompany almost every utterance of the talk. After the brain has been handed back to a stage assistant and carried away, the speaker then spends the greater part of the speech recounting her near-­ death experience. But the general point of the speech—which links the speech to the collective interest and teaches us something—is a reflection about the difference between the left and right hemispheres of the brain. And the speaker dramatises this difference by staging a dialogue between the two hemispheres. For example: And I’m asking myself, “What is wrong with me? What is going on?” […] Then all of a sudden my left hemisphere comes back online and it says to me, “Hey! We've got a problem! We’ve got to get some help.” And I’m going, “Ahh! I’ve got a problem!”

Again, humour is used here, as it is throughout the talk, to defuse the dramatic tension. After winding up the personal part of her speech with the fact that it took her eight years to recover from the stroke, Jill Bolte Taylor draws from this individual experience a lesson that she offers her audience, switching from “I” to “we”: So who are we? We are the life-force power of the universe, with manual dexterity and two cognitive minds. And we have the power to choose, moment by moment, who and how we want to be in the world. Right here, right now, I can step into the consciousness of my right hemisphere, where we are. I am the life-force power of the universe. I am the life-force power of the 50 trillion beautiful molecular geniuses that make up my form, at one with all that is. Or, I can choose to step into the consciousness of my left hemisphere, where I become a single individual, a solid. Separate from the flow, separate from you. I am Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor: intellectual, neuroanatomist. These are the “we” inside of me. Which would you choose? Which do you choose? And when? I believe that the more time we spend choosing to run the deep inner-peace circuitry of our right hemispheres, the more peace we will project into the world, and the more peaceful our planet will be. And I thought that was an idea worth spreading.

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In true TED talk fashion, the speaker is not speaking here as a scientist but as a spiritual guide, a sage offering up a lesson of life. And this is done through “talk,” or language that stages an interaction. It begins with a generic “we,” before switching back to “I,” then to “you,” then returning to generic “we,” and ending with “I.” Short, direct interrogatives frame the passage, with one question at the beginning (“So who are we?”) and a ternary series at the end (“Which would you choose? Which do you choose? And when?”). And to close, the speaker returns to a personal viewpoint, this time not as the main character of a personal story, but to express her personal beliefs and thoughts (“I believe …”; “I thought …”).

10.3 Showledge and Empowerment: TED Under the Critical Lens Showledge and Form Versus Science and Substance The talk by Jill Bolte Taylor exemplifies the type of popularisation of science that is fostered by TED and that, because it espouses “showledge” (cf. Chap. 7), notably makes TED the target of criticism. Entertainment is a “vital component” of TED talks, which “appropriate the methods used by professional entertainers” such as use of satire, humour, other forms of comedy, and other rhetorical devices used in many entertainment platforms (Sugimoto et al., 2013). The sense of show and entertainment are prominent in the TED paratext, as evidenced by the lexical network used in the aforementioned video “Go behind the scenes at TED2009” (e.g. “take conferences into a real theatre”; “dramatic”; “intensity”; “choreography”). Attention is paid to creating a special “experience” during the conference itself, and to making sure that the live audience gets the most out of the talks as possible. For instance, it is required that sessions of talks be interspersed with “musical,” “theatrical,” and/or “meditation” interludes in order to rest the attention of the audience. For its critics, the showledge format undermines the quality of scientific information, and presents an ethical threat to scientific endeavour. Described as “pop-educational speeches”, TED talks are considered to

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produce a “sugarcoated” or “watered down” version of knowledge that panders to “the emotional immediacy of their reception” (Uhl, 2014, pp. 267; 262). In several studies, one of which discusses Jill Bolte Taylor’s speech, Scotto di Carlo (2014, 2015) underlines the way TED talks breach the “triangularisation” of the “scientist-mediator-­audience” network that typically regulates the diffusion of scientific knowledge, and also how the TED speaker as scientist-turned-mediator foregoes the scientist’s traditional position of impartiality, together with its rhetorical manifestations (e.g. consideration of counterarguments, use of hedging), and instead, turns to pathos, hyperbole, and positive qualifiers in order to enhance the value of his/her research. Indeed, hedging, together with the position of humility adopted in much scientific discourse, contrast with the grandiose ambitions expressed in much TED paratext (e.g. TED sets out to provide “[a] deeper understanding of our own humanity” (Anderson, 2016, p. 235)). A classification of adjectives found in a corpus of TED talks reveals that a considerable number are used by speakers to emphasise the “originality” and the “uniqueness” of their research (Scotto di Carlo, 2014). An interesting parallel can be established with the use of hyperbole, positive adjectives and adverbs expressing degree in corporate keynotes by Steve Jobs (Rossette, 2014). Taken together, these studies provide linguistic evidence that backs up remarks by commentators, such as Jurgensen (2012), who affirms that TED talks are “not so much critical assessments of relevant topics as they are enthusiastic sales pitches,” and that “[a]t TED, everyone is Steve Jobs and every idea is treated like an iPad.” And the comparison with corporate discourse is further substantiated by the catchy formulas and branding newspeak that are part of the TED paratext (e.g. a TED talk “runs information into inspiration” (Anderson, 2016, p. 199)). TED’s intensive formatting results in a focus on form to the detriment of substance. Not only does the format necessitate a presentation of knowledge according to the same process of simplification that has been criticised in regard to PowerPoint presentations (cf. Chap. 5), it is also all-encompassing. According to the hypothesis developed by Uhl (2014, pp. 266–7), “the format becomes a norm and as it were disassociates itself from its initial mission (to transmit knowledge), and ends up leading a

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life of its own, the ultimate aim of which is to produce effects of immediate adhesion by the public,” for whom, moreover, “there is nothing left but the device itself.” Significantly, it is because of its distinctive, instantly recognisable format that TED is so easily the object of satire.23 And for Uhl (2014, p. 267), if its agenda is most often progressive, “it faithfully reproduces reassurance via what is ultimately a position of self-sufficiency.”

Change as a Discursive Construct Concerns have been voiced by other academics, such as Tsou et al. (2014), who describe TED as “a specific type of entertainment that is increasingly out of touch and exclusionary.” The authors issue the following warning: It’s tempting to dismiss the “Web 3.0!”, “Wave of the future!” atmosphere around TED as simply a humorous, contrived grasp at trying too hard to sound like the next big thing. But it’s not so easy to laugh it away when we remember that the words chosen, the manner of discourse, and even the design of the events all have political implications. (Tsou et al., 2014)

Particular political stakes relate, for instance, to issues of diversity and inclusion. Sugimoto et al.’s (2013) study reveals that TED speakers are not only primarily non-academics but are also predominantly male: only a quarter of TED talks are delivered by women; and among the academic speakers, the majority are senior faculty males, from United States-based institutions, and were visible online before their TED talk. Similarly, one media commentator points out that TED “necessarily leaves out other groups and other ways of knowing and presenting ideas,” and seems “unaware of its own ideological bias” (Jurgensen, 2012). Things may have changed in the decade since these analyses were made (e.g. in regard to  See, for instance, the following videos: “Step outside the red circle”, Declan McCavana, TEDxEcolePolytechnique, 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMU6fPVKGgM; “How to come off as smart at a TEDx talk”, Will Stephen, 2015, https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=8S0FDjFBj8o; “Todd Talks” by John Oliver, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=vvtp-dKfbco; “‘Thought Leader’ gives talk that will inspire your thoughts”, CBC Radio, Pat Kelly, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZBKX-6Gz6A 23

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the representativeness of female speakers),24 but what of the lack of diversity in terms of communication culture that is underscored notably by TED’s intensive formatting? As observed in Chap. 8, speakers from other cultures are required to conform to current predominant Anglo-American communication norms, and this corresponds to just one aspect of the American-centric outlook which informs the talks and that, in turn, the talks promote. And this aspect does not necessarily go unobserved by Internet viewers. For instance, one comment posted on the YouTube platform notes that TED remains “embarrassingly ignorant of human economics and culture” (my emphasis).25 This comment was posted in reaction to the TEDx talk, titled “New perspectives—what’s wrong with TED talks?” delivered by associate professor of visual arts Benjamin Bratton. He identifies a number of problems, such as over-simplification, as well as what he describes as “placebo politics” and the (false) notion promoted by TED that “if we talk about world-changing ideas enough, the world will change.”26 Indeed, a disconnect can be posited between the aims stated by TED, and the short or long-term impacts that the talks may have (over and above the impact in terms of the speaker’s own personal branding), once the speaker walks off the TED stage. TED’s (again, grandiose) ambitions include the focus upon “making the world a better place” that is intrinsic to entrepreneurial ethos and is also a component of the ethos of the digital speaker. This aim is made explicit in a number of titles of talks as well as conference themes—for instance, the 2010 TED conference is titled “What the world needs now,” the more recent series of conferences on climate change is titled “Countdown: To a better future,” and its aims are given in the accompanying subtext: “Countdown is a bold, global

 For instance, in 2022, the list of the 20 most watched TED talks feature 11 males and 9 females: https://www.ted.com/playlists/171/the_most_popular_talks_of_all [accessed 12.06.2022] 25  See the comments posted in reaction to Benjamin Bratton’s talk: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=Yo5cKRmJaf0 [accessed 12.06.2022] 26  The fact that the object of a TED talk can be to criticise the TED format attests to horizontal, participatory culture. 24

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movement to find ways to rapidly shift to a world with net zero greenhouse emissions and tackle the climate crisis.”27 Generally, great impetus is placed in “amplifying the reach (and impact)” of a talk or TEDx event.28 A visitor to the home page of the website can read the names given to the subcategories of the talks, of which most contain an imperative form (e.g. “Work smarter”; “Reimagine your workplace. Transform business as usual”; “Take action on climate”; “Feed your curiosity”; “Celebrate Pride Month”), and a small number contain a present progressive form (“Understanding Ukraine”; “Humanising the refugee crisis”), all of which construe calls for action, or demands (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014), that are directed at the viewer.29 In addition, a number of the titles of the talks begin with, or contain, “How to”—such as the title of Kotchakorn Voraakhom’s talk, “How to transform sinking cities into landscapes that fight floods,” or that of Angel Hsu delivered at the 2020 Countdown conference, “Cities are driving climate change. Here’s how they can fix it.”30 These also contribute to the notion that change can be achieved (simply) by applying the advice that is presented in the talk in formula-like fashion. Other titles suggest that change is easily achievable (e.g. use of the adverb “just” in the title “Nature is everywhere—we just need to learn to see it”).31 The discourse of the talks themselves, as well as the discourse constituted by the numerous forms of paratext that accompany the talks, intertwine the notional domains of change and simplicity to such an extent that we reach a type of discursive saturation. This discursive saturation begs the following question: in the end, are TED talks just that—are they all just talk? If the same question can be raised in regard to all forms of oratory, past and present, it is true that the specific form of oratory that has been stylised by TED—that is, the “performance lecture,” and hence  https://www.ted.com/participate/organize-a-local-tedx-event/before-you-start/event-types/ countdown-event-type 28  https://www.ted.com/participate/organize-a-local-tedx-event/tedx-organizer-guide/video-­ photography/video/webcast-your-event 29  These names appeared on the homepage https://www.ted.com/ when accessed on 12.06.2022. 30  https://www.ted.com/talks/angel_hsu_cities_are_driving_climate_change_here_s_how_ they_can_fix_it?referrer=playlist-­countdown_session_1_urgency 31  Emma Marris, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiIcwt88o94 27

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the quasi-performative act, which entertains as much as it informs—may result in an even more acute confusion between talk and action, and the illusion that they are one and the same. Similar to the central place that is now occupied by corporate responsibility discourses (and the disconnect between social responsibility discourses and the suffering induced by current management practice in the workplace (see Linhart, 2022)), it can be argued that the relation between TED and change is primarily one of discursive construction. In this respect and, from the point of view of the viewer, TED begs a comparison with the earlier medium of television. Just like the Internet more generally, which, “like television, is what people turn to not for information but for entertainment” (Taras, 2015, p. 71), TED may well also foster a similar “make-believe empowerment” to that promoted by the earlier electronic medium (ibid., p. 71—quoted in Chap. 6), which turned viewers into “remote control citizens,” who somehow feel “engaged without the effort of actually being engaged” (Hart, 1996, quoted in Taras, 2015). This issue will also be taken up in the following chapter, in relation to social media oratory.

10.4 TED Talks Through the COVID-19 Pandemic Let us conclude this chapter by examining several of the fully digitalised formats that TED developed in response to the conditions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, as of March 2020. These examples are pertinent because, by contrast, they allow us to gauge the role of the F-F audience within the pre-pandemic, iconic TED format, and also because they provide a transition towards the specific types of fully digitalised oratory that have been developed on social media (cf. next chapter). In addition to the TED talk, TED had developed and experimented with a number of other formats pre-pandemic, such as “TED-Ed animations” and “TED radio hour,” as well as the (one-off) “cinema experience” in 2017 (cf. Chap. 3). And since the pandemic, new formats such as “webcasts” and “TED parties” reflect a particular interest in

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broadening participation at local levels.32 Immediately after the outbreak of the pandemic, TED moved away from (monologic) speeches, to espouse a dialogic format for “TED connects,” a series of interviews that ran during the March–April 2020 lockdown, and were presented as a “daily conversation series featuring experts whose ideas can help us reflect and work through this uncertain time with a sense of responsibility, compassion and wisdom.”33 The format resembles in many ways that of a webinar: the interviews are livestreamed and allow viewers to make comments and ask questions via the chat box, and there are several hosts (Chris Anderson, the head of TED, leads the interview, and another host manages the chat box). Chris Anderson’s introduction to the first episode (23 March 2020) concentrates on the notions of connecting and community, and contains TED’s typical use of hyperbole (“more than ever”) and of the superlative (“wisest”) (reproduced in italics here): Here we’re going to spend an hour in conversation with some of the world’s wisest people, because this is a moment when we need that wisdom more than ever. […] This is scary, this is different, this is alarming, you know, we don’t know what to make of it a lot of us […] In one scenario there’s a chance that we can use this moment to build community, to build bonds with each other, to get to know each other in different ways.34

Interestingly, the same guru-like persona that is attached to the (monologic) TED speaker also informs the discourse here (cf. “wisdom” and “wisest”).35  https://www.ted.com/participate/organize-a-local-tedx-event/tedx-organizer-guide/video-­ photography/video/webcast-your-event 33  https://www.ted.com/about/programs-initiatives/ted-connects-community-hope [accessed 02.04.2020] 34  Transcribed from the video available at: https://www.ted.com/talks/susan_david_how_to_be_ your_best_self_in_times_of_crisis [accessed 02.04.2020] 35  Other similar online initiatives took place at the same moment and were informed by a similar discourse, such as the “#TogetherApart Series” that began at the end of March 2020, and is introduced with these words: “We may be physically distancing, but the One Young World Community is coming together to support each other. […] One Young World’s #TogetherApart Series draws on the wisdom, experience and insight of our members […] we are connecting our community with experts to help people navigate COVID-19.” https://www.oneyoungworld.com/togetherapart-­ series [accessed 02.04.2020] 32

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A dialogic format was also introduced into the fully digitalised events that replaced the live conferences during the pandemic. For instance, the “TEDWomen 2000” conference combined talks with live, interactive sessions attended online by paying participants, while the first edition of the “TED Countdown” conference in November 2020 mixed speeches and interviews, all of which were embedded within online “sessions,” each presented by two prominent personalities.36 Dialogic moments had always been a part of the setup of the live conference (e.g. TEDx events are hosted by pairs of presenters), but these were not included in the content uploaded to the Internet. However, they are included in the uploaded content of the fully digitalised event. These dialogic moments arguably provide the necessary contextualisation, in lieu of the contextualisation provided by the F-F audience within the hybrid format. What is also interesting is that, with the fully digitalised event, monologic speech is now sharing the digital space with dialogic speech. Let us briefly examine the example of the 2020 Countdown conference. The conference marks a move towards more concise formats: the average length of the talks is much shorter than the majority of talks performed in front of a F-F audience: most talks given for the online conference are between 4 and 7 minutes, and the maximum duration is 10 or 11 minutes—far from the original 18-minute time limit. For most of the talks, the stage and the iconic TED props (red carpet, TED letters) have disappeared. Instead, the fully digitalised talks experiment with choices in settings: as mentioned in Chap. 4, some talks adopt an outdoor setting linked to the environmental theme of the conference (e.g. speakers stand in front of a farmhouse, a lake, a cityscape, an exhibit in a natural history museum, or sit under a tree). Interestingly, even though the talks were pre-recorded, the conference is live-streamed, and strategies are used in order to recreate the sense of a live event. For instance, there is a day-by-day countdown until the day of conference on the conference website. Similarly, hosts and speakers use a number of expressions to highlight a sense of excitement and pleasure that inscribe the conference with a “here-and-now” (e.g. “I am so excited to be here”; “I’m really pleased to be able to introduce today’s speaker”).  See: https://tedwomen2020.ted.com/ and https://countdown.ted.com/

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These language choices, which include subjective language (e.g. positively connoted adjectives, adverbs, and adjectives expressing high degree), are also used in other fully digitalised formats, such as webinar openings (which, if they involve a remote, synchronous audience rather than an asynchronous one, also recreate a metaphoric “here”). These choices construe a sense of the exceptional, and participate in the discursive staging of an event.37 In the 2020 Countdown talks, there is a general move towards a less embodied delivery style, and—somewhat surprisingly—towards more formality. Speakers do not move about, but remain static. Some speakers have not adopted the technique of memoria (cf. Chap. 4), their voice sounds unnatural and stilted, and they do not manage to conceal the fact that they are reading from a prompter. A similar observation can be made in regard to the pairs of hosts chairing each session, who sit in front of their webcams—even Al Gore, known for his TED talks delivered in a casual, natural style, is clearly reading from a prompter. Returning to the talks themselves, delivery style that is less embodied appears somewhat at a discrepancy with their content, which is still very much based on personal storytelling. In addition, the dress code is generally more formal: two male speakers wear suits, and most female speakers are dressed formally (jeans and t-shirts are rare). And at the same time, Dialogic Staging combines with some components of Rhetorical Staging, such as passages punctuated by a high density of rhetorical figures. For example, towards the end of the talk by Severn Cullis-Suzuki (cf. Chap. 4), the speaker moves from her personal example of activism (her talk features embedded extracts of a speech about climate that she had delivered at a UN summit as a child almost 30 years earlier—a rare version, at the time, of a young person claiming the right to be heard), to the urgency of the present moment. The following extract begins with one direct interrogative, which is the only interactive marker here. Instead of Dialogic Staging, the passage is built around several series of anaphora (in italics). Together

 Other indications that social actors grapple with a uniquely digital format when it comes to oratory include the fact that expressions specific to a live delivery on stage (e.g. “I now hand the floor over to…”) carry over to the online format—as if the latter needed to recreate a sense of the former. 37

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with the appeal to history at the beginning, the passage is infused with the solemnity typical of a superspeaker: How do we ensure that this time we act on our words? History has shown us that in moments of crisis, society can truly transform. We’ve seen this in times of war, in times of economic collapse and in times of disease. Today, we live in the time of COVID-19. We’ve seen governments and institutions across all sectors working quickly, working together. Humans like to think that we're in control of everything, but we have been reminded today that the laws of nature are the true bottom line. We’ve been reminded that science and expertise are crucial to our survival. COVID-19 has shone a light on inequity and revealed our prejudiced infrastructures. It is a warning. If we don’t listen, if we don’t change, next time could be far worse.38

Of course, not all fully digitalised talks display the variations that have just been discussed. However, what is interesting is that the move to a fully digitalised event and to a fully remote audience seems to have challenged the fairly rigid formatting and staging that had been characteristic of TED talks up until then, bringing more variety and allowing for more personal scenographies (cf. Chap. 6). After the end of the March–April 2020 lockdown period, and depending on the host country, some locally organised TEDx conferences resumed in front of a live audience. Uploaded videos of talks delivered live during this period are limited in number compared to those from previous years, and also compared to talks delivered at fully digitalised events during the same period. However, this return to live performances when the local context permitted it (and despite the maintenance of social distancing measures across the world), points to the long-lasting appeal of live events—and perhaps also, by extension, to the importance of the role of the F-F audience within the digital setup.

  Transcribed from the video https://www.ted.com/talks/severn_cullis_suzuki_make_your_ actions_on_climate_reflect_your_words?language=en [accessed 16.03.2022]. 38

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References Anderson, C. (2016). TED Talks: The Official TED Guide to Public Speaking. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Bratton, B. (2013). New Perspectives—What’s Wrong with TED Talks? TEDx Talk. TEDx. Retrieved June 12, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=Yo5cKRmJaf0 Drasovean, A., & Tagg, C. (2015). Evaluative Language and Its Solidarity-­ Building Role on TED.com: An Appraisal and Corpus Analysis. Language@ Internet, 12. Halliday, M.  A. K., & Matthiessen, C. (2014). Halliday’s Introduction to Functional Grammar. Routledge. Hart, R. (1996). Easy Citizenship: Television’s Curious Legacy. Annals of the American Academy of Political Science, 546(114). Jurgensen, N. (2012). Against TED. [Online]. http://thenewinquiry.com/essays/ against-­ted/ Linhart, D. (2022). Remote work and the contemporary workplace: the example of student internships in the context of France. In F. Rossette-Crake & E. Buckwalter (Eds.), COVID-19, Communication and Culture: Beyond the Global Workplace (pp. 173–184). Routledge. Rossette, F. (2014). “Insanely great”: Exploring the Expression of High Degree in a Corpus of Oral English. http://bv.ubordeaux3.fr/pub/docs/group-degre/ Rossette_HighDegreeInSpeech.pdf Scotto di Carlo, G. (2013). Humour in Popularization: Analysis of Humour-­ Related Laughter in TED Talks. The European Journal of Humour Research, 1(4), 81–93. Scotto di Carlo, G. (2014). Figurative Language in Science Popularisation: Similes as an Explanatory Strategy in TED Talks. 3L: The Southeast Asian Journal of English Language Studies, 20(3), 1–16. Scotto di Carlo, G. (2015). Pathos as a Communicative Strategy for Online Knowledge Dissemination: The Case of TED Talks. Language, Linguistics, Literature, 21(1), 23–34. Sugimoto, C. R., Thelwall, M., Lariviere, V., Tsou A., Mongeon P., & Macaluso, B. (2013). Scientists Popularizing Science: Characteristics and Impact of TED Talk Presenters. PLoS ONE, 8(4), e62403. http://journals.plos.org/ plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0062403

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Taras, D. (2015). Media, Power, and Identity in Canada. University of Toronto Press. Tsou, A., Thelwall, M., Mongeon, P., & Sugimoto, C. R. (2014). A Community of Curious Souls: An Analysis of Commenting Behavior on TED Talks Videos. PLoS ONE, 9(4), e93609. http://journals.plos.org/plosone/ article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0093609 Uhl, M. (2014). La mise en scène du conférencier comme acte performatif : des conférences-performances artistiques aux TED Talks. In M.  Quidu (Ed.), Epistémologie du corps savant, Tome II : La recherche scientifique comme expérience corporelle (pp. 251–270). L’Harmattan. Valeiras-Jurado, J., & Ruiz-Madrid, N. (2019). Multimodal Enactment of Characters in Conference Presentations. Discourse Studies, 21(5).

11 Enacting Oratory on Social Media

This final chapter focuses specifically on social media oratory. Because of the heterogeneity of the types of formats with which we are confronted, the chapter does not aim to be exhaustive; instead, the purpose is to explore some of the forms that digital oratory is taking, and to propose various terrains of pertinent research agendas to come. We focus here on the hypergenre of “embodied shorts” (cf. Chap. 6): that is, social media video content that stages a speaker who speaks to the camera, instantiates serious discussion and/or debate, and where the role fulfilled by language constitutes the main—if not the unique—social process. Moreover, most of the videos discussed here are selfie videos, and have thus been filmed by the speakers themselves. I concentrate here on some key stakes of digital oratory—awareness-­ raising and activism, personal storytelling, the horizontal transmission of knowledge—and the ways in which they are interconnected within the digital realm. The chapter is organised around the social interface, and the functions that are performed via digital oratory and the various enclosing scenes to which it can be attached. While the term “social” is applied here in the sociological sense and not in terms of “social media,” the latter enact an ever-expanding range of social functions, which © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 F. Rossette-Crake, Digital Oratory as Discursive Practice, Postdisciplinary Studies in Discourse, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18984-5_11

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intertwine, and are becoming increasingly difficult to dissociate, as will quickly become apparent below. We begin with influencers, who can be divided into two categories: those who belong uniquely to the media and corporate spheres, and those who use social media as part of their professional practice within another sector of activity (e.g. academics, liberal professionals). The latter category brushes with the status of influencer, either more or less closely, and more or less directly, and, in so doing, also integrates the media sphere. The second half of the chapter (re)turns to an enclosing scene that is most typically associated with oratory: the political sphere. By turning to social media oratory, social actors are, whatever their field, adopting a similar speaker ethos and conforming to conventions that, typically, were first forged within the media and corporate spheres. This attests to the way communication norms are not only determined by the corporate sector, but are also being renegotiated in a bottom-up direction, as part of the wider disruption of discursive genres and norms that is typical of the digital realm.

11.1 Numerous Orators, Numerous Enclosing Scenes As a specialised term in the digital context, “influencer” in the sense of “social influencer” is defined as “a key individual with an extensive network of contacts, who plays an active role in shaping the opinions of others within some topic area, typically through their expertise, popularity, or reputation” (Chandler & Munday, 2016).1 Informed by the neoliberal, corporate context, influence becomes a revenue-making activity when it espouses brand marketing. In other words, creators of social media content reach the status of “influencer” once they benefit from an extensive network (e.g. subscribers), which serves to attract advertising  While many dictionary definitions link the term “influencer” directly to product branding (e.g. “a person or thing that influences somebody/something, especially a person with the ability to influence potential buyers of a product or service by recommending it on social media”—Oxford English Dictionary), the term, used in the sense of someone “who exerts influence, inspires or guides the actions of others,” dates from 1662 (Merriam-Webster Dictionary). 1

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and sponsorship,2 and thus turn them into brand marketing influencers—some of whom may become “microcelebrities” (cf. Chap. 7).3 Of course, as soon as it becomes geared towards generating revenue, social media content becomes subject to market forces—which raises issues in terms of impartiality, in regard to both the opinion that is expressed, and also the choice of content. According to one actor of the marketing field, influencers are considered “social relationship assets,” a (newspeak) term that is preferred to that of (another newspeak term) “marketing tool”: “[i]t is important to note that these individuals are not merely marketing tools, but rather social relationship assets with which brands can collaborate to achieve their marketing objectives.”4 This quote foregrounds the specific relationship that is forged by influencers and conditions their status when they engage in social media oratory. Even if they qualify technically as influencers, some actors on social media refute the term, and brand themselves instead as “content creators,” who engage in the new sector of activity borne out of the digital medium/economy, that of “content creation” (where, nevertheless, “content” constitutes a “product” to be consumed, and is therefore subject to market forces).5 More generally, influence is also exerted in terms of opinion and lifestyle. Influence within the area of opinion is not only in keeping with the “emotional, embodied belief ” of “performative practice” (Harding & Day, 2021— quoted Chap. 8) that characterises social media communication, it also cannot be dissociated from brand marketing, which is dependent on a corporate sector that is now conditioned by the demands placed on it in terms of corporate social responsibility. As illustrated by the example of “mega-influencer” Charli D’Amelio, who “wants to influence societal change” (cf. Chap. 8), and states in her  The status of YouTubers is different from that of actors on other social network platforms, as, on top of partnerships, revenue is generated on YouTube by the various types of advertising that are embedded within the platform. 3  According to brand marketing categories, a “mega-influencer” has at least 1 million subscribers on at least one social network account, a “macro influencer” at least 40,000, a “micro influencer” between 1000 and 40,000, and a “nano” or “niche” influencer under 1000. Source: W.  Geyser, What is an Influencer?—Social Media Influencers Defined [Updated 2022], April 4, 2022, https:// influencermarketinghub.com/what-is-an-influencer/ 4  Ibid. 5  A Google search of the term “content creator” bore 66,900,000 results on 01.07.2022. 2

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video that as an influencer, she has realised that she has “a job to inform people of the racial inequalities in the world right now” (cf. Chap. 1), many brand marketing influencers engage in various types of activism or awareness-raising—activities which can be placed under the general banner term of “issue-related content.” These activities arguably contribute to the ascension to influencer status, and may be part of a deliberate strategy to achieve such a status, where digital activism does not translate as “make-believe empowerment” (cf. Chap. 6) at least with regard to the speaker, who can, indeed, become empowered thanks to social recognition, and revenue. As a result, self-promotion, revenue-making, information-­sharing, and activism intermingle and constitute a type of “discursive nexus.”

Media and Corporate Enclosing Scenes Let us first take the example of an influencer whose communication practices belong primarily to a media enclosing scene—to which we can add, as soon as the influencer partakes in brand marketing, a corporate enclosing scene. Unlike other social actors discussed below, this type of influencer does not use social media to sustain or develop another (primary) professional activity: rather, social media is their full-time professional activity, providing, moreover, their main source of revenue. It is in this sense that “influencer” may be regarded as one of the new “careers” that have developed out of the digital revolution.6 To demonstrate the far-reaching, global stakes of the phenomenon, I begin here with an example from a cultural zone outside the Anglo-­ American sphere with which I am also familiar. Salima Poumbga is a French-based influencer who began a YouTube channel in 2012, originally in the name of “Crazy Sally,” and then “Sally.” Born of a Moroccan mother and a Cameroonian father, she reached influencer status

 P. Suciu, “Is Being a Social Media Influencer a Real Career?” Feb. 14, 2020, Forbes, https://www. forbes.com/sites/petersuciu/2020/02/14/is-being-a-social-media-influencer-a-real-career/ [accessed June 22, 2021]. 6

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(according to her own claim)7 seven years later, after she developed a name for herself, notably by speaking out on issues such as racism, police violence and prostitution, while at the same time talking about other topics, such as fashion and beauty. Poumbga does not view this combination as a paradox, but instead considers these types of content as two interrelated “facets” of her personality: How do I reconcile light-hearted subjects such as fashion and beauty with more serious subjects such as discrimination and racism? This comes to me very naturally. On social networks, I like to speak freely about exactly what I want, when I want. Instagram is where I post more lifestyle and beauty content as a 24-year-old woman, and on YouTube I post more serious, issue-related content. But even on Instagram I post a lot of serious content, in order to guarantee a certain coherence, because these two facets are part of who I am as a person.8

This testimony not only reflects a claim to freedom in regard to choice of content (cf. “I like to speak freely about exactly what I want”), but also points to the fragmented, modern self (e.g. “these two facets”) that is promoted by the digital medium (cf. Chaps. 7 and 8), and which partly explains the phenomenon of juxtaposition of different types of content (cf. Chap. 1), whatever the digital micro-ecosystem (e.g. YouTube, Instagram). At the same time, a certain type of coherence is achieved (or at least sought by this social actor), precisely thanks to “serious, issue-­ related content.”9 Coherence is also promoted by certain types of videos based on personal storytelling and the backstaging (cf. Chap. 7) of Poumbga’s life, including videos that are visibly filmed in her bedroom,

 She describes herself as an influencer in a video posted May 1, 2022: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=n_VRY0tzifw. In June 2022, her YouTube channel had 580, 000 subscribers, and her Instagram account 793,000 subscribers. Salima Poumbga would therefore qualify as a “macro-­ influencer,” according to the brand marketing categories listed supra. 8  My translation from the French. Interview in « L’influenceuse à la une #10: Crazy Sally, » April 9, 2021, Stratégies, https://www.strategies.fr/blogs-opinions/sites-favoris/4059307W/l-influenceusea-la-une-10-crazy-sally.html 9  In French, the speaker uses the hypallage “contenus engagés” (literally “committed content”), which I have chosen to translate here as “issue-related content.. 7

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in which she recounts details of her personal life (e.g. her personal relationships).10 If she speaks out on racism and cultural issues, sees herself (no doubt) as an advocate for diversity, and targets a French-speaking audience (her videos are in French), it is significant that Salima Poumbga adopts an English-language pseudonym (“Sally”; “Crazy Sally”). In the profile of her Instagram account, she describes herself as “creator of videos” and “legal expert.” In addition, she is “CEO & Speaker at @sally.academy,” following the opening of a conference centre in May 2022, where she hosts debating clubs and master classes (the first master class is titled “How to succeed on social networks”).11 She is therefore not only an influencer but, like TED speakers before her, has carved out an area of expertise, in this case as both an actor of the speaker industry and as a specialist of social networks. One of Poumbga’s videos, titled “If you’re black, you’re ugly,”12 illustrates the type of speaker-addressee relation that is typically enacted by this speaker/influencer. The 10-minute post is prompted by the content of another video published on YouTube, a cartoon titled “Dina and the Prince,” which is about a princess who has a spell cast on her to make her “ugly,” where “ugliness” is represented by black skin colour. An intertextual network is set up whereby a “digital happening” (the publication of another YouTube video—the cartoon) serves as the basis of argument by example. The speaker evokes this example in order to denounce it, and links it to similar examples of beauty stereotypes taken from her personal experience. This is enacted via a personal, embodied ethos. The speaker presents the subject as very important for her (“This is a video that I really wanted to release”; “I wanted to share this with everyone”). At one point, tears come to her eyes as she says “I don’t know if I should laugh or cry.” Delivery is embodied, with the speaker making many hand gestures, which are in full view thanks to a medium-close frame that takes in all of the speaker’s upper body. Like many social media videos, music plays  See, for instance, the afore-mentioned video posted May 1, 2022, in which the influencer provides an “update of her life,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_VRY0tzifw 11  The title of the master class in French is “Réussir sur les réseaux”; it took place in May 2022. 12  Original title in French: « Etre noir, c’est moche »; video posted July 26, 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64_W1cyFkj8 10

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faintly in the background, but there is no sophisticated editing, which increases the impression of a direct, non-mediated conversation that the speaker initiates with her audience. Most of the video is devoted to providing advice to (female) viewers in order that they overcome the stereotypes that are highlighted by the cartoon: And speaking of self-confidence, today I wanted to share with everyone, whether you’re black, white, or Arab, how to feel beautiful when you’re a black woman when everything around us—whether it’s the way people look at us or society in general—makes us think that being a black woman is ugly. So for those who are going to tell me that I’m exaggerating, please tell me if you’ve ever heard the remark “you’re beautiful for a white woman”, “you’re beautiful for an Arab woman”. I don’t know, have you ever heard “you’re beautiful for a Mexican” or “you’re beautiful for a Russian”. I’ve never heard that, whereas “you’re beautiful for a black woman” is very common.13

This passage ends with segments of staged dialogue, one of the components of Dialogic Staging that informs the discourse. The chatty, informal tone is enhanced by speed of delivery, which is faster than other forms of public speaking. The video provides a characteristic mixture of advocacy and advice which informs the role of a speaker who nurtures a horizontal, intimate relationship with her audience and at the same time appears, if not as a sage, at least like a type of counsellor. The speaker addresses her audience directly and the simulation of a one-to-one dialogue or counselling session is enhanced in the original French transcript, shortly after the passage quoted above, by the (albeit generic) use of the singular form “tu” (“you”), as opposed to the plural and/or formal form “vous” used elsewhere in the video:

 All quotes from this video have been transcribed from the French original and then translated into English. 13

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Don’t let anyone give you [i.e. “tu”] a complex, because believe me, few people will help you [i.e. “tu”] feel beautiful.14

Similarly, the speaker expresses interest and concern in the welfare of her audience. She begins her post with “I hope you’re well today,” and concludes with, “Look after yourself and see you soon for another video,” just after expressing the following wish: I hope that this has helped you a little bit in your quest, in your search for yourself, for your self-confidence.

In this way, the speaker promotes the aforementioned “social relationship” that is so prized in brand marketing, and which can in fact be qualified, or redefined, as a “personal relationship.”

Other Professional Enclosing Scenes Other social media orators—to whom we can extend, in some cases, influencer status—use social media to develop and sustain professional activity within another sector. This is, for instance, the case of a number of actors within the sectors of education and academia, and also within a growing number of liberal professions. As influencers, they belong to the category of “key opinion leaders,” which is composed of “industry experts” or “thought leaders,” who “gain respect because of their qualifications, position, or experience about their topic of expertise.”15 In discourse analysis categories, their communication practices lie at the intersection of media (and corporate) enclosing scenes, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, and depending on the social actor, an academic or a medical professional enclosing scene, for instance. The phenomenon is worth highlighting, as these spoken communication practices in which professional actors engage on social media present rather atypical potential additions to the list of spoken professional genres (Koester &  The French original reads: « Ne te laisse complexer par personne, parce que je t’assure que peu de personnes t’aideront à te sentir belle.» 15  W. Geyser, cited supra. 14

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Handford, 2013), and thus correspond to new objects of study for scholars of workplace communication. If we are reticent to qualify them as workplace communication, it is perhaps because they do not engender specialised formats, but conform, instead, to the norms laid down by digital communication generally. Let us begin with the example of a prominent YouTuber who derives from the educational sector. Australian-based scientist Vanessa Hill began her YouTube channel, “Braincraft,” in 2013.16 Her field of science— behavioural science—arguably lends itself to the type of information-­ sharing linked to personal development and well-being that is favoured by social media and that, more generally, can be considered a standard of the digital medium (as developed, for instance, by TED talks). In the presentation of her channel, Vanessa Hill describes her purpose thus: “My mission is to bridge the gap between scientific research and your daily well-being.”17 She also labels herself as a “science communicator.” This term corresponds to another (job) profile that has developed within the digital age of information-sharing; it highlights Hill’s choice to brand herself as a communication professional, and places her at the intersection of educational/scientific and media enclosing scenes. This is also underlined in her profile on the professional social network LinkedIn, where she describes herself as “host and speaker,” and where the list of services that she offers includes “public speaking.”18 Interestingly, she styles herself slightly differently on her Instagram account (“Nessyhill”), namely as “sleep & habits PhD researcher, science host and filmmaker,” and also mentions her position as ambassador for an organisation that promotes women in science. She thus appears to have carved out a niche that combines promoting science-related information-sharing, and supporting women to pursue careers in science. A number of Hill’s YouTube and Instagram posts can be likened to several New Oratory formats such as the 3MT presentation or the  The channel had 599,000 subscribers in June 2022. According to marketing theory cited supra (Geyser, 2022), Vanessa Hill would qualify as a “macro influencer.” Her YouTube channel acted as a starting block towards further activity within the media sector, as she subsequently hosted a U.S. television series, that has the same name as her channel. 17  https://www.youtube.com/braincraft/about 18  https://www.linkedin.com/in/nessyhill/ 16

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investor pitch. For instance, the beginning of her 1-minute YouTube short “How to make better decisions” begins with a direct interrogative, reference to common belief, and the introduction of the research question. And, just like the presenter of an investor pitch, she identifies herself, and does this by way of a succinct, up-beat ternary structure (“I’m Vanessa, I’m a sleep researcher, and I want to help you understand more about your brain”): What to make better decisions? It’s a common belief that people make better decisions in the morning and that sleeping on it helps. But actually, new research shows that you might make your best decisions at a particular time of day, depending on if you’re a morning or evening person. I’m Vanessa, I’m a sleep researcher, and I want to help you understand more about your brain.19

Just like that of many 3MT presenters (and that of TED speaker and neurologist Jill Bolte Taylor), Hill’s delivery style is very physical—even theatrical—combining an emphatic voice, facial expressions and many hand movements, including her pointing to captions on the screen (cf. Chap. 5). Physical embodiment is brought into sharp focus by filming and editing that alternates between medium and close-angle shots. Hill addresses the role of social media and her own role as a YouTuber in relation to the wider question of the dissemination of scientific knowledge. In one Instagram post, she reports on the findings of a recent study which reveals that people trust traditional media more than social media.20 She provides a personal reaction (“This makes me really sad, because social media is such a great place for scientists to talk directly to the public”), and uses the post to present a call to action, encouraging her subscribers to promote scientists on social media (“Please tag in the comments one scientist who you follow on Instagram who you love hearing from”). At the same time, she engages in the backstaging of her experience as a YouTuber. A YouTube post titled “The Truth About Being a Scientist &  Video posted June 6, 2022, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyAIfarU9Ck&list=PLQwg0P xpUPlrdk5WIB0L2jFIdL0critnI 20  Post on Instagram account “nessyhill,” April 22, 2022 https://www.instagram.com/p/CcqnY-­ CDi97/ [accessed 05.06.2022]. 19

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YouTuber (my story)”21 is showcased as personal storytelling (the video begins with the caption “A lot of people ask me about unconventional career paths in STEM. I asked a friend to help me make a video about it. This is my story”—my emphasis).22 At one point in this video, Hill summarises the way the (new) digital model of knowledge-sharing is replacing the (traditional) model of school-based learning: I realised that there’s so much about your brain that isn’t taught in school— how to understand your personality, or procrastination or perception, even how to deal with anxiety and emotions, or how to improve your memory focus and even sleep. More and more people were turning to the Internet to understand themselves and their brain and their health.

Hill provides an interesting (and arguably iconic) example of the way the digital medium generally, and digitalised forms of speech in particular, combine information-sharing and digital activism (in the wider sense—for instance, the promotion of women in science), both of which are realised via a discourse that depends upon personal embodiment by the speaker. However, Hill’s embodiment and personal storytelling stops at her experience as a YouTuber, or at least remains circumscribed to the scientific topic at hand (e.g. in a video about sleep she reveals that she too has problems with sleep). Unlike Salima Poumbga, she does not reveal details about her personal life. A higher degree of personal embodiment and backstaging is performed—perhaps somewhat surprisingly—by one example of a social actor within the liberal professions. This example is again taken from outside the Anglo-American context. Based in France, Charles Brumauld is a qualified nutritionist, whose expertise in this domain is backed up by a three-year bachelor’s degree in human nutrition. His activities on the digital medium, notably his Instagram account (in French), allow him to develop his clientele, and

  Video posted Aug. 13, 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z77l12Bdehk [accessed 04.06.2022]. 22  “STEM” is the acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Maths. 21

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have attracted the attention of sponsors.23 In terms of marketing theory (cf. supra), he gains respect from his qualification within the health sector, which makes him a potential “key opinion leader.” He uses the status of health care professional to position himself in his posts on Instagram, and notably contrasts it with his “amateur” status as a communicator on social media. For example, he begins his first video on Instagram with “I am Charles Brumauld, I am a dietician. This is my first Instagram video, so please be kind.”24 Similarly, in other videos, he circumscribes himself to his specific area of expertise, by using expressions such as “as far as my area of expertise is concerned,”25 or by (re)identifying his profession (e.g. “Hello, I’m Charles Brumauld, dietician and nutritionist […] As a dietician and health care professional, I’m going to restrict myself to the nutritionist part”).26 Interestingly, however, this professional credibility, which makes Brumauld eligible to speak out about nutrition-related topics, combines with an ethos that is informal, often comic, and, at times, self-­deprecating. Information about nutrition is packaged in a fun-loving way, as indicated by the self-description provided on the Instagram profile: “A dietician with a relaxed approach, who loves to laugh” (fun and informality are construed by the use of an emoji in lieu of the lexical item “laughter”).27 Professional credibility also combines with a relatively intimate staging of his very person. For instance, Brumauld’s Instagram account includes not only videos in which he speaks about nutrition, but also posts about his holidays, birthdays, and so on. These choices in regard to content not only reflect the collapse of the divide between professional and personal  His Instagram account has 26,600 subscribers (June 2022), so he qualifies as a “micro influencer” (Geyser, 2022—quoted supra). However, he prefers to call himself a “content creator” (personal communication, June 2022). 24  Post on Instagram account “charlesbrumauld,” March 17, 2020. https://www.instagram.com/tv/ B919zjFIor0/. Again, I transcribed the original versions of the videos in French and provide here my translations into English. 25  For instance, see post on Instagram account “charlesbrumauld,” June 16, 2022, https://www. instagram.com/p/Ce3z8t4jggG/ 26  He says this at the beginning of a post about fasting during Ramadan, April 23 2020, https:// www.instagram.com/tv/B_UkQy5oNcy/ 27  My translation from the French: “Diététicien qui détend, bardé de rires.” 23

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spheres (cf. Chap. 7), they also foster what in some respects resembles a guru-like cult for the person of the speaker, a sage who also claims legitimacy from his status as health care professional. At the same time, he nurtures both an intimate and affectionate stance towards his followers (e.g. ending some videos with “I send you (all) a big hug”).28 Like the influencer who was discussed at the beginning of this chapter, this social actor visibly styles himself not only as “social” but also “personal” relationship asset. Brumauld’s persona as expert within the health sector makes him legitimate to engage in issue-related content that concerns public health issues, such as obesity or eating disorders.29 He also takes a stand and expresses concern about false information about nutrition and health that is circulated on social media by people who do not possess official qualifications. At the same time, he engages in activism that does not relate directly to health issues. For instance, he posts a video about male professionals (e.g. police officers, healthcare professionals) who abuse their position, and ends with a call to action addressed to women (“I hope you will have the strength to film them, put them on speaker, record them, take screenshots and denounce them, so we can stop all this”).30 In the comments, he explains that this is “a video that was not at all ‘planned’ and is clearly outside my field of expertise.” In this way, he negotiates the fine line between the domains of health care and social advocacy, whereby the legitimacy of each arguably draws on that of the other. A characteristic combination of information-sharing, advice, and counselling, as well as awareness-raising, is particularly well illustrated in a video about eating disorders.31 In the video, the discourse is enacted via a personalised and humorous ethos. On one hand, the speaker explains the phenomenon of eating disorders, combining traditional sources of argument (e.g. statistics) with humour (e.g. he establishes a parallel  In French: « Je vous embrasse bien fort », video posted March 17, 2020, cited supra.  See, for instance, videos posted on World Obesity Day, March 2, 2022, https://www.instagram. com/reel/CasVRp4jNYN/, or on World Eating Disorders Action Day, June 2, 2022, https://www. instagram.com/reel/CeTtrxVDR5T/ 30  Post on Instagram account “charlesbrumauld,” June 11, 2022, https://www.instagram.com/p/ Ceq88QcD5IC/ 31  Post of June 2, 2022, https://www.instagram.com/reel/CeTtrxVDR5T/, cited supra. 28 29

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between the management of eating disorders and that of the security at the 2022 Champions League Football Final which took place at the “Stade de France” in the Paris suburbs, and was the object of much international criticism). Dialogic Staging is achieved notably by direct interrogatives and reported speech: Today is Eating Disorders Day. An eating disorder is when there is a major disturbance in our relationship to food. We know about anorexia and bulimia. Eating disorders affect about 900,000 people in France and are dealt with just about as badly as the fans at the French Stadium. And do you know how you can fall into an eating disorder? By dieting. At the beginning, we just try to lose weight, we are encouraged by those close to us, we are told “look, you’ve lost weight, that’s great, you look better”, and so on.

However, the video takes embodied ethos to an extreme in that the speaker, who films himself at a close angle that takes in his face and top part of his body, is wearing nothing on his top half. Moreover, the speaker begins the video by making a promise (“If you watch this video until the end, I’ll take off the bottom half, I promise!”) and refers back to it at the end (“Mmm, I’ve forgotten something, haven’t I? Ah yes, I haven’t taken off my bottom half!”), before cutting to a shot of himself taking one of his socks off. These choices stand in stark contrast to the speaker’s earlier posts, which are more formal (he wears not a t-shirt but a shirt, and stands further away from the camera, which takes in half of his body).32 The speaker defends his choices for the video on eating disorders in a comment posted next to it: I feel bad enough (half bad, admittedly, but I’m getting there) for shooting this video like this and making this promise in relation to this topic. As Instagram is not always kind to #eating disorders, I wanted to do a test because at the end of the day, it’s not the number of insults or remarks from health professionals that I receive that matters to me. What matters is that a message that I consider important and necessary is seen and heard.

 For instance, see post March 17, 2020. https://www.instagram.com/tv/B919zjFIor0/, cited supra.

32

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Asked about the choice of joke that borders on Shakespearian bawdy, Brumauld reiterates the position he expresses in the comment he posted. He maintains that it was a deliberate strategy in order to get the audience to watch until the end of the video. He wanted his audience to be informed about the way that eating disorders develop so insidiously. Confirming the problems posed by the “cognitive surplus” underscored by the “attention economy” (cf. Chap. 7), he explains that one of the main challenges for creators of video content is to get their audience to watch the video from beginning to end, and not be tempted to stop watching in order to continue swiping down to the next post that is proposed on their Instagram feed.33 It is therefore necessary to devise various strategies as attention-getters, and, more specifically, as “attention-­ holders”—a twenty-first-century version, perhaps, of what Goffman (1981, p. 194, quoted Chap. 2) refers to as the speaker’s “shenanigans.” Let us finish with another example that illustrates the potential of the digital medium. The content of this video addresses the importance of taking a break during the day (e.g. from work, from physical activities).34 Scientific explanations are included in the discussion of the topic: […] As far as what I can say in relation to my area of expertise, taking a break activates the parasympathetic nervous system. This is the system of relaxation, of resources that allow you to slow down your heart rate, stimulate the digestive tract, and the nervous system. And this is very interesting for developing interoception. Interoception is the internal perception of our own signals. And more generally, it allows us to rest, recover, and breaks the automatic pilot mode, whereby we speed through our activities like crazy all day long. […]

This text could be mistaken for the transcript of a TED talk. Specialised concepts (e.g. “parasympathetic”; “interoception”) are introduced and defined using simple language. However, at the same time, the speaker exploits the potential of social media video content (Jones & Hafner, 2021—cf. Chap. 4) in order to achieve embodied, movement-based  Personal communication, June 2022.  Post on Instagram account “charlesbrumauld,” June 16, 2022, https://www.instagram.com/p/ Ce3z8t4jggG/ 33 34

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performance. The speaker films himself speaking in different spaces, and, as he delivers the above-quoted words, he not only engages in the activity of speaking, but simultaneously performs other activities (e.g. he rides his bike, walks up stairs, brushes his teeth, lies down on a bed). While these choices may well again be strategic, in order to maintain the attention of the audience and make sure they watch the video to the end, they also correspond to a staging of the content of the speech: these activities introduce another multimodal layer, and represent the different moments of the day being described in the spoken discourse. In addition, in the first half of the video, the speaker moves through different spaces (e.g. as he rides his bike, or walks up stairs). This type of video exemplifies the way the digital medium is renewing public speaking practice, and offers an interesting case for discussion in terms of what can be qualified as oratory in the contemporary context. If, in this video, the speaker engages in other activities on top of that of speaking, these activities are subordinated to the discourse content, and correspond to multimodal resources which enhance it. Moreover, despite the other activities and the movement, the speaker continues to look directly at the camera, and generally continues to position himself frontally, thus maintaining a direct appeal to the audience via the visual construal of a demand (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006). And, in terms of the multimodal resource of “place-­ making” (cf. Chap. 4), while the speaker does not linger enough in the spaces through which he passes in the first half of the video, in the second half, he does turn the “spaces” in which he is immobile into “places” in that, again, they resonate with the discourse content, and, moreover, take on another level of meaning, as each integrates the series of places which are juxtaposed in the video, in order to construe the spatial experience of a day. More generally, these various examples reflect the relative degree of freedom that characterises social media oratory, in contrast, for instance, to the heavy formatting identified in the New Oratory formats (cf. Chap. 6). Creativity and freedom at the individual level may also go

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hand-in-hand with more cultural diversity.35 Of course, the heightened degree of innovation and creativity can be explained by the fact that these videos are self-made—the speaker is, after all, the only one in charge and is free to make the choices s/he wants. Despite all the imitation that abounds on social media, the “embodied shorts” of social media oratory—precisely because the latter is embodied and personal—may well be one video sub-type where content creators appear to have room to develop their own creativity, thanks to personal scenographies, which include experimenting with formatting. In this way, they can truly live up to the “creation” component that is highlighted by the name of “content creation” that they give to their activity.

11.2 Social Media Oratory and the Political Enclosing Scene Social Media as an Alternative to Podium Oratory Boris Johnson speaking from the plane on the way to Munich, Michelle Obama addressing the cause of education for girls from her sofa, Emmanuel Macron sharing his impressions of the presidential campaign from the back seat of his chauffeur-driven car: when politicians, or personalities who belong indirectly to a political enclosing scene, take to the metaphorical podium of social media, they generally do so in order to fulfil a purpose that is quite distinct from that pursued when they take to the physical podium to practise oratory according to its more traditional format. And to meet such goals, they espouse a different type of speaking  For instance, asked about whether he feels there may be anything culturally specific about his own video content with respect to French culture, Charles Brumauld, who monitors trends from the United Kingdom and the United States, identifies, among the elements that may be considered specifically French, a more elaborate text. That is, more attention is given to the text itself, aesthetically and in terms of wit. For instance, he reveals that all his videos are the product of elaborate orality—and memoria—as he writes his scripts out in full, reworking them, and then learns them off by heart. Incidentally, in terms of innovation, his videos can be contrasted with those of U.K.based Graeme Tomlinson, who has developed a similar type of Instagram account (“thefitnesschef ”—currently at 1.1 million subscribers), which features videos that are less staged/theatrical, and draw on far fewer multimodal resources. 35

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style, and adopt different conventions from those that govern the practice of speaking from the physical podium. The examples just mentioned share a number of the features discussed in the previous section. Staging and filming via the format of the selfie video, and choices in terms of language, dress code and body language, construe a style that is more informal, intimate, and generally friendlier than that practised at the podium. Within the political enclosing scene, I have limited myself to YouTube and Instagram. Politicians are also posting videos on TikTok; however, when they do so, they rarely adopt the characteristic modalities that are specific to the platform, and, when they do, the communication practice that results is far removed from what could qualify as oratory. For instance, when he was French minister for transport, Jean-Baptiste Djebbari made headlines for the way he took to TikTok and used its codes to promote initiatives in relation to his transport portfolio.36 This example is indicative of the strategy adopted by communication strategists of the French government during President Emmanuel Macron’s first term in office, who turned massively to the digital medium in order to appeal to the younger generations, via, for instance, partnerships with YouTubers,.37 Of course, social media have proven a rich terrain for activism and awareness-raising at a grassroots level, by actors who can therefore be loosely integrated into a political enclosing scene. Unlike the influencers discussed in the previous section, who present issue-related content as part of a wider agenda and whom we would not place spontaneously within a political enclosing scene, other actors on social media primarily push a political agenda—such as Chris Lazare who speaks out on the Instagram account of Grassroots Law Project (Chap. 9). In addition, some social media videos are published during election campaigns in  See, for instance, the blog in English “And meanwhile … A French minister breaks into TikTok,” Oct.12, 2021, https://california18.com/and-meanwhile-a-french-minister-breaks-into-tiktok/ 901572021/ 37  For instance, partnerships were developed with the YouTuber Hugo Travers (now 25 years old). Again, this raises notable problems in terms of impartiality: for instance, in the case of this YouTuber, he fosters a particularly impartial status, and positions himself as a critic of traditional media; however, he simultaneously develops partnerships with both the traditional media and government bodies. These problems have been raised by numerous analysts, and extend well beyond the scope of the present study. 36

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order to support candidates. This is the case of the posts published on the account “Grassroots Law Push 2022” during the U.S. midterm elections of 2022. For instance, one video presents “constituent Rachel G.,” who speaks out in support of the Democrat candidate Jasmine Crockett. The video, filmed according to the conventions of the selfie video (portrait mode, close angle, short (reel)), ends with the following words: We have been in her office time and time again, and not just for me, but my children as constituents of House District 100 have seen what it’s like to be represented by someone who is here to work 24/7, not just for them but with them. And train and teach all her staff and interns and create a more equitable world for all of us. We must get her to Congress.38

Here, the speaker presents an argument by example, offering a personal testimonial, before ending with the call to action (“We must get her to Congress”). The forms of public speaking that are being enacted on social networks are now an integral part of the political landscape, and are having an impact on political systems and the functioning of democracies around the world. Within this socially driven landscape of twenty-first-century political communication, a landscape that has allowed new actors to participate at a grassroots level in political life, and has also provided politicians with new means of expression, the example of one specific national leader has come to the fore. In the context of a war that made it impossible for him to take to the material podium, Volodymyr Zelensky took to the digital interface.

 olodymyr Zelensky, or a War Waged Via Social V Media Oratory As of February 24, 2022, Russia began its offensive on Ukraine, and almost instantaneously, Volodymyr Zelensky attracted the attention of the world, first with his initial “selfie videos” in the first days of the  Video posted to Instagram account “grassrootslawpush2022,” May 20, 2022, https://www.instagram.com/reel/CdySVGYldMZ/ 38

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conflict, and then, over the weeks and months that followed, with the many digitalised forms of oratory that he performed in front of various national parliaments, international and tertiary institutions, and at international media events (e.g. the Grammy Awards, the Cannes Film Festival). The first selfie videos, in which he filmed himself standing in the streets of Kiev, were published on various social network platforms (e.g. Facebook, Instagram), and subsequently relayed by the world media. By June 2022, the Instagram account “zelenskiy_official” had more than 17 million subscribers. In addition, the official (trilingual) website of the Ukrainian presidency showcases the online oratory performed by Zelensky since the beginning of the conflict, which in number, average around three speeches per day.39 Zelensky made digital oratory the cornerstone of his strategy to wage a war that is arguably as much a war of communication and diplomacy as it is a war of military operations. If other political leaders have adopted the practice of selfie videos (e.g. Boris Johnson), these online “war speeches” are arresting at two levels: first, by the sheer number of them (again, on average, three per day), and, secondly, by the way Zelensky jostles more than perhaps any political leader before him with the conventions of political communication. For Susarla (2022), his videos allow him to embody the “everyman-turned-war hero,” and are effective because they create an immediate connection with the audience, because they “humanise” the conflict, and because they project an authenticity and ordinariness that is “belied by the terrifying urgency of the message.” Zelensky’s selfie videos, filmed in the solemn context of the dangers represented by the war, construe the heterogeneous stance of a speaker who is both close to his people, and a leader. In this, his oratory constitutes disruptive communication—again, not in the sense in which the term is generally used to refer to disinformation, but in the sense that Zelensky is disrupting the conventions adopted up until now by political actors. In discourse analysis terms, Zelensky developed (idiosyncratic) scenographies within a political enclosing scene, which, if they endure and are

 At least for the period of time covered by this study, that is, from the beginning of the war up until July 2022. https://www.president.gov.ua 39

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subsequently adopted by other speakers, may engender new generic scenes (e.g. “wartime” or “office” selfie video).40 At the time of writing this book, the outcome of the conflict remains very much uncertain. What also remains unclear is the long-term impact of Zelensky’s oratory practices, both in terms of the war itself, but also in terms of communication. Will he leave an enduring mark on political communication, and, more generally, on digital communication? Zelensky took to the digital interface in the specific and unprecedented context of a war in the digital age—a war that is taking place on the doorstep of Europe and that holds high stakes for the Western world, and the world in general. And if Zelensky took to the digital floor, it was because, at the onset of the conflict, he found himself isolated in a country and in a capital under siege, without the possibility of delivering speeches to a F-F audience from a podium. One of his first selfie videos filmed in the streets of Kiev, in which he says “I’m here, we won’t lay down arms,” was an act of defiance to the enemy as well as a form of reassurance to his people. As the conflict set in, his online performances allowed him to physically remain in the Ukrainian capital and embody resistance, while continuing to harness support from around the world. Zelensky’s speeches beg detailed examination by scholars within the fields of specialised communication and political science. Within these pages, I have chosen to limit myself to several aspects that are closely linked to some of the research questions addressed over the pages of this book.

Negotiating Between Languages and Cultures The speeches given by Zelensky as of February 24, 2022, which have been published either on the presidential website or on his official Instagram page, can be divided into three main categories: 1. “Outdoor selfie” videos

 For (idiosyncratic) scenographies to engender a new discursive genre, or generic scene, the format needs to be adopted by more than one social actor—as exemplified, for instance, by for the widespread adoption of the keynote format, that was first developed by Steve Jobs. 40

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2. International online appearances, either live, or pre-recorded (e.g. his addresses to European and national parliaments, his appearances at entertainment events) 3. “Office videos,” including “office selfies”: these are speeches filmed from his office, in which he provides updates of the war and the current state of international relations, and which, arguably, primarily target the Ukrainian people One common denominator that draws these various war speeches together and serves to identify their shared purpose is provided by a much-commented multi-modal resource: the speaker’s dress code. In contrast to the suit that he wore up until the very onset of the war, as of February 24, 2022, Zelensky donned for all his public speaking appearances his iconic military khaki-coloured t-shirt. The t-shirt materialises a remodelling with respect to Zelensky’s pre-discursive ethos (cf. Chap. 8). Because of the military connotation attached to the colour, the t-shirt serves as a reminder that Zelensky is no longer simply a political leader, but a leader of a country at war, and a leader who appears hands-on and engaged in the frontline with his people. In addition, in contrast to the suit, the t-shirt enhances the sense of horizontality and proximity that is synonymous with digital communication, particularly that enacted on social networks. Zelensky wears the t-shirt during all of his activities, including face-to-face podium oratory, for instance, at press conferences, and the t-shirt also serves to set him apart from world leaders when they visit Kiev and speak together on such occasions. The three aforementioned categories all qualify as digital oratory, but I will focus here on the first and third categories, which are relayed via social media, and which may, moreover, be considered the most disruptive of his communication formats. The third category, his office speeches, corresponds perhaps to the least known category from an international viewpoint (the speeches are rarely relayed via mainstream Western media). However, these speeches constitute an important body of his rhetoric: for instance, they make up more than half of the speeches on the website, and his updates to the Ukrainian people, which are extremely regular in format and in timing (generally daily), present a potential candidate for a new type of generic scene (cf. Chap. 6).

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It would be tempting to deduce that the international online appearances target an international audience, the office videos the Ukrainian people, and the outdoor selfie videos both audiences. However, this is too simplistic. Because they are disseminated digitally, these speeches, like all of the formats under study in this book, typically address composite audiences, and the status of each component of the audience varies depending on the context. Zelensky begins many of his speeches with the composite term of address “Ukrainians, all our defenders,” which refers to both his own people, as well as all those who recognise themselves as his (active) allies (“defenders”). He also uses the alternative opening “I wish health to all Ukrainians and all our friends.”41 Moreover, if the speaker targets a specific audience, he also indirectly addresses a potentially limitless one, simply by virtue of the fact that the speeches are uploaded to the Internet. Of course, the international audience is not only made up of Ukraine’s allies. Zelenksy knows that his online speeches reach the ears and eyes of his enemy. Indeed, in some speeches, he addresses them directly. For instance: The losses suffered by the occupiers, including in this area, are extremely significant. In total, the Russian army today has about 32,000 dead souls. For what? What did it give you, Russia? (my emphasis)42

Zelensky uses his online oratory as a central tool in a war that is, in effect, also being fought through the digital medium. The composite make-up of his audience is reflected in the management of the digital dissemination of the speeches, which reflects a complex negotiation being languages (N.B. linguistic stakes are part of the (extralinguistic) reality of the conflict), and between cultures. The official website of the Ukrainian presidency, which includes transcripts of the speeches and sometimes links to the videos on YouTube, appears in three different language versions (Ukrainian, Russian and English), and therefore addresses several audiences: the Ukrainian community (speaking  Official English translation of address June 11 2022, available at: https://www.president.gov.ua/ en/news/rishennya-pro-nadannya-ukrayini-statusu-kandidata-posilit-ne-75781 42  Official English translation of online address posted June 11 2022 available at: https://www.president.gov.ua/en/news/rishennya-pro-nadannya-ukrayini-statusu-kandidata-posilit-ne-75781 41

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Ukrainian and Russian), the Russian community, and the international community for whom English is the lingua franca. In addition, Zelensky’s official Instagram account often includes several language versions of the same speech: for instance, in the case of some speeches delivered in Ukrainian, a second version is published that contains English subtitles and is accompanied, in the comments section, by paratext in English. Importantly, while Zelensky is competent as a speaker in English, he chooses to give most of his speeches, including those that are delivered in international settings, in the Ukrainian language (his address delivered in English at the Emmy Awards is an exception). He thus confers a symbolic power on the Ukrainian language as a tool for national unity. At the same time, for Zelensky’s critics and for Ukraine’s opponents, it can be argued that his very vehement engagement in techno-savvy social media practices, including the practice of selfie videos, reflects his adhesion to the Anglo-American cultural model, and that, even if this former comedian and actor is displacing the communication paradigm, he is at the same time partaking in and therefore acquiescing in a cultural hegemony in terms of Western communication and cultural norms; this, in the context of such a conflict, may be interpreted in quite specific and perhaps sometimes counterproductive ways.43

Inventing Scenographies For his various selfie videos, Zelensky exploits a variety of settings. These make for a number of scenographies (in the traditional sense of the term) that serve as meaning-making resources. In itself, the selfie video reflects a choice to construe specific meanings. The main characteristics of the format obviously include the fact that the speaker is filming himself. The format presents the president as a type of “jack of all trades,” fending for  Technology holds high stakes as a strategical weapon in more ways than one. Interestingly, at the moment I finished writing this chapter, Zelensky appeared as a hologram on stage at different technology fairs around Europe (June 16, 2022), to announce that Ukraine was offering technology firms “a unique chance to rebuild the country as a fully digital democracy.” Source: “Hologram Zelenskiy promises Ukraine will defeat ‘the empire.’” July 17, 2022, The Guardian, https://www. theguardian.com/technology/2022/jun/17/hologram-zelenskiy-promises-ukraine-willdefeat-the-empire 43

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himself and managing his own communication directly. This increases his heroic stance, but also suggests a sense of isolation. The selfie also implies a close-up shot, often a very tight close-up shot, and sometimes a distorted image, as well as concision and speed, with the video breaking off as soon as the speaker has uttered the last word. These various components contribute to a sense of informal, unprepared, off-the-cuff speaking. Zelensky stages himself in numerous situations and I will simply focus here on several of his well-known “outdoor” selfies, and several recurrent scenographies of the “office” videos. The first outdoor selfie video filmed in the streets of Kiev on the evening of the first day of the war, February 24, 2022, stages the president with other members of his government. Zelensky holds the camera/phone in his right hand. He stands slightly to the left of the screen, but occupies a central position with respect to the four other government members. He gestures towards his colleagues with his left hand as he names them. Zelensky does all the talking, except at the end, when the others repeat, after him, the final line “Glory to Ukraine.” The video is filmed from a close angle, but takes in the head and shoulders of all the figures, as well as Kiev’s iconic buildings in the background. The camera is shaky and not all of the five human figures always appear in the shot, suggesting a certain amateurism, but also contributing to the sense of tension and urgency. All five figures, including Zelensky, appear frontally and look directly at the camera, choices that construe a demand (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006). At the same time, the eye-level shot places the speaker on an equal footing with the viewer. Both of these elements particularly engage the audience. Zelensky appears strong and defiant, and at the same time appeals to the viewer. Akin to that of selfie photos (cf. Chap. 7), the selfie video has an essentially phatic function, and serves to engage directly with the audience. In addition, these outdoor selfie videos mirror the ephemeral articulation with the context of situation that defines selfie tourist shots (Gunthert, 2015), whereby what counts is not the aesthetic dimension, but the “singular adventure of the one who has shot them” (Bourdieu, 1965: 62, quoted in Gunthert, 2015). Indeed, by adopting the selfie format, Zelensky enacts an inherently personal form of communication. He compounds the “sense of preferential access” to his person that is ascribed to podium oratory (Goffman, 1981, p. 188—quoted in Chap. 2).

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Zelensky adopts a similar stance in the selfie video dating February 26. This time, he is filmed alone in the street, but again looks directly at the camera, which is positioned at eye-level. He appears in the bottom-left quarter of the screen, and is positioned slightly obliquely, turning inwards, towards the centre of the frame, which is taken up by the presidential building in the background. If we adopt Kress and van Leeuwen’s multimodal interpretation scheme, and read the composition from left to right (cf. Chap. 5), the framing is powerful in that it positions Zelenksy as “a given” (i.e. on the left), and in that his presidential function, as represented by the building on the right, is, if not new, at least performatively renewed. The exact same group scenography as that enacted on February 24 is repeated on June 3, 2022, to mark the 100th day of the war. Zelensky reappears outside, surrounded by a number of his collaborators. Clearly, there is a strategy to construct a national narrative, which notably draws on a network of intertextual references, but at the same time works to stabilise and create a recognisable communication format. Unlike the night-time setting of the first video, this video is filmed in broad daylight, and from a wider angle, two elements which make for a less tense atmosphere. Similarly, a video released to commemorate May 8 uses movement and represents Zelensky, who addresses the camera frontally, walking through the streets of Kiev. This video, of one minute in duration, filmed clearly by a third party from a wide angle, does not qualify as a selfie, but adopts the modality of movement that is characteristic of many selfie videos, and is exploited here to construe a positive connotation, suggesting that the president is in full possession of the city through which he walks.44 The office videos, filmed from the office of the president, include several recurrent scenographies. In all of them, the president sits at his desk. These speeches are longer, and are generally of 5–10 minutes in duration (including the self-filmed videos, which therefore deviate from the shorter formats typical of selfies). For some speeches, the president sits slightly off-centre, positioned obliquely with respect to the camera, and the  Interestingly, unlike the earlier outdoor selfie videos, these later videos, which connote a more positive atmosphere, appear on the official website of the Ukrainian presidency. 44

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viewer can see much of his office, including a softly lit lamp.45 However, for the majority of the office speeches, Zelensky appears in the centre, the symmetrical framing construing authority, and his frontal positioning construing a demand. These centred videos can be divided into two main categories. One series of videos is filmed from a wide angle (and perhaps by a third party) that takes in not only the entire upper half of the speaker’s body, but also a number of elements in the office: we can see the green Chesterfield-type armchair that serves as a desk chair, some of the ornate decoration of the wall and fireplace behind it, and, importantly, the Ukrainian flag to the left of the frame. If it were not for the fact that the speaker is wearing a t-shirt as opposed to more formal attire, this scenography is typical of one that is frequently adopted by political leaders. A second series of videos is more interesting in that the videos are filmed from a very close angle, and are most certainly selfie videos. There is a discrepancy between the presidential function that is represented by the office, desk, and large chair (and occasionally in these close shots the viewer still gets a glimpse of the national flag), on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the adoption of the selfie format (and the president’s emblematic t-shirt). A subcategory of these videos presents Zelensky from a very close angle: the camera/phone is clearly resting on the desk, very close in front of him. In addition, the angle is low—an angle that typically confers power on the speaker, but in this case, the selfie mode squashes the perspective and provides a rather distorted image, with the speaker’s forearms and hands taking up all of the foreground, and sometimes up to half of the screen. The fact that Zelensky is wearing a t-shirt and that his arms are bare suggests a hands-on approach in a time of war. This not only makes for extremely embodied oratory but also increases the tension, as well as the impression that the speaker is indeed laying himself in the frontline.

 For instance, see post on Instagram account “zelenskiy_official,” May 26, 2022, https://www. instagram.com/tv/Cd_0sskjrnD/ [accessed 05.06.2022]. 45

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A Specific Enactment of Rhetorical Staging Another arresting feature of the emerging oratory practices forged by Zelensky is the fact that the informality of the selfie format combines with a text that cannot result from informal, improvised orality but clearly involves elaborate or at least prepared orality (cf. Chap. 4). Moreover, Zelensky’s discourse exhibits a number of components that enact Rhetorical Staging (cf. Chap. 9). Unlike the videos discussed in the first half of this chapter, linguistic choices do not echo the syntax of conversation that is typical of Dialogic Staging: the lexis is not informal, there are no discourse markers or chatty-type interrogatives (although there are rhetorical questions).46 Rather, Zelensky’s speeches take the form of lists of assertions that are not open for negotiation by way of dialogue, as well as calls to action. Let us take the example of one of the office videos, whose translation appears on the presidential website. The translation is published under the title “The decision to grant Ukraine candidate status will strengthen not only our state, but also the entire EU—address by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy” (my emphasis), where the choice of the term “address,” which connotes formality (Reisigl, 2008—cf. Chap. 2), contrasts with the screenshot of the selfie video. Zelensky begins his speech with a list of assertions that include modalisations (“actually”; “has to”; “I am sure that …”; “I am convinced that …”) which leave no room for discussion: The final phase of the big diplomatic marathon, which is to end in a week and a half, has started today. And in this marathon we are actually together with the European Union—in one team, and this team has to win. I am sure that we will soon receive an answer on the candidate status for Ukraine. I am convinced that this decision can strengthen not only our state, but also the entire European Union.47

 I base these observations on both the translations into English provided either in captions on the Instagram videos or in text form on the President’s official website, and on verifications made in the source language thanks to the assistance of a native Ukrainian speaker. 47  SpeechdatedJune11,2022,https://www.president.gov.ua/en/news/rishennya-pro-nadannya-ukrayinistatusu-kandidata-posilit-ne-75781 46

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The speech concludes with the following lines, which include the expression of obligation (“we must …”) followed by the formulaic wording based on repetition, both in initial position (anaphora) and final position (Eternal glory to all who defend Ukraine! Eternal memory to all who died for Ukraine! Glory to Ukraine!”) (my emphasis),48 which take on a performative colouring: No one can say now how long this burning of souls by Russia will last. But we must do everything to make the occupiers regret that they have done all this, and to hold them accountable for every murder and every strike at our beautiful state. Eternal glory to all who defend Ukraine! Eternal memory to all who died for Ukraine! Glory to Ukraine!

The rhetorical figure of repetition is recurrent in Zelensky’s repertoire. In another office speech, it is rendered in the English subtitles that appear on the Instagram video, in association with the figure of accumulation (where “despite” introduces each element of a 5-member list—which also includes the 4-element accumulation “kill, torture, rape and humiliate”): No matter what the Russian state does, there is always someone who says: let’s take its interests into account. This year in Davos it was heard again. Despite thousands of Russian missiles hitting Ukraine. Despite tens of thousands of Ukrainians killed. Despite Bucha and Mariupol, etc. Despite the destroyed cities. And despite the “filtration camps” built by the Russian state, in which they kill, torture, rape and humiliate like on a conveyor belt. Russia has done all this in Europe.49

Repetition forms the backbone of the script that underpins the outdoor group selfie video filmed on 24 February, reproduced in full here:

 The exclamation marks are reproduced from the official translation. In regard to the choice of the word “glory” provided by official English translations for many of the ritual collocations used by Zelenksy, a native speaker of Ukrainian (personal communication, July 2022) prefers “glorification” or “long live,” which render more accurately the performative process expressed in the Ukrainian original. 49  Post on Instagram account “zelenskiy_official,” May 26, 2022 https://www.instagram.com/tv/ Cd_0sskjrnD/ [accessed 05.06.2022]. 48

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Good evening, everyone. Fraction leader is here, Head of the Presidential Office is here, Prime Minister Shmyhal is here, Podolyak is here, president is here. Our troops are here, citizens of society are here. All of us are here protecting our independence of our country. And it will continue to be this way. Glory to our defenders, Glory to Ukraine, Glory to Heroes.50

The transcript of the 30-second video is composed entirely of assertions, mostly in the present tense, which are devoid of any form of subjective modalisation. The pronoun “I” is absent (Zelensky refers to himself in the third person according to his title—“president”). The tone is both factual and performative. This short address ends with anaphora-type repetition in initial position (“Glory to…”). What is more striking—and constitutes the most powerful resource of the piece—is the repetition in final position in what works like a roll-call (“Fraction leader is here, Head of the Presidential Office is here […]”), and repetition in initial position, to close the discourse (“Glory to our defenders, Glory to Ukraine, Glory to Heroes”). Subsequently, these words were partially taken up as soundbites by the world media. The fact that the repetition applies to the deictic adverb “here” reinforces the importance of the choice of setting (Zelensky and the members of the government are standing in the streets of Kiev), together with the message of resistance. At the same time, the deictic refers to the here-and-now of the delivery. According to the same mechanism analysed in the context of the Gettysburg address (cf. Chap. 4), its repetition engenders a spatial saturation—and by extension, a temporal saturation—according to the transcending movement that underscores Rhetorical Staging. Speaking from the streets of Kiev on the first day of the war, Zelensky, surrounded by other government officials, embodies all Ukrainians, past and present. And this is amplified by a commemorative, epideictic colouring, when the same wordings are repeated in the similar group selfie filmed 100 days later, on June 2. Zelensky uses a similar strategy the following day, in his individual selfie video:  Adapted (in collaboration with a native Ukrainian speaker) from the subtitles provided on the video published on the YouTube channel of the newspaper The Telegraph https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=0En27IsHaL0 [accessed 05.06.2022]. 50

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Good morning everyone, Ukrainians. Now there is a lot of fake information that has appeared on the net, as if I had ordered our army to lay down our arms and as if evacuation was ongoing. Here’s the situation, I’m here, we won’t lay down any arms. We will defend our country, because our arms are our truth. Our truth is that it’s our land, our country, our children, and we will defend all of this. That’s it. That’s all I wanted to say. Glory to Ukraine.51

The deictic “here” is repeated and combines with other deictics, notably references to the first person. The three references to the first person singular (“I”) are far outnumbered by the first-person plural reference, either via the pronoun “we” or the determiner “our,” the latter of which is repeated four times over a short, accumulative structure (“Our truth is that it’s our land, our country, our children”). Such repetition again engenders a saturation, this time at the interpersonal level. Even though he signs off quickly, and almost casually (“That’s it. That’s all I wanted to say”), in this way, Zelensky construes a community, underscored by shared values (defending the nation, truth), which reinforce his words as a performative act (“Glory to Ukraine”), and elevate him to the status of superspeaker. These examples point to the way the speaker uses rhetorical figures (repetition, parallelism, ternary structures) together with deictic reference. In addition, unlike the fast pace of delivery in the videos discussed in the first half of this chapter, Zelensky’s slow pace and regular pauses lend solemnity. These various resources enact Rhetorical Staging, which places the speaker in the role of a superspeaker. Zelensky transcends his audience, who are themselves transcended and integrated into a larger community, and sense that they are witnessing history in the making. Of course, this setup proves powerful for a national leader in times of war. However, if Rhetorical Staging generally widens the asymmetrical speaker-addressee relation and the discursive divide that is intrinsic to oratory, this is not the case here. Due to the adoption of the selfie format, Zelensky does not cut a distant figure. Instead, the format informs the personal, “hands-on,” horizontal and accessible persona that Zelensky  Adapted (in collaboration with a native Ukrainian speaker) from subtitles in video published on YouTube channel of The Telegraph: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gT-4RiQB9p4 [accessed 05.06.2022]. 51

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crafted for himself and that results in a rhetoric that is markedly embodied. Via both the selfie format, and the sheer number of speeches, Zelensky fosters the impression of a quasi-limitless access to his person. These examples of public speaking illustrate a form of Rhetorical staging enacted by a speaker who takes personal embodiment to a new level. * * * This chapter has brought together examples that are extremely heterogeneous in both tone and purpose. The first half of the chapter highlights new trends in digital speaking formats that combine information-sharing with persuasion in the form of activism and awareness-raising. The second half focuses on persuasive, performative speech practised by a national leader in times of war. All of these practices are indicative of digital culture, and are part of the digital ecology, whereby the podium has been replaced by the metaphoric stage (or “floor”) that is instantiated by the screen. Within the hypergenre of the “embodied short” that has been posited here, we can also posit two potential sub-categories: one that is performed by social actors who do not belong to a political enclosing scene and that can be referred to as “social advocacy oratory,” and another, delivered by social actors belonging to a political enclosing scene, and that can be qualified as “political, embodied shorts.” In placing these two types of corpora side by side, the aim has been to identify some of the ways social media is transforming the practice of oratory. A common denominator is provided by interpersonal variables. All the examples presented here reflect, to different degrees, the enactment of horizontal relations, as well as personal embodiment—notably thanks to the modalities that are specific to the selfie video. It is interesting to note that the practice of selfie videos renews rather than challenges the primary functional and interactional features associated with (face-to-face, dialogic) spoken language/orality that were discussed at the beginning of this book (cf. Chap. 2). Selfie videos ratify the central stakes of presence, proximity, and personification, which, within the digital, hyperdiscursive space, are operationalised not as a concrete interactional parameter, but as a linguistic, discursive, and technical construct.

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It can also be argued that when Zelensky films himself addressing us from the streets of Kiev, he summons forth the image that Peggy Noonan had evoked in order to describe (traditional, podium) oratory (cf. Chap. 1). Zelensky exploits the theatricality of the multimodal medium that is the selfie video. He deploys cadence, rhythm and imagery. Zelensky is “one man on a bare stage with a big spotlight,” albeit a metaphorical spotlight. An important point here is that digital communication, and particularly social media content, is disrupting communication norms and discursive categories—and therefore social categories. As I pen the final words of this book, the United States Supreme Court has just overturned the 1973 Roe versus Wade ruling in regard to abortion rights, and multiple speakers are espousing social media oratory in order to express their disbelief and anger, as well as their support towards American women. In France, MPs from the parties of the far-right and the far-left are taking the floor in the newly elected French national assembly, attempting, according to some political commentators, controversial publicity stunts in order that soundbites of their speeches go viral on social networks—an assembly where some speakers now stand reading their script or their notes from the screens of their tablets or laptops that are in full view and that they juggle in their hands as they speak. And in the professional sphere, recruiters in some sectors are now setting up appointments with candidates in the immersive metaverse, where the candidates pitch their projects or job applications via the performance of avatars. Zelensky has made a mark because he seized an opportunity offered by the digital medium, an opportunity that actors in numerous other fields are also seizing, in order to “do the talking,” via formats that are, due to constant technological advances, forever changing. As discourse analysts, we will continue to grapple with these new formats—just as we will continue to grapple with the digital, neoliberal, (post-) COVID-19 world.

References Bourdieu, P. (1965). Un art moyen: Essai sur les usages sociaux de la photographie. Minuit. Chandler, D., & Munday, R. (2016). A Dictionary of Social Media. Oxford University Press.

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Geyser, W. (2022). What is an Influencer? – Social Media Influencers Defined [Updated 2022], April 4, 2022, https://influencermarketinghub.com/whatis-an-influencer/ [accessed 04.05.2022]. Goffman, E. (1981). Forms of Talk. University of Pennsylvania Press. Gunthert, A. (2015). The Consecration of the Selfie. Études Photographiques, 32. http://journals.openedition.org/etudesphotographiques/3537 Harding, K., & Day, A. (2021). Vegan YouTubers Performing Ethical Beliefs. Religions, 12(7). https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12010007 Jones, R., & Hafner, C. (2021). Understanding Digital Literacies: A Practical Introduction. Routledge. Koester, A., & Handford, M. (2013). Spoken Professional Genres. In J. Gee & M.  Handford (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Discourse Analysis (pp. 252–267). Routledge. Kress, G., & van Leeuwen, T. (2006). Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design. Routledge. Reisigl, M. (2008). Rhetoric of Political Speeches. In R.  Wodak & V.  Koller (Eds.), Handbook of Communication in the Public Sphere (pp. 243–270). de Gruyter Mouton. Susarla, A. (2022, March 1). Why Zelenskyy’s ‘Selfie Videos’ Are Helping Ukraine win the PR War Against Russia. The Conversation.

Index1

A

Academic conference, 107, 172, 269 Activism, see Digital activism Algorithm, 214, 215n2, 224 Anonymity, 71, 72, 88, 105, 105n4, 188 Aristotle, 55, 211, 212 Asynchronous, 68, 72, 83, 88, 89, 279 Audience composite, 81–87, 305 face-to-face (F-F), 13, 16, 26, 82–87, 90, 90n16, 92–94, 133, 134n11, 135n13, 136, 137, 142, 146, 215, 221, 229, 239, 241n6, 259, 269, 276, 278, 280, 303

remote, 82, 83, 85–87, 90, 92–94, 96, 118, 133, 135n13, 142, 144, 146, 215, 239n4, 245, 259, 279, 280 Authenticity, 77, 149, 173–175, 197, 199–202, 215, 218, 222, 231, 256, 302 B

Backstaging, 196–201, 261, 287, 292, 293 Barthes, Roland, 8, 8n13 Blog, 4, 7–9, 24, 24n32, 25, 42, 116, 139, 169, 202 Body language, 32, 49, 117, 300 Bolte Taylor, Jill, 119, 265–267, 269–272, 292

 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

1

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 F. Rossette-Crake, Digital Oratory as Discursive Practice, Postdisciplinary Studies in Discourse, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18984-5

317

318 Index

Bourdieu, Pierre, 56, 75, 307 Branding corporate, 145, 187, 191–193 personal, 187–193, 262, 264, 265, 274 Brumauld, Charles, 110, 293–295, 297, 299n35 C

Churchill, Winston, 50, 84, 238–240 Clicktivism, 8, 30, 179 Climate activism, 8, 17, 166 Cognitive overload, 31, 76, 131, 135n13 Commencement address, 23, 108, 162–164 Comment, 2, 6, 11, 16, 72, 82n13, 89–91, 144, 147n35, 179, 189, 192n7, 203, 214, 229, 262, 265n16, 274, 277, 292, 295–297, 306 Community, 13, 20, 33, 45, 73–78, 81, 82, 96, 116, 130n7, 157, 167–169, 171, 173, 175, 180, 191n5, 193, 198, 199, 213, 214, 220, 239–241, 241n6, 243, 244, 248, 250n17, 261, 262, 265, 277, 277n35, 305, 306, 313 Computer mediated communication (CMC), 21, 22, 24n32, 28–29, 68n1, 71, 73, 76 Concision, 21, 52n24, 109, 170, 203, 204, 230, 242, 250, 256, 278, 307 Content creator, 201, 285, 285n5, 294n23, 299

Context, 2, 4, 6, 10, 11, 16–19, 21–23, 23n31, 25–29, 31, 34, 41–43, 49–54, 57–59, 63, 68, 70, 73–77, 79, 88, 97, 106, 114, 116, 119, 121, 126, 134, 143, 143n26, 145, 149, 153, 155, 158–160, 162, 163, 165–168, 172, 181, 188, 195, 196, 199, 201, 205, 213, 214, 216, 219, 220, 226, 228, 229, 237, 241n6, 243, 244, 251, 259, 269, 280, 284, 293, 298, 301–303, 305–307, 312 Conversation, see Dialogic speech Conversationalisation, 78, 251, 256 Conversational register, 21, 249 Co-presence, 55, 57, 67, 68, 70, 71, 73–77, 81, 82, 85, 87, 92 Corporate social responsibility, 285 COVID-19, 5, 8, 10, 15, 33, 45, 78, 81, 85, 87, 96, 110, 120, 134, 162, 180, 193, 203, 259, 276–280, 315 Culture, 9, 30, 31, 33, 52, 53, 59, 77, 114n13, 149, 150, 153–182, 187, 189, 190, 195, 199, 200n23, 201, 207, 215, 216, 221, 224, 229, 232, 243, 259, 266, 268, 274, 299n35, 303–306, 314 D

D’Amelio, Charli, 10, 11, 11n19, 75, 93, 115, 117, 149, 170, 178, 196, 197, 199, 200, 214, 217, 218, 244, 256, 285 Davis, Angela, 17, 18, 85, 93, 109, 114, 166, 193, 244

 Index 

319

Debray, Régis, 9, 118, 206 Decompartmentalisation, 167–171 Deictic, 113–116, 129, 142, 241, 312, 313 Deliberative (oratory), 157 Dialogic speech, 22–25, 23n31, 31, 33, 44, 51, 54–63, 69, 70, 92, 115, 150, 153, 198, 199n21, 231, 239, 245–248, 250–253, 252n20, 255, 262, 277, 278, 289, 310 Digital activism, 8, 8n11, 9, 16, 17, 32, 171, 179, 182, 279, 286, 293, 295, 300, 314 Digital citizenship, 8 Digital ecology, 314 Discourse corporate, 105n4, 168, 189, 219, 272, 276 workplace, 29–31 Discourse marker, 24, 78, 246, 247, 251, 253–255, 267, 310 Discursive divide, 62–63, 67, 111, 237, 313 Discursive genre, see Generic scene Dispositif, 25, 25n33 Dress code, 15, 94, 121, 213, 220, 279, 300, 304

104n1, 139n18, 162, 168, 168n9, 179, 215, 226, 245, 251, 252n20, 255, 276, 291n16 Elocutio, 104, 239, 246 Email, 27, 68–70, 75, 105, 116, 169 Empathy, 56, 58, 145, 231, 269 Empowerment, 179, 220, 271–276 Enclosing scene, 158–160, 162, 163, 165–170, 172, 187, 213, 228, 237, 262, 283–315 Entrepreneur, 95, 165, 168, 190, 192, 196n14, 216, 218, 220 Enunciative pragmatics, 158, 212 Epideictic (oratory), 116, 116n15, 240, 241 Ethos discursive, 34, 207, 211–233 interdiscursive, 211–215 pre-discursive, 212–215, 304

E

G

Echo chamber, 179, 179n20 Ecosystem, 11, 19, 74, 141 Elaborate orality, 52, 107, 109–113, 239, 245, 250, 299n35, 310 Electronic media, 15, 16, 25, 26, 31, 33, 47, 47n16, 48, 50, 51, 68, 73n3, 80, 83, 84, 88, 89, 92,

Gender, 199, 221, 266–269 Generation Z, 7 Generic scene, 18, 20, 33, 120n19, 153–182, 213, 284, 303, 303n40, 304 Grammatical intricacy, 57, 246, 249, 256

F

Fairclough, Norman, 29, 30, 52n23, 78, 169, 175, 180, 181, 187, 191, 213, 218, 251 Feedback, 69, 70, 81, 81n12, 82, 82n13, 86–91, 93

320 Index

Grammatical metaphor, 57 Guterres, Antonio, 15, 16, 18, 30, 109, 166, 244 H

Harries, Jack, 8, 230 Hashtag, 11, 11n19, 193, 197, 199 Hegemony, 30, 179–182, 306 Hill, Vanessa, 144, 291–293, 291n16 Hologram, 85, 93, 139–143, 142n25, 164, 245, 306n43 Horizontal relations, 30, 191, 221, 246, 250, 314 Humour, 13, 14, 19, 128, 164, 172, 216, 220, 221, 223, 269–271, 295 Hyperbole, 272, 277 Hypergenre, 169, 170, 170n11, 192, 283, 314

Instagram, 1, 2, 4, 12, 12n22, 30, 72, 90, 91, 93, 97, 115, 120, 143, 145, 145n29, 159, 190n4, 200n23, 203, 204, 206, 214, 215n2, 217, 220, 246–248, 287, 287n7, 288, 291–294, 296, 297, 299n35, 300, 302, 303, 306, 310n46, 311 Interactive multimodal platform (IMP), 72, 74, 80 Interface, 22, 26, 31, 45, 74, 75, 78–80, 117, 176, 254, 283, 301, 303 Interpersonal (meaning), 127, 127n2, 128, 135–137, 146, 188, 248, 255 Interrogative, 247, 251–255, 267, 269, 271, 279, 292, 296, 310 Inventio, 104 Investor pitch, 95, 104, 119, 143n26, 157, 165, 168, 169, 191, 192, 203, 206, 219, 222, 255, 292

I

Ideational (meaning), 127, 128 Identity, 4, 27, 32, 45, 60, 71, 77, 97, 105, 157, 159, 160, 169, 171, 176, 180, 181n21, 188, 188n1, 189, 195, 196, 201, 213, 249, 261 Immersive experience, 139–143, 164 Inaugural address, 23, 58, 160–163, 239n3, 243 Influencer, 11, 12, 21, 170, 178, 193, 196–200, 215, 217, 219, 284–286, 284n1, 287n7, 288, 290, 295, 300 green, 8

J

Jobs, Steve, 5, 94, 95, 127, 129, 135, 162–164, 216, 251, 251n19, 254, 272, 303n40 Johnson, Boris, 1–3, 2n2, 12n22, 30, 120, 149, 159, 166, 170, 194, 246, 249, 250, 299, 302 K

Kairos, 76, 113–116, 204 Kennedy, John F., 48, 113, 161, 176, 238–240, 239n3, 242, 242n7, 252

 Index 

321

Keynote address, 3–4 King, Martin Luther, 17–19, 62, 108, 110, 177, 193n9, 241n6, 242n9

Microcelebrity, 33, 193, 199–202, 206, 285 Mobile phone, 1, 28n37, 68, 97, 117, 119

L

N

Laptop, 131, 146, 315 Lectern, 15–18, 20, 48, 94, 103–106, 108n5, 109, 120, 136, 137, 141, 142, 161–163, 166, 193, 193n9, 246 Lexical density, 57, 245, 251, 251n19 Like, 8, 11, 12, 16, 18, 20, 30, 43, 50, 51, 58, 60, 61, 68, 70, 71, 71n2, 74, 78, 80, 85, 90, 91, 95, 105, 110, 129, 130, 132, 137, 141, 144, 145, 147, 149, 161, 167, 178, 188, 190, 196, 198, 200, 205, 212, 214, 217, 219–221, 225, 227, 231, 232n26, 240, 242, 244, 245, 247, 250n17, 255, 260, 262, 266, 268, 269, 272, 273, 276, 280, 287–289, 292, 295–297, 301, 305, 311, 312 Lincoln, Abraham, 26, 47, 115, 154n1, 241, 241n6, 242 Livestream, 6 Lucas, Immy, 196, 230

Netspeak, 68, 78 New work order, 29, 189–191, 220

M

Macron, Emmanuel, 194, 198, 299, 300 Mediator, 80, 180, 203, 212, 264, 267

O

Obama, Barack, 12n22, 62n33, 63, 110, 110n10, 161–167, 243, 252 Obama, Michelle, 12, 12n22, 13, 20, 90, 93, 110, 161, 170, 194, 214, 217, 220, 299 P

Participatory culture, 5, 8, 18, 22, 28, 191, 205, 250, 259, 274n26 Pausing (dramatic), 242 Pedagogy (public speaking), 154, 157, 212 Phatic (function), 79, 149, 307 Place-making, 298 Planned, 68 Podcast, 7, 50 Political communication, see Political oratory Political oratory, 2, 24, 30, 43n4, 57, 58, 84, 111, 117, 155, 175, 238, 243, 251, 301–303 Polyfocality, 75, 135n13 Portrait (mode), 204, 301

322 Index

Poumbga, Salima, 286–288, 287n7, 293 Prompter, 109, 126, 132, 133, 279 Pronoun (personal), 174, 250 Prosody, 242, 243, 252 Proxemics, 117, 149 Pseudonym, 105n4, 159, 188, 288 R

Radio, see Electronic media Reel, 12, 204, 204n25, 301 Religious oratory, 20n28 Remote speaker, 87–88, 92, 93, 96, 134, 134n11, 136, 166 Rhetorical figure, 16, 17, 239, 242, 244, 246, 249, 250n16, 279, 311, 313 Ritual, 42, 77, 80, 160, 172, 216, 311n48 S

Scenography, 15, 120, 120n19, 121, 134, 142, 148, 158, 163–164, 166, 170, 280, 299, 302, 303n40, 306–309 Secondary orality, 28, 68, 71, 80 Selfie video, 1–5, 1n1, 11, 13, 97, 117, 120, 121, 148–150, 149n38, 170, 190, 204, 283, 300–303, 305–312, 308n44, 314, 315 Shaman (digital), 80, 264 Slideshow, 32, 94, 94n18, 106, 109, 119, 125–133, 135, 138, 139, 141, 143, 144, 163, 167, 220, 221, 261, 268, 269

Social media account, 49, 74, 83 Social network site, 29, 29n38, 45, 72, 74, 79, 192, 285n2, 302 Social presence theory, 70 Soundbite, 18, 203, 312, 315 Speed, 3, 155, 202–205, 252, 289, 297, 307 Staging dialogic, 34, 63, 115, 164, 202, 237–256, 259, 267, 279, 289, 296, 310 rhetorical, 34, 53, 63, 115, 116, 164, 202, 237–256, 264, 267, 279, 310–315 Stakeholder communication, 94, 191, 191n5 Stone Williams, Paula, 221, 265–267 Street rally, 17, 160 Superspeaker, 88, 238–241, 243, 245, 245n10, 256, 264, 267, 280, 313 Synchronous (communication), 68 T

Technologisation (of discourse), 29, 78, 181, 188 TED talk, 4, 5, 13–16, 20, 24, 34, 42, 48, 77, 80, 85–87, 90, 93, 96, 106, 109, 110n9, 115, 119, 120, 127–129, 133, 134, 137, 143n26, 146–148, 157, 158, 166, 169, 172, 191–193, 199, 201, 203, 206, 220, 221, 225–228, 228n19, 230, 245, 248, 252, 259–280, 291, 297 Television, see Electronic media

 Index 

Three-minute thesis/3MT, 4, 74, 95, 95n20, 96, 104, 118–121, 125, 128, 143n26, 157, 158, 168–170, 187, 192, 194, 203, 205, 206, 217, 218, 220, 222–225, 228, 248, 249, 252, 253, 291, 292 Threshold, 61, 96, 111–113, 130–132, 240 TikTok, 4, 8, 10, 11, 19, 27, 72, 74n6, 75, 90, 91, 91n17, 93, 97, 111n11, 115, 117, 143, 200, 200n23, 203, 204, 214, 217, 244, 300 Transhistorical, 26, 27 Trilogue, 25, 84, 92 Tutorial, 21, 52 Twitter, 18, 24, 24n32, 81, 105, 265, 266 V

Video short, 1, 11, 12, 170, 229, 242 Virilio, Paul, 204–206 Vlog, 7, 21, 52, 89, 168n9 Voice, 2, 7–9, 11, 16, 17, 20, 30, 32, 49, 51n22, 55, 56, 62, 63, 70, 104n3, 105, 106, 117, 119, 121, 141, 142, 144, 145, 175, 177, 178, 181, 181n21, 202, 211, 213, 216, 224, 225, 242, 265, 268, 269, 279, 292

323

W

War oratory, 34, 301–315 Web 2.0, 5, 9, 28–30, 72, 73n3, 74, 79, 88, 89, 167, 171, 178, 191, 194, 232 Webinar, 96, 96n21, 169, 176, 193, 194, 198, 255, 277, 279 Website, 14, 18, 24, 25, 72, 77, 96, 139, 144, 193, 197, 206, 260–263, 265, 266, 267n22, 275, 278, 302–305, 308n44, 310, 310n46 Y

YouTube, 4, 8, 14, 16, 17n26, 18, 21, 24n32, 44, 49, 60n30, 72, 85, 89–91, 90n16, 97, 162, 168, 170, 191, 192, 193n8, 194, 195, 198, 204, 206, 213, 221, 231, 265n16, 274, 285n2, 286–288, 287n7, 291, 291n16, 292, 300, 305, 312n50, 313n51 Z

Zelensky, Volodymyr, 2, 3, 12n22, 34, 87, 120, 134, 137, 142n25, 149n38, 170, 194, 214, 301–315 Zoom fatigue, 76