Five considerations for engaging with Big Data from a rhetorical-humanistic perspective

Abstract

This essay offers five conceptual entry points for engaging with Big Data from a rhetorical perspective. These five concepts-data in/as relationships, observability/action, patterns, diachronicity, and audience-serve as points of deep conceptual commonality between definitions of Big Data and principles in rhetorical studies and are offered here as considerations for critiquing uses of Big Data from a rhetorical-humanistic perspective, as well as for guiding rhetorical work that uses Big Data.