Subjectivity Under the Smartphone: A Rhetorical Examination of Digital Communications Technologies

Abstract

This dissertation examines how the ubiquitous presence of the smartphone is reshaping what it means to be a subject, and how people experience their subjectivity, in a digitally mediated society. I explore this question by analyzing the smartphone as a persuasive agent on both a micro (individual) and macro (societal) level. In positioning the smartphone as a persuasive agent, I move beyond traditional rhetorical analyses in or of digital environments to a multimodal analysis of the rhetorical nature of the smartphone itself. My analysis combines two empirical approaches for studying digital rhetoric—captology and procedural rhetoric—into what I call a captocedural rhetorical approach. The dual approach I employ considers both the intentions of phone designers and actual usage patterns for users, with a focus on the affordances of the smartphone that encourage and enable these particular usage patterns to emerge.

With this approach, I identify three aspects of the smartphone’s address that make it so persuasive and pervasive: it is constant, it is customizable, and it alters the perceived consequentiality of the actions, interactions, and procedures conducted through and with these devices. Each of these three elements can be examined on both an individual level (looking at the smartphone’s captological features) and a broader level (which considers the processes and procedures that the smartphone either necessitates or facilitates). In both cases, it is clear that the smartphone is becoming more integral in daily life more quickly than any previous communications technology; as such, it is important to assess how and why this device differs from previous technologies in terms of its affordances and effects. By scrutinizing the smartphone’s impact on users’ behaviours, beliefs, and values, I aim to bring it back to the forefront of thought and discern some of the key consequences of its “taken-for-grantedness” (Ling).