Theft of an Audience, Relating to Warnick

One line stood out to me over others in Warnick's article.

"A second factor complicating rhetorical critical study...is what happens to the notion of audience...In the first place, the identity of the audience as distince from the rhetor in many forms of CMC is quite difficult to place." ( 77)

It has been commented in another posting that this article is fairly outdated, given how quickly CMC advances and develops. Even so, this statement holds true today. How do we ever know if the person we want to receive our information will do so? In our blog here, we write under the assumption of writing to our classmates as the audience. However in the average blog, even those considered more reliable (i.e. slashdot.org for news and ign.com for gaming) are subject to the editors, or moderators, running them.

Farther down the page, Warnick goes on to state: "This is not to say that rhetorical critics cannot provide support for readings of texts. They can, but the support would have to come from probable readings of the texts they have studied..." (77)

It seems very interesting and I look forward to how or if this is issue is addressed.