Browse Exhibits (1 total)

Common to the social media of today is the rapid dissemination of information. It takes no more than a single click to share a post or retweet a picture. And, among this proliferating landscape of data, visual rhetoric has come to dominate much of the digital discourse in today’s society. One form of visual rhetoric that has gained popularity in recent years is the sharing and retweeting of quotes, often accompanied by imagery to evoke a certain meaning to an audience. Often times these quotes come from scholars of antiquity; other times they come from modern, everyday denizens. Perhaps, more importantly, is how they act as a commentary on the state of affairs of everyday society, speaking to an array of audiences that span from the individual to the world.

Quotes are disseminated through myriad individuals and groups, a product of the mechanisms that enable social media to be… well, social. While there are several groups and communities throughout Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram that post this type of content on a regular basis, the sharing and retweeting of these quotes is done by our families and friends. As a matter of fact, some quotes have such frequent circulation that they have become part of the public domain (like the images on the following pages). Because of their continual circulation, it might be important to observe the messages they are conveying (often recontextualized from original meaning), and how said messages are affecting different audiences.