The story of my connection to digital rhetoric begins with Congresswoman Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (AOC). She ran for Congress in the 2018 midterm election and won against tough odds. The way she utilized social media such as Twitter and Instagram rhetorically to build community and build trust with her local constituents caught my attention. I had been studying multimodal meaning-making in digital spaces, including emojis and other symbolic communication; but, for me, AOC’s digital and rhetorical strategies made everything click into place. I studied the way she balanced her personal and the political identities on social media platforms, how she connected…
Author: Danielle Koepke
Danielle Koepke
Danielle Koepke is a second year PhD student in Public Rhetorics and Community Engagement at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She has an MA in Rhetoric and Composition, and her academic interests include multimodal composing practices, digital literacies, and feminist theories.