Circulation in Composition

Circulation, or the potential for circulation, must be considered in the composition process because of its function as a rhetorical constraint. Especially in the digital age, the circulation of a text is very closely linked to the audience of that text; the success or failure of a text may be gauged by its circulation among social media sites. As the social nature of digital re-publication supersedes the restrictive nature of fixed-point publication, circulation moves increasingly to the hands of the readership.

Terms like “spreadability,” referring “to the potential—both technical and cultural—for audiences to share content for their own purposes, sometimes with the permission of rights holders, sometimes against their wishes” (Jenkin 3), evolve to describe the ways audiences interact with media after its initial dispersal. In some way, spreadability emerges as another constraint dictating the form rhetoric of a given genre takes. Although “stickiness,” or “the need to create content that attracts audience attention and engagement” (Jenkin 4) is similarly important to composition, the concept of spreadability takes advantage of the more open and available publication style now prominent through online publication. It is easier now than ever to reproduce or further circulate a text.

Digital media revolutionized the way readers interact with a text. Features like comment sections encourage audiences to directly interact with the text presented, eliminating many of the barriers in the author-audience relationship. Through these comments, a text is transformed into “a collaborative project, a conversation, with its audience” (Smith). Beside direct interaction with a text, the different venues for sharing a digital text have grown exponentially as social media expands across the web. An article can be taken from its original source and spread through hyperlink across any number of platforms, from posting on a friend’s Facebook wall to embedding a URL in an Instagram biography.

Circulation contributes another constraint, or another variable, for authors to consider in composition as they postulate the audience’s secondary disbursement of the text. In the modern digital age, the audience’s interaction with the text is more influential than ever on the success or failure of a given piece.