Relevance of the Topic. In the contemporary information society, digital culture determines not only the modes of communication but also the mechanisms of social influence. Digital rhetoric has become an infrastructural form of power operating through algorithms, interfaces, and platforms, structuring social scenarios, affective interaction, and the identity of the subject. The study of digital rhetoric requires socio-philosophical reflection on its role in producing social reality and legitimizing knowledge, norms, and cultural standards within networked environments.
Research Aim: To investigate digital rhetoric as a system of socio-technical construction of human worldviews, everyday communicative and social practices, and hybrid social communities in the context of the information society and digital culture.
The object of research is the phenomenon of digital rhetoric in the context of the information society and digital culture. The subject is the mechanisms of digital rhetoric that construct models of social communication, ensure the dynamics of "reassembling the social," and adjust perceptions of meanings, goals, and norms of social life.
The theoretical and methodological position is grounded in an interdisciplinary approach combining classical rhetoric, functional and pragmatic linguistics (Austin, Searle), discourse analysis (Foucault, Fairclough), theories of power and surveillance (Foucault, Deleuze, Zuboff), platformed sociality (van Dijck), social constructionism (Berger, Luckmann, Latour), network theory (Castells), media ecology (Postman, McLuhan), and assemblage theory (Latour, DeLanda).
Research Hypothesis: Digital rhetoric is a culturally conditioned, hybrid phenomenon integrating rhetorical, cultural, and communicative approaches and forming an autonomous theoretical and methodological field. The specific conditions of the digital environment — networked structure, algorithmicity, interface modality, and multimodality — give rise to new rhetorical strategies: algorithmic stylistics, interface argumentation, and techno-social audience modeling. Digital rhetoric performs not only a communicative but also an ontological function, participating in the construction of social knowledge, hybrid subjectivity, and new forms of power.
Scientific Novelty: for the first time, a systematic analysis of the interrelation among the information society, digital culture, and digital rhetoric has been proposed; new rhetorical techniques — interactivity, algorithmic audience modeling, and hybrid communication forms — have been substantiated; digital rhetoric has been conceptualized as a culturally conditioned complex of strategies at the intersection of cultural studies, communication theory, and classical rhetoric; interface argumentation has been elaborated as a mechanism for institutionalizing new forms of sociality; algorithmic stylistics has been substantiated as an autonomous interdisciplinary research field; digital rhetoric has been proposed for the first time as an ontological format of social being; the digital platform has been conceptualized as a rhetorical institution; the concept of "platform identity as assemblage" has been formulated; and digital rhetoric has been defined for the first time as an infrastructural form of social power operating through algorithmic selection of meanings, affective mobilization, and the rhetoric of popularity.
Theoretical significance lies in the conceptualization of digital rhetoric as an autonomous interdisciplinary phenomenon synthesizing approaches from classical rhetoric, cultural studies, and digital communications. Practical significance lies in the development of an analytical framework for studying digital communication in its interactive, algorithmic, and multimodal forms, applicable in digital humanities, media analysis, information security strategy development, and digital ethics.
Keywords: digital rhetoric; digital culture; information society; platforms; social construction; interface argumentation; algorithmic stylistics; digital communication; algorithmic mediation; subjectivity; power.
