Introduction

Ideological communities come together and gather in many areas of life, and in the 21st

century, social media seems to be the most popular and effective way, specifically Facebook and

Twitter. These platforms give them the space and freedom to communicate with one another.

Because of social media, communities can more easily spread their ideas to vast groups of

people. This phenomenon is exactly what the U.S. Democratic Socialists Facebook page

harnesses for their platform. The U.S. Democratic Socialists Facebook page is a place where

people who have socialist or any related beliefs can view posts, interact with members, give their

input, and express their opinions. Overall, it’s a place for communication. Almost everyone has

some form of social media, especially Facebook, so it wouldn’t be uncommon if you have

already seen this page before. With almost one million followers, this online community has no

shortage of content to research. By researching these sources, I hope to answer the questions of

what styles of rhetoric the community uses to reach its members, and what goals/purposes is the

community trying to fulfill with their writing techniques?

Primary Sources

U.S. Democratic Socialists. (2019, July 4). [Facebook Post]. Retrieved from
https://www.facebook.com/USdems/photos/a.353342425050550/934530863598367/?typ
e=3&theater

For my first primary source, I will be studying a post. This post is a screenshot of a tweet

of someone expressing their disagreement and annoyance with the current health care system.
The main point of the post is to show the absurdity of the health care system. This tweet

screenshot may connect with many people, because the twitter user mentions her family

members, and everyone cares for the health of their own relatives. This post, of course, shows

the U.S. Democratic Socialists opinion on the matter of health care. This resource will be a

helpful one because through it, I can get a glimpse of my chosen online community’s rhetoric

style, audience reaction, goals and purposes, and comment section. This community is centered

on Facebook, so it makes sense that they would pursue to post as much content as they can. The

opinion stated in this post falls in line with the beliefs and ideas of Democratic Socialism. This

post is an example of the many different types of content they publish, which I will research and

showcase more in depth during the next project. The screenshot of the tweet points out double

standards within the health care insurance system, highlighting that she can provide insurance for

her married spouse but not for her own grandmother. She then proposes universal health

insurance. This is a good example of the type of rhetoric and writing used within the community.

The rhetoric in this post is very personal, and makes the audience feel for the twitter user. The

goal of this post is to get the audience to agree with or at least consider what the post says. The

post boasts six thousand likes and one thousand shares, showing that the goal was met. And since

the U.S. Democratic Socialists Facebook page has more than 900 thousand followers, this post

was seen by many more people.

U.S. Democratic Socialists. (2019, July 4). Comments. [Facebook Post]. Retrieved from
https://www.facebook.com/USdems/photos/a.353342425050550/934530863598367/?typ
e=3&theater

For my next primary source, I will be diving into the comment section. This is the same

comment section from the post previously mentioned. Replying to a political post can serve
many different purposes. For instance, someone could build upon and add to the post or they

could attempt to refute the message of the post. In the case of this post regarding health

insurance, it is mostly a very agreeable setting. The community was giving their own personal

stories of poor healthcare providers and expressed the same frustration the post did. The main

agreement was that all categories of healthcare should be able to cover your family too. In the

replies of the comments, people continued to build upon each other’s opinions. However, there

were a few occurrences of disagreement but at the end of the day, the Democratic Socialists’

opinion on healthcare reached many people. By reading and analyzing the comment section, I

will be able to view how their rhetorical style reaches out to various members and what purposes

their writing techniques point to. Like the post, some comments from the community are

individually personal. This puts other community members and/or outside observers in a

rhetorical situation that makes them somehow relate to the commenter. Another form of rhetoric

within this comment section is calls for action. Many comments involve an exclamation

demanding healthcare for all. This rhetorical style motivates people to act more so they can reach

their purpose or goal. The purpose is to expose more people to the idea of universal healthcare,

with the end goal being for a strong push towards that healthcare policy. All these characteristics

are examples of communication within the community.

Rio Tazewell. (n.d.). In Facebook [Profile page]. Retrieved July 8, 2019, from
https://www.facebook.com/rio.tazewell/timeline?lst=100009096846918:29718535:15626
05607

For my last primary source, I will look into a main member. Rio Tazewell manages the

U.S. Democratic Socialists Facebook page. As the page describes it, he is a team member.

Luckily, many of Tazewell’s posts are public, so I will be able to research his page more in
depth. Rio Tazewell is a fairly public figure and he has worked with four different political

organizations, one of which he has founded. He currently lives in Washington, D.C. It goes

without saying that Tazewell has an active career in politics, and part of that career is being a

team member of the U.S. Democratic Socialists Facebook Page. Since he manages the page, he

has a lot of say in the community, so I decided to look over his page to gain some key points that

will help me understand the purpose and rhetoric of my chosen online community. From this

endeavor, I will be able to know the rhetorical style and purpose/goal of Tazewell, which I can

relate back to the U.S. Democratic Socialists Facebook page. Tazewell’s rhetorical style in his

posts mainly revolves around humor that points out what he perceives is the truth. This rhetoric

is in common with the Facebook page’s posts. This requires further detail, which I will save for

my analytical essay. One of Tazewell’s goals with his writing may be to make his ideas sound

more appealing than the opposite ones. His writing is relatively funny, and he expresses his

beliefs in an easy to understand way. All these factors eventually lead to more people reading his

content.

Secondary Sources

Guentzel, R. (2012). Modernity Socialism Versus Orthodox Marxism: Ideological Strife in the
Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), 1993–1999. The Historian, 74(4), 705-724.
Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/24455409

The first secondary source I will be highlighting is a scholarly journal written by Ralph P.

Guentzel. It talks about a division between two factions of the Democratic Socialist party in the

1990s. It addresses what disagreements they had and the events and writing taking place around

these disagreements. With this particular source, however, I am not going to focus on the history

of the party. Instead, I will look into the rhetoric and writing of the Democratic Socialist party
back then and see if it is similar to the U.S. Democratic Socialist Facebook page rhetoric and

writing style. One faction said that they wanted to bring up a resistance culture (Guentzel, 2012).

While this opinion isn’t explicitly what the Facebook page expresses, there is an attitude of

resistance in the online community that plays into their rhetoric. The party back then also had

calls demanding action be taken. The U.S. Democratic Socialists Facebook page participates in

demanding action too. This rhetorical style of proclamation is effective in getting people excited

which eventually leads to new members joining. Rhetoric is a very important tool to use. It can

mobilize people to act and change others’ beliefs. Each day, we are exposed to many forms of

rhetoric, whether it is the podcasts we listen to or the people we talk to. Because of this reality,

this secondary source will bring the rhetoric of my chosen online community to display. By

finding the similarities or differences in writing between 1990s Democratic Socialists and U.S.

Democratic Socialists Facebook page, I will be able to learn what communication my chosen

online community is influenced by.

Villota, E. J., & Yoo, S. G. (2018). An Experiment of Influences of Facebook Posts in Other
Users. 2018 International Conference on EDemocracy & EGovernment (ICEDEG).
doi:10.1109/icedeg.2018.8372319

The next secondary source has to do with social media, mainly Facebook. This source

talks about how Facebook socially influences people. It focuses on the behavior of social

conformity and how it is present in social media. By reading this scholarly journal, I can better

understand the effect Facebook plays in the online community I picked. Seeing how the U.S.

Democratic Facebook page revolves around and is built on social media, I decided I need to

know more about how Facebook influences people. From this study, I can find out how my

chosen community’s writing and rhetoric reaches and influences its members. I can also find out

how influence is part of their communication. In the paper, Villota and Yoo (2018) argue that the
behavior and emotional state people are in can be and/or is influenced by what other people post

on Facebook. This argument is very true with the U.S. Democratic Socialists Facebook page.

From the post mentioned above and the comment section, I have seen how users’ moods are

affected by the content. This was not only true of the previously mentioned post, but of all the

posts on the Facebook page I chose. The members will either become angry, glad, agreeable,

disagreeable depending on the post. Their attitude will be seen in their literacy. The bottom line

is that the U.S. Democratic Socialists Facebook page’s content highly influences its members’

behavior and mood. Villota and Yoo (2018) also say that to facilitate social interaction, people

will imitate the actions and mood of others. This trait may be taking place in the comment

section of my community regarding rhetoric and writing. The members who comment use the

same or similar rhetoric/writing style to that of the post. Sometimes, they may use the same

rhetoric of other members who comment. This characteristic allows a conversation to take place.

Senaweera, M., Dissanayake, R., Chamindi, N., Shyamlal, A., Elvitigala, C., Horawalavithana,
S., . . . Keppitiyagama, C. (2018). The Influence of Community Interactions on User
Affinity in Social Networks: A Facebook Case Study. 2018 National Information
Technology Conference (NITC). doi:10.1109/nitc.2018.8550063

For my third and final secondary source, I will use a scholarly journal that is also about

social media. This paper gives me information and data on Facebook that the other one does not

give. With this information, I can come to a better understanding of the rhetoric and writing of

the U.S. Democratic Socialists party and how social media plays a role in those styles. Social

media is a platform for communication, which is tied heavily to my chosen community. The

study in this journal investigated the influence Facebook has over people. They did this

experiment by looking into Facebook data before and after the Sri Lanka elections. Using

snowball sampling instead of random sampling, they were able to look into the major political
parties of Sri Lanka and obtain the results they were look for. Their goal was to understand how

the interaction of users relate to political party groups. They focused on posts, comments, and

reactions within the online groups. While their study was much more intense, it is similar to what

I am doing with the U.S. Democratic Socialists Facebook page. By reading that they looked into

comments and posts like I am doing, I won’t be too worried about my methods of understanding

the literacy/rhetoric of my community. Senaweera et al (2018) claim that most people who are on

Facebook choose to associate with one single online group. With regards to the online

community I’ve chosen, this observation makes a lot of sense. If Facebook users choose to

interact with mainly one group or page, there is more communication and ultimately a same form

of rhetoric and literacy.