Retoriset

Retoriset is a theoretical framework within the field of rhetoric that investigates how persuasive messages are constructed and adjusted for diverse audiences across media platforms. The term treats rhetorical technique as a dynamic repertoire rather than a fixed set of rules, emphasizing modulation, audience alignment, and medium-specific constraints. Proponents describe Retoriset as a method for tracing how rhetorical moves are selected, combined, and reframed to fit context, genre, and technology.

Origins and development: Retoriset emerged in the early 21st century among scholars of digital communication, media studies, and discourse analysis. It draws on concepts of audience design, situated persuasion, and media ecology, and has been extended to consider algorithmic mediation, platform norms, and analytics that influence message shaping.

Core concepts: Modular strategies enable recombination of rhetorical moves; audience modeling uses demographic and psychographic characteristics to tailor messages; platform adaptation accounts for format, interactivity, and reach. Ethical considerations address transparency, manipulation risk, and respect for audience autonomy. Methodologically, Retoriset favors comparative analysis across cases and media, with mixed methods to assess engagement, attitude change, and behavior.

Applications and reception: The framework is used in political communication, advertising, public health campaigns, education, and corporate messaging to analyze how messages are designed for different publics. Critics argue that Retoriset may encourage homogenization of messages and raise concerns about data privacy and manipulation.

Relation to related fields: Retoriset intersects with digital rhetoric, discourse analysis, persuasion science, and communication theory. It remains a developing area with ongoing debates about validity, ethics, and the limits of platform-based analysis.