Reed Ramsey

COMM 271 Response

9/5/2015
The second persona and stylistic tokens are important to the study of rhetoric
The second persona is the idea of looking at the text outside of the situation that it was
administered. This is very important for the study of rhetoric because it enables an examination
of the intent of the author. Stylistic tokens are subtle metaphorical cues that the auditor can
choose to adopt or to reject such as the communism as cancer metaphor used in Blacks essay.
There are a few conclusions to draw from this, but the largest of them being ideology. The
second persona is an attempt to communicate a specific ideology to a specific audience, for
instance conservatives in congress cater messages to combat gun control by using the 2nd
amendment. Stylistic tokens take the discussion to a more nuanced level, because it looks to
how the auditor perceives the rhetor. In other words, auditors will look for subtle signs as to how
they should act. Another example from conservatives in Congress would be how they demonize
the Left for their use of political correctness. The stylistic token of many conservatives is to
use language like illegal alien or blacks when characterizing people in the U.S. These
ultimately cue conservative Americans to use similar language in their everyday lives and to
adopt a specific identity. This is important to rhetoric overall because it allows a way to identify
the intent of the rhetor, their ideology, and their potential underlying motivations. In summation,
the second persona is the idea that a rhetor has an intended audience, and the rhetor is trying to
persuade the audience towards a specific ideology. The way the rhetor accomplishes this feat is
through using stylistic tokens embedded within the text.
The second persona and stylistic tokens are important to the study of rhetoric of video games.

The second persona and stylistic tokens are important to study in video games,
because they give insight into how people create their identities within games both online and
offline.Through a pre meditated rhetorical boundaries, developers create a limited space for
players to express themselves. This is especially important today in the world of video game
consoles like the PlayStation 4, because of the new share option. Players now have a share
button on the upper left side of their remotes this enables players to capture moments of their
gaming and publish these moments to social media. Similar to how Facebook has a new live
stream feature, PS4 has a similar function in live gameplay. This gameplay allows for any
person with a PS4 and Internet connection to view what you are playing. This new level of
interconnectivity has opened up a whole new avenue when discussing the second persona and
stylistic tokens, because you dont necessarily have to be playing an Massively-MultiplayerOnline-Role-Playing-Game to see other players identities. Players now have the ability to see
any player playing any game at any given time. For instance, I could watch a player, who is
attracting a large number of viewers, running through the dark zone (a highly dangerous
player-versus-player location) in The Division in order to get a better understanding of farming
for higher level gear. More often than not the player streaming the broadcast will have a
microphone, which means you can listen to the conversations of the group and their playing
style. The ability to listen to the player interact with their group and the ability to watch the
player interact with other players outside of their group enable the viewers to pick up on the
stylistic tokens of the broadcaster. Stylistic tokens can range from kicking low level players
out of the group, targeting low level players in the P.V.P. zone, or acting benevolent in the P.V.P.
zone. The viewer has the option of implementing the ideology of the broadcaster or to reject it.
In summation, the PS4 share button opens up a new discussion of the second persona,

because it expands individual players reach outside of their ur-Real existence into live stream
videos, screenshots, and recorded videos. This also allows for a higher level of scrutiny of
stylistic tokens, because other players have the opportunity to interact with the broadcaster
both in the world of the MMORPG and on their shared content.