English 680V: Visual Rhetoric in a Technological Age (Purdue)

The idea of knowledge communities, and their flexible nature, struck me as key in Convergence Culture.  If communities rise and combine and merge and flow, telling extended stories and creating ways of knowing that are new, how does that effect the way that we learn/approach rhetoric?  Part of how we understand a discourse and an audience is as a body of language (loosely used, incorporating visual language, physical language, rites and rituals) which is defined by those outside.  Of course, these knowledge communities like the spoiler, fit this to a T.  However, what was once defined as a VALID knowledge community seems to be shifting.  No longer is the academy or law or big bad white dudes the controllers of what becomes a powerful knowledge community.  For example, the internet community that sprung up around Snakes on a Plane, that pretty much changed the script via public pressure.  This is exerting a community authority not sanctioned by any particular body (except perhaps consumer based culture).  Where ever did they get that Authority?  If any community/body of people can claim to be joining together to be making knowledge, then how can we as rhetoricians study how to talk to them?  There are personal laws and rules that each knowledge community follows, so how do we define them as an audience.  The demographics are changing, and people are increasingly altering what they are authorities on.  Now everyone with internet access can find some vague and out there thing in which they are an expert.  This is not a bad thing, but it makes me wonder about how it will change the way communication, community, authority, and rhetoric will operate in a multi-interconnected world.