by Jonelle Sage
Abovetheinfluence.com (ATI) is the gateway to a comprehensive and interactive site, which incorporates flash, verbal text, digital video, gaming, and audio clips. Of all the sources for such a site, this one originates in the White House. Abovetheinfluence.com is an attempt by the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) - a branch of the White House - to discourage illegal drug use among teens. While in some ways the institutional, governmental source of the site is clear, in many ways this "establishment" office has approached their hostile audience with a surprising blend of creativity, courage and honesty. These are applied to many of the textual, audio and visual factors which determine the site's voice - or the way in which the site presents itself to its intended audience - and which are used to bridge the distance - spatial, intellectual, emotional, economic or ethical spaces - between the site and its audience.
The distance in this rhetorical situation is immense, and rhetor and audience are continually separated by a technology-fueled explosion in the areas of media, modality and literacy. Though each explosion sets off the other, the latter of these is most significant. Whether rhetors or audience, once we grasp the full potential and varied forms of contemporary literacy, we will begin to understand the direct, charged relationship between language and power.
Voice in ATI is a nearly limitless topic. The application portion of the examination focuses on one aspect of audio modality from the first main section of the site.