TikTok has emerged as a powerful platform for advocacy, allowing individuals and organizations to amplify their voices and drive social change. With its engaging short videos and extensive reach, TikTok empowers users to raise awareness about critical issues, mobilize supporters, and foster community engagement. By tapping into the creative potential of this platform, advocates can inspire action, challenge societal norms, and create meaningful conversations that resonate with diverse audiences. While veganism is often viewed as an alternative and even radical lifestyle that challenges mainstream views on food consumption, health, and morality, it has recently garnered scholarly attention. Studying distinctive dietary minorities, such as Ed Winters, a prominent vegan advocate, helps us understand his motivations and how he uses dialogue to negotiate a socially marginalized status. This study conducts a rhetorical analysis of Winters' TikTok reels, examining their social relevance and the subjectivity of the data presented. It draws on discourses surrounding animal welfare, human health, and environmental awareness. Three rhetorical acts are identified that serve as powerful tools for advancing advocacy. They illustrate how Winters constructs discourse to convey the importance of discussing these issues rhetorically through TikTok, facilitating collective deliberation in persuasive situations in the digital age.

Authors:
Jea Agnes Taduran-Buera, University of the Philippines Los Baños, Philippines

About the Presenter(s)
Dr. Jea Agnes Taduran-Buera is currently a faculty member in the Communication Division of the Department of Humanities at the University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB). She is the proponent of major courses under the Bachelor of Arts in Communication Arts program which are SPCM 158: Strategies in Conflict Resolution and SPCM 159 Nonverbal Communication. She has recently published two journal articles and a book chapter in the Elsevier Academic Press, the Philippine Humanities Review, the Southeast Asian Media Studies Journal, and the Journal of East Education. She has presented research papers at various conferences both within the Philippines and internationally. She serves as an associate editor for Makiling Review and is a reviewer for the Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, Plaridel, International Communication Association, and Simbolismo.

Connect on Linkedin
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jea-agnes-taduran-351a3b72/

See this presentation on the full schedule – Wednesday Schedule

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