ABSTRACT
The Internet of Things poses challenges for a digital rhetoric because it requires active engagement with physical things (per Martin Heidegger); increasingly complex intra-actions between humans and things (per Karen Barad), and new kinds of rhetoric aimed at mutual accommodations between humans and things (per Kenneth Burke). As virtually everything—from drones to sexbots to children’s toys—becomes digitized, things become both more safe and secure and also more threatening due to invasions of privacy, security breaches, and possible physical harm. Burke’s rhetoric, extended to encompass digitized physical things, provides a hopeful response to such a world.
