If digital rhetoric can be generally defined as communication thatexists in the digital sphere, then one way to experience this new media is through storytelling. In studying the Rhetoric of Digital Media from a creative writing perspective, consider John Branch’s multimedia piece,
“Snowfall.” 

In his essay, "Literatureof Exhaustion," Barthpresents three types of artists. A technically old-fashioned artist writes as if the great writers of thelast sixty years or so had not existed. A technically up-to-date non artist
lacks vision, human insight, poetic power, and mastery. An artist is
technically up-to-date, however, when "he confronts an intellectualdead end and employs it against itself to accomplish something new.” This type of artist can "paradoxically turn the felt ultimacies of our time into material and means for his work.” Indeed, "Snowfall" proves that John Branch is a technically up-to-date artist.

Some say that print journalism is dying. However,Branch introduces a form that could help resurrect journalistic reporting. RebeccaGreenfield of The Atlantic asserts, "Unlike a standardwords-on-page article that doesn't diverge too much from print in the design department, "Snow Fall" . . . integrates video, photos, and graphics in a way that makes multimedia feel natural and useful, not just tacked on." Thus, the audience experiences literary narrative techniques, feature film framing techniques, graphic art visual techniques, and journalistic interviewing techniques. Indeed, Barth wouldargue that Branch takes these seemingly “used-up” forms and employs them to create something new.

Regarding “felt ultimacies of our time,” artistsmust, primarily, deal with contemporary ennui, the kind of boredom that comes with having a world of knowledge and entertainment just a click away. However, Branch and his team of photo and video journalists, graphic artists, coders, and web designers confront this languor by creating a news story this is interactive and entertaining, yet intellectually and emotionally stimulating. When TaylorCampell of the Graduation Project asked how this new digital medium mayimpact the future of journalism, Branch stated, “I think we're limited only by our imagination, and we're learning that the ‘old’ way of presenting or structuring a story does not always need to apply.”
From a creativewriting perspective, I doubt that John Branch may not be concerned about meeting John Barth’s decades-old standards for a “technically up-to-date artist.” That is not the point. This is: art should not merely reflectdevelopments in media, technology, and culture. Art should, like “Snowfall,”
take advantage of these developments and then transcend them.