Students’ Social Media Disclosures: Reconsidering the Rhetorics of Whistleblowing

Abstract

This article examines how whistleblowing evolves as a rhetorical genre alongside emergent media. By analyzing three events involving student disclosures on social media, this article argues that students’ social media communication can qualify as whistleblowing, just as whistleblowing can qualify as rhetoric. Notably, whistleblowing’s current conventions, which are heavily based in business and organization studies, suggest otherwise. This article introduces a concept called kinderuption to facilitate rhetorical analyses of whistleblowing. Approaching whistleblowing events as kinderuptions invites critical attention to audience engagement and influence, and a reconsideration of underlying themes like intention, harm, and care.