AbstractThis paper introduces moral argument analytics, a technology that provides insights into the use of moral arguments in discourse. We analyse five socio-political corpora of argument annotated data from offline and online discussions, totalling 240k words with 9k arguments, with an average annotation accuracy of 78%. Using a lexicon-based method, we automatically annotate these arguments with moral foundations, achieving an estimated accuracy of 83%. Quantitative analysis allows us to observe statistical patterns and trends in the use of moral arguments, whereas qualitative analysis enables us to understand and explain the communication strategies in the use of moral arguments in different settings. For instance, supporting arguments often rely on Loyalty and Authority, while attacking arguments use Care. We find that online discussions exhibit a greater diversity of moral foundations and a higher negative valence of moral arguments. Online arguers often rely more on Harm rather than Care, Degradation rather than Sanctity. These insights have significant implications for AI applications, particularly in understanding and predicting human and machine moral behaviours. This work contributes to the construction of more convincing messages and the detection of harmful or biased AI-generated synthetic content.

This article explores the adaptation of Gérard Genette's concept of narrative prolepsis in the realm of social media as the proleptic technique, demonstrating its effectiveness as a tool for anticipatory rhetoric in digital communication. By analysing selected instances from Twitter and Facebook, the study illustrates how digital utterances employ proleptic cues to capture audience attention and potentially engage audiences. The concept of prolepsis, traditionally associated with narrative foresight in literature, is shown to be effectively transposed into the digital context, where it functions as a mechanism to attract user attention. This adaptation highlights the dynamism of rhetorical strategies in the evolving landscape of digital communication, underscoring the continuity of classical rhetorical principles in new media environments. Future research should incorporate a corpus study, which would allow for an in-depth examination of the diverse array of proleptic cues employed by social media influencers. Furthermore, an exploration into the persuasive efficacy of prolepsis, along with its potential links to reasoning fallacies, could provide intriguing insights. Additionally, an analysis of audience reactions to these cues could contribute to a more holistic understanding of their impact.