In 2014, Rawlins and Wilson proposed a typology of agential interactions between users and designers of interactive data displays. This article tests that typology by studying 20 users working with three different types of interactive data displays and answering questions, which were coded by verb and actor and analyzed for themes. The authors show that rhetorical agency is marked by thoughts, actions, and language. Affordances by the designer open a shared rhetorical space where user and designer are coparticipants. As interactivity increases, participants see themselves as rhetorical agents in a community of rhetorical agents rather than as conduits of information.

This study investigates the themes that drive persuasive recruiting appeals, or stories, designed to attract new, entrepreneurial workers in the direct selling industry. It offers a rhetorical perspective informed by fantasy theme analysis on the themes present in the recruiting content on the corporate Web sites of three direct selling companies (Mary Kay, Stella & Dot, and Scentsy). The analysis indicates that rhetorical agency is a core theme in the persuasive recruiting stories for these companies. Offering a means for business and technical communication scholars to explore agency or other persuasive story themes in context, this study addresses how a rhetorical perspective is useful to assess recruiting appeals in shifting, entrepreneurial work contexts.

Much has been written about how to evaluate static graphics from the perspective of clarity, ethics, efficiency, and power relations. However, when considering interactive graphics, agency must enter the conversation. This article develops a typology to understand the balance of agency between the designers and users of interactive graphics. The authors use this typology to interrogate 2 contemporary theories of rhetorical agency advanced by Miller and by Herndl and Licona.