Persuasion without authorship

After reviewing Campbell's "Agency: Promiscuous and Protean," I could not help but keep thinking back to the question we discussed in class on whether or not there can be persuasion without an author. Campbell used the case of the Sojourner Truth speech, which relates well with this question. Campbell contemplates two sides to what authorship did to Truth's speech, writing, "without Gage’s artistry, which gave Truth’s speech dramatic form, we could not participate in what we imagine to be the originary moment or experience the play of ideas, the metaphors, or the interaction between Truth and her opponents. At the same time, Gage’s text contains the malign agency of racist stereotypes that demean Truth and those for whom she speaks (p.14)." What authorship gave to Sojourner Truth's speech was a place and a feeling to go along with the words she said. Authorship does attribute to persuasion in the fact that its dramatization can suck the reader into the moment of the message that was being sent, and allows readers to be more receptive to that message than if it were just reported on word by word. People normally more enjoy reading novels to textbooks. Campbell also states that this dramatization can also bring about negative aspects, such as the stereotyping of black people, but people are seemingly able to read through that and still absorb the higher message. In this sense, authorship does cultivate persuasion, but persuasion can still happen without it. The author of Truth's speech was persuaded with what she had to say at the conference, it just took authorship to branch those ideas to a wider audience. At that time, persuasion without authorship happened on a much smaller scale than with authorship, but in the era we live in now, that method of persuasion can reach a much higher audience. Yes president's speeches are written, but presidential debates happen in real time with unplanned responses. Live video being as normal and accessible as it is today can somewhat through a wrench into Campbell's thoughts on the necessity of an author to fully convey a message. A convention such as the one in which Truth delivered her speech could easily be videotaped in real time today, allowing people to see and hear the message that is being sent in such speeches. There are videos of events like that on television all the time on channels like CNN, CSPAN, and even ESPN. Being able to be somewhere without actually being there is what the modern digital era is all about. A thought like this is rather scary in regards to what might become of most of our traditional ideas of what an author is and what the value of an author is. A massive author evolution may be just on the horizon in order for the concept of an author to stay relevant and alive.