what is rhetoric?
Using language effectively to persuade, inform, educate, or entertain
rhetoric of media
media
society
emphasis
social relations, everyday interactions, operation of
broader social grouping
Lasswell’s Communication Model
Critiques of Lasswell’s Model
*Useful for seeing components of communication process
*But: oversimplified
*Linear process: senderàreceiver
*One-way flow of information
*Passive receiver
*Doesn’t tell us how information can be meaningful
Encoding/Decoding
Reality exists outside language, but is constantly mediated by and through language: and what we can know and say has to be produced in and through discourse
3 ways to decode a message
Dominant Reading
Negotiated Reading
Oppositional Reading
putting text into content
Major part of critical thinking, reading, analysis
*When you make media you have power
*When you critically consume media and understand rhetoric you gain access to power
*When you use this in service of producing content you become powerful
Every rhetorical situation includes choices
about:
*Genre: what type of text you are writing
*Purpose: what are you trying to accomplish
*Audience: whom you are writing for
*Voice: how you want to sound
*Media and Design: how you want your writing to look
writing to persuade
*To think something
*To buy something
*To feel something
*To do something
*To click something
*To “like” something
Logos
rational appeal
Strategies of logic:
*Appeal to reason
*Ex: facts, statistics, arguments, concrete evidence
Pathos
Emotional appeal
*Persuasion by moving audience to feel something
*Attempt to appeal to an audience’s sense of identity, self-interest, and emotions
*Ex: interviews, imagery, individual stories
Ethos
Ethical appeal
credibility
*Appeal to a source’s credibility
*“What does this person know about this topic?” and “Why should I trust this person?”
*Convey trustworthiness in style and tone
*Establish credentials
public relations
activities aimed at favorably
influencing the public
Political Spin
&
Spin
The attempt to control or influence communication on order to deliver ones preferred message
spin:
Spin is a pejorative term often used in the context of public relations practitioners and political communicators
the leak
politicians prided a story to journalists in exchanged for the story not to be scrutinized
pivoting
not answering the questions you’ve been asked
the vomit principle
if you convey a message so many times you have to “throw up” the public might finally get it
playing dead bat
staying quiet answering nothing