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selenaromano28-blog · 8 years ago

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*What is Rhetoric to Me?*

May 16, 2017

In Comm 320, Rhetorical Traditions with Dr. Meg, I learned about many theories such as Foucault’s discursive practices, Butler’s feminine style, and Guttmann and Thompson’s deliberative democracy. This essay highlights how my definition of rhetoric shifted from the beginning to the end of the course.

In the beginning of the term, when I was asked what rhetoric was, I really had no clue what I was talking about. I first stated that rhetoric was “…critically looking at pieces/readings and analyzing them for narrative, language, etc.” This isn’t wrong, but it definitely doesn’t really encompass what the idea of rhetoric is; I understood that we could analyze rhetoric and that’s what we’re supposed to do with rhetoric, but I didn’t really have much of a clue what rhetoric really was. I also stated that rhetoric is, “figuring out the identity and tone of each piece/reading as well.” I go a little more in depth when I say that we can figure out the identity and tone of a piece when analyzing rhetoric, but again, this is really only the speech aspect of rhetoric; rhetoric is much, much more than just spoken and written words. Lastly, I realized that “we cannot communicate without rhetoric.” This was probably the best thing I wrote on that paper. Rhetoric is how we communicate; not just spoken or written words, but with our body language, our clothes, the way we react to situations, the people we hang out around, and literally anything else you can think of.

As mentioned above, some of the ideas that stood out to me the most throughout the course of Comm 320 were discursive practices, feminine style, and deliberative democracy. The theorist that had the most impact on me in the course was Foucault. One of Foucault’s big theories was that “language served as the signs of things that made up reality, severing the natural connection between words and things.” (Ross & Gill, 387). Foucault is saying that rhetoric is about language, but it also has to do with how we act, the environment around us, and the way words are perceived. Another big theory of Foucault’s was this idea of discursive formation; this was his huge contribution to rhetoric. According to Ross & Gill, “… he is concerned with discourse that, because it follows particular rules or has passed the appropriate tests, is understood to be true in culture.” (Ross & Gill, 387). Foucault is saying that simple sayings about the weather, like it’s going to snow, isn’t of his concern, but the fact that statements like that are deemed true when the weather channel says it is, because of culture, we believe the weather channel, and therefore believe it will snow. So, Foucault is interested in the culture of simple sayings and how we find them true or how/why we follow them. Furthermore, Ross & Gill also state that Foucault believes discursive speech also involves non-discursive acts, too, not just written and spoken discourse. This includes spaces, social relations, architecture, and several other non-discursive practices. Lastly, Ross & Gill state that the five primary units that Foucault followed were: discursive practices, rules, roles, power, and knowledge.

Another theorist that really had a lasting impression to me was Butler. She contributed the idea of feminine style and gender norms. Learning about feminine style and gender norms was probably one of my favorite lessons in this class. I think it was one of my favorite lessons because it was so easy to find real life examples for feminine style and gender norms and as a class, we had so much fun correlating what Butler had to say and what popular culture says about feminine style and gender norms. To begin, Butler defines “norms” as “…certain kinds of practices and action to become recognizable as such, imposing a grid of legibility on the social and defining the parameters of what will and will not appear within the domain of the social” (Butler, 41). Essentially Butler is saying that genders get constructed under these norms that generalize genders and if a gender doesn’t conform to these norms, they are “weird” or not a “real” man or woman. We found a lot of gender norms in music videos like “Girl in a Country Song” and “Work From Home.” Before analyzing music videos like this for gender norms, I never really realized how much songs use “notions of masculine and feminine [to] produce and naturalize” (Butler, 43) genders. Butler also claims, though, that even though gender norms are being constructed every day, especially in popular culture, “gender might very well be the apparatus by which such terms are deconstructed and denaturalized” (Butler, 43). For instance, the whole point of “Girl in a Country Song” was to deconstruct the gender norms that “Bro Country” songs give to women, but in the process of doing deconstructing, they constructed gender norms by assuming that all country songs and all men are rude to women.

The last theorist and idea that added to my idea of rhetoric was Guttmann and Thompson’s theory of deliberative democracy. According to Guttmann and Thompson (2004), there are four important characteristics to deliberative democracy: reason-giving, accessibility, binding, and dynamic. Reason-giving is meant to show citizens respect and justify their reasons (Guttmann & Thompson, 2004, p.4). Furthermore, the idea of accessibility means that the reasons given need to be comprehensible and the reasons need to take place in public (Guttmann & Thompson, 2004, p.4). The third reason, binding, is used to “intend their discussion to influence a decision the government will make” (Guttmann & Thompson, 2004, p.5). Lastly, when the process is dynamic, “it keeps open the possibility of continuing dialogue, one in which citizens can criticize previous decisions and move ahead on the basis of that criticism” (Guttmann & Thompson, 2004, p. 6). These are all very important methods to use, especially in politics, but it can also be very difficult trying to use deliberative democracy when making every decision with deliberative democracy because the decision can take a very long time to make and citizens aren’t always right.

After taking this course, I have a whole new idea of what rhetoric is. Before this class, I thought that rhetoric only had to do with language and how we analyzed a photo or a video. Theorists like Butler, Guttmann and Thompson, and Foucault along with almost all of the other theorists that we covered over the course of 10 weeks had a very large impact on the way I perceive rhetoric today. Because of these theorists, especially Butler, Guttmann and Thompson, and Foucault, I understand that literally anything can be rhetoric such as the layout of an amusement park, how dangerous gender norms can be, and the right way to deliberate important ideas with the general public. With these ideas in mind, I decided that my definition of rhetoric was something that I could most relate to right now; my home in Sleepy Hollow, IL. where my family is anxiously waiting my arrival on Thursday afternoon after my Poetry Performance and where my summer will begin! I decided to use my pictures of my home (specifically the living room and my room). I got this idea from reading Foucault’s piece about discursive practices. The first quote that really got me thinking about my very own house was when Ross & Gill said, “…the polarity established between the parents’ bedroom and that of the children.” I started to think about my own home when this was mentioned because this was one of the very first examples used when explaining discursive practices. Then when Ross & Gill explained how Foucault analyzed Disneyland to illustrate his theory of the five primary units, I started to think about the different norms of different places like water parks, weddings, classrooms, and homes. For Disneyland specifically, Foucault talked about the particular design of the shops, the spatial features, the scale of the buildings, the music, the extensive signage of the park, the omission of natural occurrences that might be an inconvenience for guests, design aspects of the rides, and the very particular jobs of the employees (Ross & Gill, 393-394). Foucault states that the main rule and role of employees is to be clean, sexless, polite, passive, and follow orders. He also says that the highest truth in the park is clean, synthetic, good, and fun (Ross & Gill, 396).

After thinking about how Foucault literally broke down every aspect of Disneyland, I decided I could breakdown the different discursive practices in my own home. To begin, growing up, my house was and still is spotless. We vacuum, dust, mop, sweep, do laundry, clean the bathrooms, and just generally tidy up, weekly. When I used to live at home, every Friday, my mom would always give me chores to do before I got to go out with my friends for the weekend; this was to help her keep the house clean. My mom was also big on making sure we always took our shoes off and cleaned up after ourselves after we did something. Furthermore, the layout of my house, along with the colors and décor, is very vibrant; as a family, we don’t like boring decorations or white walls, we like exotic décor and colors. I like to think this says a lot about the character of my family and therefore, the character of my home. We also have plants, such as lemons, growing inside my house, along with a lot of animal statues, like giraffes. This also has a lot to say about how healthy my family likes to be and the fact that my family loves animals. With that being said, we have three dogs, so we really love animals, actually. My mom is also big on being cost conscious when it comes to the electricity bill, the gas bill, and the water bill. This means that she’s always nagging us to turn off our lights, take shorter showers, and bundle up more in the winter, so that we don’t have to turn up the heat so high. The rules in my house are simple: respect the house and respect the people who pay for the house. The roles are also very simple: dad is the breadwinner, mom works, but not as much as dad, so she does the cleaning and cooking, and my brother and I are supposed to clean up after ourselves and do well in school. My parents are also generally very laid back and my brother and I have a great relationship with them which makes coming home all the better. As you can see, the two main practices in my home involve the clean environment of my home and the way we treat/respect one another. These discursive practices still influence the way I live and act, even after being away at college for 3 years and when the time comes, I will continue to use these discursive practices with my own home and family.

To conclude, I’ve come a long way since March. I thought the whole point of rhetoric was a take a piece/article and analyze it for things like tone and identity; little did I know, though, that rhetoric is literally everything and nothing all at once. It’s this complex idea that no one is certain about, but it’s extremely fascinating and helps us represent ourselves and the world around us. I’m so excited that I actually know what rhetoric means now; not just in politics, but in literally every aspect of our lives!

Works Cited:

Butler, J. “Introduction: Acting in concert.” In Undoing gender (pp. 1-4). New York: Routledge.

Foss, S. K., and Gill, A. (1987). Michel Foucault’s theory of rhetoric as epistemic. Western Journal of Communication, 51(4), 384-401.

Guttmann, A., and Thompson, D. (2004). What deliberative democracy means. In Why deliberative democracy? (pp. 1-56). Princeton: Princeton University Press.

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selenaromano28-blog · 8 years ago

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*Deliberative Democracy*

5/12/17

In this entry, I will discuss the critical question: How could the process revealed in this artifact be improved by deliberative democracy?

The artifact I decided to use for this critical question was the idea of executive orders. To help me further investigate this idea of executive orders and deliberative democracy, I examined an article titled, “What is an Executive Order? And how do President Trump’s Stack Up?” by Aaron Blake that was published in The Washington Post. This article talks about what an executive order is, how presidents can use executive orders, the history of executive orders, how Trump’s executive orders compare to other presidents, and the advantages/disadvantages of executive orders. This article doesn’t seem to create biases, but instead, seems to state facts about executive orders and the history of them and uses those facts to compare to our current presidents executive orders.

Executive orders are an example of deliberative democracy not being used; they are essentially the exact opposite of deliberative democracy. This is clear when Blake says, “Executive orders have often been the subject of controversy, with the opposition party accusing the president of overstepping his authority and acting like a dictator. Basically, they're arguing that he's changing the law rather than working within it.” Executive orders allow the president to, “instruct the government how to work within the parameters that are already set by Congress and the Constitution” (Blake 2017). Executive orders therefore let the President make decisions without going through Congress as long as the executive order works within the parameters already set by Congress. Without these executive orders going through Congress, only the president is making the decision which allows him to have more power than he should without accurately representing the whole country. Congress is supposed to represent the majority parties which allows for a ruling that is fairer than if the president was the only one making the decision. Granted, Congress isn’t representative to all citizens, though, just the majority. Even though political decisions that go through Congress do not represent the minority, Congress allows for more representation than the president would give if he was the only one making the decision. This is why executive orders are not fair.

According to Guttmann and Thompson (2004), there are four important characteristics to deliberative democracy: reason-giving, accessibility, binding, and dynamic. Presidents, like Trump, for the most part, give reasons for their executive orders. For example, if you look on The White House website, Trump gave a long list of reasons with quotes from the constitution to support his decision to sign the executive order to ban immigration. So, presidents at least, for the most part, incorporate that part of deliberative democracy in their decision making. On the other hand, though, the second characteristic to deliberative democracy is that “this process should be accessible to all the citizens to whom they are addressed” (Guttmann & Thompson, 2004, p.4). The idea of accessibility means that the reasons given need to be comprehensible and the reasons need to take place in public (Guttmann & Thompson, 2004, p.4). Even though textually, the reasons seem comprehensible to an individual who reads English, these reasons most likely don’t make sense to innocent Muslim families that are just searching for freedom in the US, but aren’t allowed in based on generalizations about the Muslim culture. Furthermore, the signing of an executive order is public, but not as public as a speech would be and not everyone knows about the executive orders because they aren’t as public as they should be.

The last two important characteristics of deliberative democracy are that the process is binding and dynamic. When the process is binding, “they intend their discussion to influence a decision the government will make” (Guttmann & Thompson, 2004, p.5). The idea of the process being binding insinuates that a discussion was held and there is common ground about how that decision will affect the future. With Trump’s immigration ban executive order, there was no discussion and the public is not aware of what the future holds with this executive order. Furthermore, when the process is dynamic, “it keeps open the possibility of continuing dialogue, one in which citizens can criticize previous decisions and move ahead on the basis of that criticism” (Guttmann & Thompson, 2004, p. 6). If Trump were to have a more dynamic approach about immigration ban and be more accepting of an continued dialogue about such an important situation, “citizens and representatives who disagreed with the original decision are more likely to accept it if they believe they have a chance to reverse or modify in the future (Guttmann & Thompson, 2004. P.6). This would help the citizens and their representatives be more understanding which would most likely prevent a lot of the protests and all of the other backlash the citizens did to try to fight the immigration ban executive order. This would allow the citizens to act more civil and calm about situations like this.

Based on all of the past evidence included, deliberative democracy would be useful to give justifications for the executive orders being produced and including everyone in the decision making process, so that the representatives and their citizens are happy and feel like their voice matters. Even though one of the key components of deliberative democracy is to be inclusive, the nature of politics has always been very exclusive in general. This is because even though Congress is a representative for the two parties in the nation, there are more than just two parties in the US which makes the political deliberation process exclusive in nature. One executive order that Donald Trump signed that caused a lot of controversy was the executive order to build the wall. Trump is allowed to sign this executive order because the executive order “basically establishes building the wall as a federal priority and directs the Department of Homeland” (Blake, 2017). Using deliberative democracy would improve ideas like building the wall because then citizens wouldn’t be constantly protesting or making nasty videos about Trump using our governments’ money to build a wall and looking like “an all-powerful executive – in a system designed to limit absolute power” (Blake, 2017). This is because citizens would feel full inclu(ded) in the process” (Guttmann &Thompson, 2004, p.9) of the potential idea and therefore feel more respected by Trump and the government. Furthermore, deliberative democracy would help with executive orders, like the wall, by allowing a justification because this would allow citizens to hear more about Trump’s reasoning for the wall while Trump gets to hear the citizens’ opinions which would ultimately be more productive than protests and hate videos sent to Trump.

There are many advantages of encouraging deliberative democracy when political decisions are trying to be made, instead of implementing executive orders. One of the advantages is that the reasons for the decisions would be justified by statistics and facts provided by the president along with full inclusion of representatives and citizens. This will allow for all sides to be seen and for representatives and citizens to feel like they are being respected by the government. Furthermore, another advantage of deliberative democracy during political discussion is necessary to prevent absolute power. Overall, advantages normally benefit the countries citizens as whole, not the president when he’s trying to get political decisions and orders made quickly. This leads into the disadvantages of deliberative democracy in politics. One of the disadvantages is that deliberation takes a long time to happen, so if our president is trying to implement something quickly or make a decision quickly, deliberative democracy is not really beneficial. Moreover, deliberative democracy can also be a disadvantage because the president’s ideas can be shut down by congress and/or citizens. According to Blake (2017), this was the reason why Obama made an executive order on immigration. There were many years of failed attempts to receive the stamp of approval from congress about immigration reform, so Obama felt like he had no other choice than to sign an executive order for it. Lastly, another huge disadvantage of deliberative democracy is the idea that the “people” are not always right and do not always have everyone’s best interest in mind. With that being said, the “people” can make decisions and deliberate on situations that they are not knowledgeable which could have a huge effect on our country if deliberative democracy took place for political actions like executive orders.

In doing additional research on this topic, a scholarly article by Phil Ramsey titled “Journalism, Deliberative Democracy and Government Communication." Talks about how "Deliberation can overcome the limitations of private views and enhance the quality of public decision-making for a number of reasons” (Ramsey 2010). Enhancing the quality of public decision-making is important for citizens and representatives so that citizens feel respected and feel like we’re living in a true democracy. Furthermore, Ramsey (2010) says, "reasons should be made accessible to all concerned; this means not only that they should in some manner be made public, but also be comprehensible." After reading through Trump’s Immigration executive order on The White House’s website, it seems that the reasons for the immigration ban is comprehensible based on the text given. One reason stated by The White House said, “It is the policy of the United States to protect its citizens from terrorist attacks, including those committed by foreign nationals” (Trump 2017). This reasoning seems comprehensible, for the most part, but this is from a white person’s perspective. I can only assume that this reason or any of the reasons The White House presented for the executive order isn’t comprehensible to the immigrants or refugees the ban is on. The ban might be comprehensible from a textual standpoint, but this ban doesn’t allow many innocent immigrants or refugees into the US based on a generalization that all Muslim people are out to hurt others; this idea is most likely not comprehensible to an innocent Muslim family looking for freedom. This article shows that deliberative democracy can enhance our representative and citizens to increase public decision-making, but that all reasons for a decision should be accessible so that the political ideas are comprehensible to all representatives and citizens to have an accurate deliberation.

The article “What is an Executive Order? And how do President Trump’s Stack Up?” by Aaron Blake helped explore my artifact which was executive orders and why Presidents use executive orders. The article also assisted in showing that signing too many executive orders make presidents seem like a “dictators” which brings up the idea that deliberative democracy is not occurring when all of these executive orders are being signed by presidents like Donald Trump, Franklin Roosevelt, and Harry Truman. Deliberative democracy is beneficial because it allows for ideas to be justified to representatives and citizens and includes all deliberators. On the other hand, though, deliberative democracy can end up being a long process and can lead to a decision that the president ultimately doesn’t agree with.

Words Cited:

Blake, Aaron. "What is an Executive Order? And how to President Trump’s Stack Up?" The Washington Post. N.p., 07 May. 2017. Web. 27 Jan. 2017.

Trump, Donald J. "Executive Order Protecting The Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into The United States." The White House. The United States Government, 06 Mar. 2017. Web. 11 May 2017.

Guttmann, A., and Thompson, D. (2004). What deliberative democracy means. In Why deliberative democracy? (pp. 1-56). Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Ramsey, Phil. “Journalism, Deliberative Democracy and Government Communication." Javnost-The Public, vol. 17, no. 4, Dec. 2010, pp. 81-95. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ufh&AN=58085029&site=ehost-live.

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selenaromano28-blog · 8 years ago

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*The Feminine Style/ Gender Norms*

May 4, 2017

In this entry, I will discuss the critical question: What gender norm is constructed or undone in this artifact, how is it performed, and/or how does it promote a dominate ideology over a marginalized group or push back against the ideology or gender norms?

To help me further investigate this question about gender norms, I examined a country music video titled “Girl In A Country Song” by Maddie and Tae. “Girl In A Country Song” was a number one single for the country duo Maddie and Tae in 2014. In this video, it is seen that they are calling out the “Bro-Country” songs by telling them that they negatively portraying women in country songs. Maddie and Tae sing about how men objectify women and how hard it is to be a woman in these country songs made by men.

Butler writes about deconstructing gender, how we can use rhetoric to construct and deconstruct norms, and the difference between gender as a binary and gender as a “regulatory operation of power that naturalizes” (Butler, 43). This country song by Maddie and Tae that deconstructs the social norms that “Bro-Country” songs construct women as. Butler defines “norms” as “…certain kinds of practices and actions to become recognizable as such, imposing a grid of legibility on the social and defining the parameters of what will and will not appear within the domain of the social” (Butler, 41). According to the music video, “Girl In A Country Song,” the men in the “Bro-Country” songs give women gender norms by calling them all “pretty little thing, hottie, or baby” and the men are always “over there on [their] tailgate whistling,” This shows that men have little respect for women by constantly whistling at them and calling them degrading names. Furthermore, the singers even say “Can I put on some real clothes now?” and “All we’re good for is looking good for you and your friends on the weekends.” These two quotes suggest that men expect their women to wear little to no clothing and that their only job is to look good in front of their friends.

Moreover, Butler says, “Gender is the mechanism by which notions of masculine and feminine are produced and naturalized, but gender might very well be the apparatus by which such terms are deconstructed and denaturalized.” Maddie and Tae attempt to denaturalize the gender norms “Bro-Country” songs have created for women by first showing all of the gender norms that “Bro-Country” songs give women in their lyrics and in the video and then they start pushing back by saying, “Aw ya’ll we ain’t a cliché, that ain’t no way to treat a lady,” “there ain’t no sugar for you in this shaker of mine,” “Sure I’ll slide on over but you’re gonna get slapped” and “I ain’t your tan-legged Juliet.” These quotes in the video say that women aren’t there to look perfect for these men or shake their butts to make them happy. Expecting these actions from women is “no way to treat a lady” and if they do expect these things from women then they’re “gonna get slapped.” Maddie and Tae let women know that even though “Bro-Country” songs are creating these degrading gender norms, women should not allow men to treat them this way; Maddie and Tae are sending out a message to women to let them know that you aren’t a man’s “tan-legged Juliet” and if they expect you to be, they should “get slapped” because there’s more to women than being sexy for men and giving men whatever they want. Maddie and Tae also repeatedly say throughout the song, “Bein’ the girl in a country song. How in the world did it go so wrong?” They argue that being a girl in these country songs really isn’t fair and that this wasn’t how country songs used to be, but that’s how they are now and women need to fix that by standing up to these country men.

Other than lyrics and quotes from the song, visuals helped reinforce their message. The video starts off with two women walking around with bikini tops and jean shorts then the video shows men in their pick-up trucks whistling at the women. The women don’t seem to like the bikini tops and the jean shorts when Maddie and Tae sing, “I hate the way this bikini top chafes. Do I really have to wear it all day?” While Maddie and Tae are singing those lyrics in the video, the girls are itching and look very uncomfortable in the clothes they are wearing. Then all the sudden you see a sign that says, “ROLES REVERSED.” This is when the men that were whistling at the two women in the beginning of the video are now doing the same exact tasks the women were doing while wearing the same exact outfits the women were wearing. The video goes on to show typical gender norms that “Bro-Country” songs gave to women like swinging on swings, washing pick-up trucks seductively, farming in a sexy way, eating strawberries seductively and pouring water all over themselves seductively. Basically, the women in this video are doing all of these extraneous tasks, but are encouraged and expected to look sexy while doing them. After a clip is shown of these women doing these extraneous tasks in a sexy way, the three men that were whistling at the beginning of the video are acting as if they are women doing the same tasks, trying to act sexy, just like women have to do. Maddie and Tae decided to do this in this music video to show women and men that these unrealistic gender norms that “Bro-Country” songs give women are absolutely ridiculous and would look even more ridiculous if men had to do these same exact tasks and act the same way women are expected to act. Maddie and Tae even go as far as telling the men in the video, dressed as women, to serve them drinks in their pick-up trucks and then when the men, dressed as women, are walking away from serving them, Maddie and Tae slap their butt, just like men would do to women.

There are many advantages and disadvantages that this video constructs. One of the advantages of the music video “Girl In A Country Song” is that Maddie and Tae are undoing and deconstructing the gender norms that “Bro-Country” songs are creating for women. This is an advantage because if someone doesn’t undo and deconstruct these gender norms then people might not even realize how negatively these gender norms are portraying women and therefore, there won’t be a change in the “Bro-Country” songs. The only way the “Bro-Country” songs might make a change is if they get called out like Maddie and Tae did. Without people like Maddie and Tae calling out and deconstructing gender norms, people won’t believe anything is wrong and women will continue to be degraded in “Bro-Country” songs. Even though this song has a huge advantage, it also has a huge disadvantage as well. While Maddie and Tae are trying to deconstruct gender norms about women, they are creating gender norms for men, as well. By saying the broad term “country songs” in their video, this is suggesting that all country songs degrade women which is definitely not true; there are a lot of country singers and songs who sing very highly of women with realistic expectations. So, even though Maddie and Tae are trying to do some good by showing women that they shouldn’t let men treat them this way, they are also doing some bad by creating gender norms for all country songs and men singing those songs. Furthermore, in the process of trying to push back against the negative gender norms created by “Bro-Country” songs, Maddie and Tae are picking fun at men by making the men serve them drinks and then slapping their butts; there’s other ways to undo and push back against gender norms besides making the people who created the gender norms look stupid. I believe there is other ways to push back because even though these “Bro-Country” songs have really degraded women, it doesn’t make it any better to degrade men in the same way; two wrongs don’t make a right.

Cho and Jounghwa investigated the idea that men are more independent from social norms whereas women are more interdependent on social norms and what their friends say. This study came to this conclusion by exposing both males and females to tanned images on television. It was found that through the tanned images on television, men gained a more positive protanning attitude, but this association was not found among females. These results suggest that females, “project their own protanning intensions into the estimation of protanning norms among male and female peers” (Cho and Jounghwa). Essentially, men consider themselves “distinct from surrounding social contexts,” but females tend to “define in social contexts” (Cho and Jounghwa). This means that a tanning ad alone would not affect women, but for instance, if the tanning ad was talked about more through the female’s friends and therefore, the tanning ad created a social norm, the females would be more affected. This article is also saying that males aren’t as affected by their friends and social norms as females are, but females aren’t as affected by just a few tanning ads. This outside source shows that it might take more than one country video to have an effect on a woman’s self-esteem or how she perceives herself, but multiple country songs that call females “pretty little thing, hottie, or baby” or make women believe that they need to be a “tanned-legged Juliet” would create gender norms that females feel like they have to follow in order to fit in. This could then affect their self-esteem and how they expect to be treated by men. If the roles were reversed, though, men wouldn’t be affected as much by gender or social norms being created because they don’t care as much about what their friends think or what society thinks as much as females do. This article puts into perspective the serious implications that the gender norms that are in the “Bro-Country” songs can have on females.

The song, “Girl In a Country Song” by Maddie and Tae, show that the gender norms created for women are being deconstructed and pushed back. Maddie and Tae use lyrics to show what the gender norms of the women are and then they use lyrics to push back against those gender norms, as well. This is an advantage because it lets everyone know that these negative gender norms are occurring within “Bro-Country” songs and how women can push back against these gender norms, but this video is also a disadvantage because in the process of pushing back against gender norms created by country songs, Maddie and Tae also create gender norms for all men which doesn’t seem very productive in the long run.

Sources:

Butler, J. “Introduction: Acting in concert.” In Undoing gender (pp. 1-4). New York: Routledge.

Cho, Hyunyi and Jounghwa Choi. "Television, Gender Norms, and Tanning Attitudes and Intentions of Young Men and Women." Communication Studies, vol. 62, no. 5, Nov/Dec2011, pp. 508-530. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/10510974.2011.577500.

Maddie & Tae, “Maddie & Tae – Girl In A Country Song” YouTube, 24 Jul 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MOavH-Eivw

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selenaromano28-blog · 8 years ago

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*Aristotle: Ethos and Logos and Pathos*

April 12, 2017

In this entry, I will discuss the critical question: How are ethos, pathos, and logos used in this rhetorical artifact to convey a certain message? Is this message effective for the target audience? Is it ethical? (Give specific examples/quotes from the rhetorical artifact.)

To help me further investigate this question about public speaking skills, I decided to use a video about Hillary Clinton titled, “All The Good.” To begin, the whole point of this video is to show that Clinton is an advocate for education, equal pay, minorities, and fairness for everyone. This video is also supposed to help promote Clinton and to help win the election; this is just one of many videos that Clinton made to help her win the election. To begin, with Morgan Freeman being the narrator, the video starts off by showing a picture of a church while Morgan Freeman is saying that she has learned everything good from church. There are also pictures of her at a food pantry serving people, at a Children’s Hospital in Boston with minority kids, and multiple pictures showing what she has done for the less fortunate people including children, minorities, elderly, and the poor. There are also pictures of her with Bill, showing she has good family ethic and a picture of her education to show she knows knowledgeable, cares about education, and she knows what she’s talking about. The video goes on to show emotion by using images of her hugging others to show she’s passionate and affectionate towards other. I think she also uses these pictures to show that if we work together, we can reach our potential. The narrator, Morgan Freeman, talks about how she could have went to a high paying law firm after law school, but instead, she worked to reform juvenile justice in South Carolina, exposed racism in Alabama schools, registered Latino voters in Texas, and provided legal aid to families in Arkansas. Morgan Freeman also states that “her life’s work has been about breaking barriers, and so will her presidency.” This is Clinton basically trying to show that she’s here for the people who have barriers that prevent them from going further. The video also states, “she understands our country can’t reach its potential unless we all do. Together, a stronger country.” Not only does Clinton believe that barriers need to be broken and that she has been doing that all of her life, but we need to work together as a country to do that. Overall, the video is about showing how Clinton has served others all of her life and that she would continue to do that through her presidency.

In Herrick’s piece, “The History and Theory of Rhetoric” (2013), one of the most important concepts that are mentioned other than the overall idea about rhetoric is Aristotle’s contribution of The Artistic Proofs: logos, ethos, and pathos. Herrick states that logos is the argument or logical reasoning of rhetoric, pathos causes emotion, and ethos is human character or credibility (Herrick, 78). After watching Clinton’s video, I realized that there is a lot of ethos, logos, and pathos present in the video that shows the kind of rhetoric Clinton commonly used in her videos to promote herself for the election. In Herrick’s piece, he also claims that logos is the thought and speech of the spoken words along with the “proofs available in words, arguments, or logic of speech” (Herrick, 79). Lastly, Herrick also says that logos is “inference making or reasoning” (Herrick, 79). The logos in Clinton’s video were the words and ideas she decided to portray to show she is qualified to be president. In the video, Morgan Freeman would talk about Clinton as breaking barriers and believing in the potential of our country if we work together to break those barriers. The pictures and narration about her helping out at food pantries and visiting kids at Children’s Hospitals also helps her logos claim about breaking barriers and working together as community.

Herrick also talks about pathos which are the “emotional appeals that give persuasive messages their power to move an audience to action” (Herrick, 79). Herrick also claims that pathos “is the study of psychology of emotion, governed by a moral concern for discovering and acting on the truth” (Herrick, 79). Clinton has, in my opinion, always been a huge advocate for using pathos in many of her speeches and videos. She commonly uses kids in her videos, talks about how she helped fight all of the injustices with minorities and people living in poverty, and she also shows pictures of her hugging elders, kids, and minorities to make her more relatable and to provoke emotion to her audience. This shows that she’s caring and is very empathetic. Moreover, when the video said, “Her church taught her to do all the good you can for all the people you can for as long as you can,” this made Clinton show that she is kind to others because she does her duty by going to church.

Lastly, Herrick talks a lot about ethos. According to Herrick, ethos is when the speech shows “the speaker’s character or personal credibility.” (Herrick, 80). Furthermore, Herrick claims that in order to establish ethos, the speaker must show phronesis” (Herrick, 80). Phronesis is when the speaker establishes intelligence, good sense, virtue, and goodwill. Herrick also states that the speaker must exhibit knowledge, be trustworthy, and understand what the community wants (Herrick, 81). Clinton created a lot of credibility for herself by showing she is knowledgeable about the issues she is discussing by showing she graduated from a prestigious college. She also shows that she’s trustworthy and understands what the community wants by showing that she visits kids in the hospital, fights for the minorities, and is genuinely interested in everyone’s well-being. By using pathos to provoke emotion about her topics, she lets her ethos shine through. Lastly, Clinton gives herself ethos by using Morgan Freeman, a highly respected actor, as the narrator. By using Morgan Freeman’s very distinctive voice as the narrator, this makes people believe that Morgan Freeman believes the claims he is making in the video which makes the overall claims about Clinton believable.

There are a lot of advantages and disadvantages to the artistic proofs. The proofs aren’t naturally negative or positive, but it really depends on how the speaker uses the proofs. The proofs are normally an advantage to the speakers because they can use the proofs to get their point across, but the proofs could be a disadvantage to the audience. If the proofs are used to deceive and manipulate people to make them believe something they shouldn’t, then that’s when the proofs can be a disadvantage to the community as whole. For instance, if the speaker uses logos to further an argument that is wrong or hurts a group of individuals, then that’s when the proofs are used for the wrong purpose and become a disadvantage. Pathos, on the other hand, can be used very unethically to draw emotions out of people for the wrong reason. Like, for instance, using kids or elderly people in Clinton’s video could be deemed wrong because Clinton is using helpless people to help her win the election. When pathos is used this way, this can be a disadvantage for the audience. Lastly, ethos can be a disadvantage for the audience because the speaker can evoke great ethos in a speech, but really isn’t truthful, doesn’t have the best interest of the community in mind, and isn’t very knowledgeable. This is a disadvantage to the audience because the audience can believe someone is a good person based on their speech, but then never find out that the speaker isn’t a genuinely good person. Overall, though, the speakers have a lot of advantages when using the artistic proofs, and even though the artistic proofs can be a disadvantage to the audience, they can still be an advantage, too. The artistic proofs are an advantage for the audience when the speaker uses them ethically to get a serious issue out to the community. As long as the artistic proofs are used ethically and morally, they are usually deemed as an advantage to both the speakers and the audience.

In doing additional research for this topic, a scholarly article by Daniel Ciurel titled “Rhetorical Situation as Bedrock of Crisis Communication Strategy” which talks a lot about kairos and statis and how they relate to Aristotle’s Artistic Proofs. The article states that “the two basic elements of kairos are the principle of right timing and the principle of proper measure” (Ciurel, 2013). According to Ciurel (2013), “kairos is the concept of an individual time having a critical ordinal position set apart from its predecessors and successors.” Karios can help the speaker decide the best way to frame an argument for the particular audience and situation (Ciurel, 2013). Kairos also “means understanding the minds of the audience and fitting the discourse sensitively to this public” (Ciurel, 2013). Furthermore, “stasis is a strategy used to initiate discourse, to accurately identify the tension or dissonance at which discourse ought to begin” (Ciurel, 2013). Stasis helps the speakers communicate their ideas to try to determine the facts, the meaning or nature of the issue, the seriousness of the issue and the plan of action (Ciurel, 2013). Karios and stasis help pathos, logos, and ethos become a reality. In order for Aristotle’s artistic proofs to be effective, karios and stasis both need to be present in order to make sure the point gets across the right way and at the right time to the right audience.

As you can see, Hillary Clinton’s video titled, “All The Good” embodies a lot of pathos, logos, and ethos. Aristotle’s artistic proofs can be very unethical if the speaker uses them to be deceitful and manipulative, but if the speaker is being genuine and honest in his speech and message, then ethos, logos, and pathos can be very useful to any speaker and audience.

Works cited:

Ciurel, Daniel. "Rhetorical Situation as Bedrock of Crisis Communication Strategy." PCTS Proceedings (Professional Communication & Translation Studies), vol. 6, no. 1/2, June 2013, pp. 43-50. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ufh&AN=94924033&site=ehost-live.

Clinton, Hillary. “All The Good.” YouTube, 19 Feb 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iDRu2q2cRw&t=1s

Herrick, J.A. (2005). Aristotle on rhetoric. In the history and theory of rhetoric: An introduction (5th ed.)( pp. 69-81). New York: Routledge.

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selenaromano28-blog · 8 years ago

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*Rhetoric as Democracy in Ancient Athens and Now*

March 21, 2017

In this entry, I will discuss the critical question: Should current leaders have to have great delivery skills? What are the benefits and disadvantages of requiring our leaders to be great orators in terms of delivery?

To help me further investigate this question about delivery skills, I decided to use an article from The Washington Post titled “Americans think John F. Kennedy was one of our greatest presidents. He wasn’t.” by Dylan Matthews. This article starts off by saying that a Gallup poll found that Americans rate JFK more highly than any of the other 11 presidents since Eisenhower (Matthews 2013). The Gallup poll also found that Americans ranked JFK as the fourth greatest president of all time, behind presidents like Ronald Reagan, but ahead of presidents such as George Washington (Matthews, 2013). This article also said that although Americans ranked JFK as the fourth greatest president of all times due to being such an excellent speaker, he wasn’t as great of a leader as everyone thought he was. Most people believe that JFK was a great leader and president because he always spoke with confidence, enthusiasm, and great rhetoric. He would even frequently carefully choose groups of words and sentences that would sound appealing to his audience. One of Kennedy’s most famous lines from Kennedy's address, "ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country." This is an excellent example of how Kennedy picked his words very carefully. On the other hand, though, being a good speaker isn’t all it takes to be a good leader. A great leader not only speaks well, but also acts well. A great leader is well-prepared and actually follows through with their promises. Although Kennedy was an excellent speaker, according to Matthews, he wasn’t the best leader. Matthew claims that Kennedy escalated The Cuban Missile Crisis by provoking war, was the main reason for the Bay of the Pigs invasion by not backing out when everyone else was skeptical, went way too slowly when passing the civil rights movements, and passed no domestic legislation of any consequence (Matthews, 2013).

In Ober’s piece, “The Orators” (2000), he writes a lot about how the only really important quality a leader must possess is how to use rhetoric positively and to use that rhetoric to have excellent delivery skills. This contradicts my thoughts about there being more to a good leader than good public speaking skills. Ober goes as far as saying that if an assemblyman doesn’t win the approval of the audience when speaking, “…an adverse decision of the people’s court could mean a litigant’s financial ruin, exile or, death” (Ober, 133). This is just one example of how serious the Ancient Greeks were about leaders and important people possessing superb delivery skills. Ober states that Ancient Greece not only wanted leaders and important people to be good at speaking, but they had to have, “…attributes of the good rhotor, rhetoric, and [a] role in democracy” (Ober, 138). Again, these are all attributes that are required in order to please the audience and the public opinion which sometimes takes away from the purpose of good speeches. Even though Ober believes that the only important quality of a good leader is public speaking, I believe there is more a leader needs to be and live up to than just good delivery skills such as following through with their word and obtaining actual knowledge about the topics that are being spoken about in the speech.

There are a lot of advantages and disadvantages to having really good speaking skills as a leader. The advantages seem to be shown a little bit more than the disadvantages, but one advantage is that leaders who have excellent delivery skills tend to be portrayed as having confidence and knowledge about the topic at hand. This will then make the audience believe what the speaker is saying and will also keep the audience interested in the speech. On the other hand, the disadvantage of a leader with good delivery skills is that they can use their good delivery skills to manipulate others. Since the audience is more likely to believe an individual who has excellent delivery skills, the leader could use this to their advantage and make the audience believe something that isn’t even true. Furthermore, there can also be a leader who has excellent speaking skills, but doesn’t actually have any real knowledge about the topic that is being discussed which again, can mislead the audience. There is such a fine line between what is right and wrong about being a good public speaker because the only way people will actually listen to you is if you’re a good speaker, but good speakers can also be completely clueless about the topic being spoken about, so this is a very complicated discussion for that reason.

In doing additional research on this topic, a scholarly article by Chris Ellis titled "Who Governs? Presidents, Public Opinion, and Manipulation." which talks about how “presidents make strategic use of public opinion data to shift the criteria on which their administrations are evaluated… by trying to prime citizens to think of the president in terms of his personality, not issue positions” (Ellis, 2016). To do this, the presidents use the power of persuasion to avoid their responsibilities of representing the general public (Ellis, 2016). This article shows that presidents can be very deceiving when being a good speaker, so in order to be a good leader, you not only need to be a good speaker, but leaders need to follow through with what they say and need to be good, genuine people as well.

As you can see, although being a good speaker is very important in order to be a leader that gets their ideas heard and becomes well-known, it is also important for leaders to take initiative and follow through with what they say. It’s good to have an equal balance between being a good speaker and being a genuinely good leader because as you can see, being a good speaker doesn’t always mean you’re the best or most knowledgeable leader.

Ellis, Chris. "Who Governs? Presidents, Public Opinion, and Manipulation." Public Opinion Quarterly, vol. 80, no. 1, Spring2016, pp. 212-215. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1093/poq/nfv052

Matthews, Dylan. "Americans Think John F. Kennedy Was One of Our Greatest Presidents. He Wasn't." The Washington Post. N.p., 21 Mar. 2017. Web. 22 Nov. 2013.

Ober, J. (2000). The orators. In C. Rowe and M. Schofield (Eds.), The Cambridge history of Greek and Roman political thought (pp. 130-141). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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selenaromano28-blog · 8 years ago

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*Rhetoric as Democracy in Ancient Athens and Now*

March 21, 2017

Ellis, Chris. "Who Governs? Presidents, Public Opinion, and Manipulation." Public Opinion Quarterly, vol. 80, no. 1, Spring2016, pp. 212-215. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1093/poq/nfv052

Matthews, Dylan. "Americans Think John F. Kennedy Was One of Our Greatest Presidents. He Wasn't." The Washington Post. N.p., 21 Mar. 2017. Web. 22 Nov. 2013.

Ober, J. (2000). The orators. In C. Rowe and M. Schofield (Eds.), The Cambridge history of Greek and Roman political thought (pp. 130-141). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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