R for Rhetoric

An icon that is growing in cultural eminence is the “Guy Fawkes” mask that was brought to mainstream focus through the film V for Vendetta created by the Wachowski brothers.  Through its association with the spirit of revolt, the icon has come to embody ideals such as justice, rebellion, and political keenness within whichever person deciding to wear it. As of recent, movements with significant influence including Occupy Wall Street and the “hacktivist” group Anonymous have used the symbol heavily within the rhetoric. It functions to provide a sense of unity across many elusive, dissenting claims. It is used as visual rhetoric to signify to others the spirit a person is trying to convey. With the right precision, the use of this mask can be surprisingly effective in creating a fairly distinct message.

An example of the precise use of the mask is in the scene of this picture. Polish senators are seen holding up the emphatic mask to their faces for what purpose? To protest. They use the symbol behind the mask to protest the ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) from getting passed through their political system. The Trade Agreement would impose harsh restrictions on the liberal use of copyrighted material which is seen by many as a direct violation of Internet freedom and creativity. The climate that ACTA would create is the type of climate that the ideology behind the mask is opposed to. The politicians recognizing this, utilized its symbolism to visually argue the agreement in a poignant way. This is a testament to the power that a simple image can hold rhetorically. I believe that this group of politicians’ decision to use the mask is stronger by leaps and bounds than just simple verbal argumentation alone. This act would have a far greater reaction with the public which potentially increases the success and recognition of the argument. All of the mask’s hype and success reveals the importance of visual rhetoric in modern culture and it also suggests its potential to cause effect.  

Another interesting piece of visual rhetoric using masks is used in the "March of the Dead" in which protesters wear a mask that shows their lack of identity and name of a specific American or Iraqi that was killed in the conflict. 

Animation and Rhetoric

An interesting youtube series from RSA Animates has been brought to my attention fairly recently. The initiative takes a sound clip from TED talks and creates whiteboard animation that coincides with the topics discussed in the lectures in a wholly engaging and entertaining way. A particular favorite of mine focuses on a lecture given by Sir Ken Robinson on the institutional nature of the education system of the United States. His argument revolves around how schools and the culture that they assume are doing destructive things for students by limiting their capacity to learn and their general outlook on almost everything. Now, Robinson is not saying that education is a destructive force. Rather, he is stating that the institutional foundations in American education are mostly irrelevant and wrongly applied to the best interest of people who wish to flourish in our current system in which economic and social structural stresses are abundant and present. These are the basic premises that Robinson discusses in his lecture, but I am more concerned with the use of animation for the purpose of more effective rhetoric.

I was very surprised to find how engaging this video would be with the title of  "Changing Education Paradigms". I can honestly say that I have viewed this video multiple times and that I'm still entertained and engaged in the material. I believe that the animation aspect of the video is mostly responsible for this. This is the main reason as to why the video and series as a whole function on such a deeper level of rhetoric than just the lecture alone. The animation portion of the video allows the argument to be emphasized to a greater extent because it allows the material to resonate with the viewer. The added level of dimension that it brings cause me to confront the argument with a heightened awareness which further allows the argument to make its impact. Thus, a deeper rhetorical power is added which causes the argument to be reinforced and given more attention to. 

Its worth the 12 minutes!

Film the Police

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFjQKcwbTdY
This video is age restricted so you might have to sign in to your youtube account before viewing. Also, you shouldn't watch if you are easily perturbed.

A disturbing and harsh truth that I've been aware of subconsciously, but not fully, is the fact that American police officers have become increasingly violent in terms of dealing with criminal offenders however trivial or significant the offenders' actions may be. I watched this video in disbelief as a blur of  recordings of police brutality were flashed on my screen. Although the film includes highly dramatic music and a commentary that includes appeals to logos and pathos, the clips can easily speak for themselves, exposing the reality of a minority (hopefully) of police officers' morally disgusting professional conduct. Although I can write at great length on the moral and ethical vacancy of these types of police officers and the injustice that they serve to humanity, I am mainly interested in the power of the recordings on their own.

The clips on their own serve as a great rhetorical device. All that is needed as a requirement for these recordings to serve as rhetoric is a sense of human decency and a value of justice in the mind of the viewer. With these requirements in mind, the argument is able to construct itself. I feel that the general argument that the clips present is: why are police officers who are supposed to serve the best interests of the people aiming to do the opposite? An emotional response is first elicited and what follows is the viewers own sense of ethos in determining the values that are being contradicted within the society that they are apart of and in essence, represent. The filming of these acts of professional indecency allow a direct representation of truth to surface. How a viewer takes these representations is up to them. It may not be a piece of traditional rhetoric, but any individual with a sense of cultural awareness knows that the conduct is in the wrong. Ultimately, cultural awareness and understanding allow the argument to exist.

The element that makes this type of rhetoric so powerful is that anyone has the power to record malicious police behavior. Cell phones and recording devices are prevalent enough to make this tool as powerful as it is. In this following music video, Sage Francis and other spoken word rappers highlight this described power.

The following images reveal the inhumane actions of police officers and the power that recording devices have in relation to this. These actions might have gone unnoticed if recording devices weren't in place. They are graphic. 

Image of police officer mounting woman who was apart of a peaceful protest in Rhode Island. Her leg was broken as a result.

The actual image of the well known beating of Rodney King.

Memes, Memes, Memes..

The Meme is an internet trend that people are becoming more aware of in these cyber conscious times. I get the feeling that seeing a meme on a daily basis is an inevitable part of being social on the internet. I'm sure almost everyone has had at least one encounter with the memes I am describing. Although memes are generally described as "a concept that spreads via the Internet" (Wikipedia),  this post is more directed towards the memes that employ both the image and text to represent a concept or a commonly accepted thought. Memes warrant analysis because they, whether you realize or not, reflect the collective conscience of the culture around us. The ideas represented within them, trivial or not, still reveal an something that is present within culture. The attention that a meme gets reveals what chord the idea or joke struck with the audience and how familiar it is.

The medium of the meme is an image that employs text to get a point across. The standard, minimalistic format divides the text into a top and a bottom. The top line introduces the concept of the meme while the bottom line is usually where the comedic elements come to play. The bottom is in essence the punchline of the joke by creating a sense of finality to the thought or idea the meme was created upon. One of the most important aspects of the meme is not only the text but the image that the text is based around. This may be the most challenging part to decoding memes because you have to grasp the persona that the image represents before the point of the meme may be understood. There are a vast collection of meme images that can be based on pretty much anything. This url will introduce to some of the images/personas: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_memes. The relationship between the image and the text is where the artistry of meme creation exists. If the text can be artfully related to the image in the typical comedic format, then the meme can be considered successful.

Below are some memes to reinforce the post.

This is a meme from the facebook group, "Penn State Memes". The persona of the image that the text is based around is that of the typical "Freshman" college student who is prone to the mistakes that any freshman is prone to. The memes based around this image usually poke fun at the lack of understanding of college culture that a freshman usually exhibits. The text is comedic in that it reflects a typical experience that a freshman at penn state may have in which the more experienced students can make fun of. The separation of the text allows the comedic effet to become much stronger, which is why i believe that memes have generated so much popularity recently. If you go to Penn State, you should understand the joke. 

Another "Penn State Meme":

Here is an example of a Harry Potter meme that isn't in standard format:

Just because the meme employs a different format doesn't mean that it isn't one. The comedic effect is still preserved. Often times in film memes, the text is used to coincide with the facial expressions of the characters to create the effect. 

Zach Wahls

This is a fairly popular video on Youtube, but I was just introduced to it recently. The video features Zach Wahls who addresses the Iowa House of Representatives regarding the legitimacy of gay marriage. Wahls seems to embody the ultimate rhetorical man as he lucidly portrays his position within the potential of gay marriage as wholly legitimate. His perfect combination of ethos, pathos, and logos in unfaltering as he wins (in my mind) the attention, respect, and emotion of the audience being addressed. Wahls, being the son of a married gay couple, addresses the exigence of a political and cultural period in which gay people are limited in the freedom of marriage under the scrutiny of law.

Wahls opens the speech with an appeal to pathos in revealing the myopic nature of his grandparents (and the larger scale culture that they are apart of) in hearing the news of their daughter having an artificially inseminated baby with intentions to raise this baby with her significant other. Through this he reveals the struggle that gay people with intent to marry must endure in terms of social relevance. Through his emphasis on humanity through a subjective lens, the opposition of gay marriage is reduced to an immoral position. His somewhat poetic speaking style and word structure reinforces this. He affirms his ethos through his confidence and the inclusion of his personal achievements which include owning a personal business, being an Eagle Scout, being in the 99th percentile of ACT scores, and being an engineering student at the University of Iowa. Revealing this information allows the audience to trust his personal character and gives credence to his argument. The logos portion of his argument is often overpowered by pathos and ethos, but the opposition does not have too much logical credibility in the first place. Maybe this is why ethos and pathos are so important in addressing issues of this type.

Through the presentation of himself as a person full of character and the portrayal of the inhumane attitude that the law takes toward same-sex marriage, Wahls doesn't need hyper-rationalism to make his point across. The logos seems to be apparent within his argument. In the end, Wahls himself serves to embody the logical argument in asking the question: Why can't people who are more than capable of raising a child (like Wahls) be able to marry for love and companionship? The question seems to answer itself after the speech. Ultimately, Wahls is the argument.

This I Believe Speech

Hey everyone. This link will allow you to download my speech into an mp3 format. Thanks.

http://ge.tt/8LHIQ7D

Rhetoric in Thank You For Smoking

In Jason Reitman’s film, Thank You For Smoking, Aaron Eckhardt plays the character of Nick Naylor who is a spokesperson for “Big Tobacco” or more specifically a tobacco company named Winston-Salem. He describes his job characteristics in the film as an attempt to create a positive image within the media of “Big Tobacco” in the face of so many dissenting claims. The name given to this line of work is lobbying.

In this opening scene of the film, Nick Naylor is answering questions and putting forth arguments while being interviewed on a television panel. The odds are always overwhelmingly against him because of the immoral consequences that result from a company that he represents. The panel that he is on consists of the president of Mothers Against Smoking, the chairwoman of The Lung Association, the top aide of Health and Human Services, and a young kid diagnosed with cancer. This creates a comical effect in the film and highlights the ever surmounting odds that Nick Naylor has to fight or “argue” against. Now. The fact that Mr. Naylor is working for a company’s interests and that these interests revolve around public opinion creates a negative impact on the rhetoric of his “argument”.  The rhetoric that results from this is based on public reception rather than the sake of an actual argument, which is to seek truth. Naylor manages to manipulate the public perception on him from spitting at the sight of him with booing echoing in the background to applause and praise. In this main excerpt from the clip, it shows how this is accomplished.

Naylor - how on earth would Big Tobacco profit off of the loss of this young man? 
            Now, I hate to think in such callous terms, 
            but, if anything, we'd be losing a customer. 
            It's not only our hope, it's in our best interest 
            to keep Robin alive and smoking. 

Ron Goodes - That's ludicrous. - 

Naylor - Let me tell you something, 

            Joan, and please, let me share something 
            with the fine, concerned people in the audience today. 
            The Ron Goodes of this world... 
            want the Robin Willigers to die. 
            You know why? 
            So that their budgets will go up. 
            This is nothing less than trafficking in human misery, 
            and you, sir, ought to be ashamed of yourself. 

            I ought to be ashamed of myself? 
            As a matter of fact, we're about to launch... 
            a $50 million campaign aimed at persuading kids not to smoke. 

            Because I think that we can all agree that there is nothing more important 
            than America's children.

This response from Nick Naylor is filled with contradiction and manipulation. The actual argument that is suggested is completely overlooked and is replaced by condemning his opposition on the panel. Naylor manages to create a contrast of him and the “Top Aide” figure. Naylor portrays himself as a good figure that contributes “50 million dollars” to teenage smoking prevention while the top aide is portrayed as a “trafficker of human misery”. Naylor evades the truth by creating an intense appeal to his ethos. The audience narrowly sees Naylor and his character and fails to see the lack of a debate. The only way to combat being easily led on by arguments such as Naylor’s, is to be aware of the components of rhetoric. If the audience of this television show ever took a LA101H class their acceptance of the argument may not have been achieved.