American Public Address

Visual Rhetorical Studies

-Visual Rhetorical Studies draws primarily from Mass Media, Humanities, Interdisciplinary Cultural studies

Reading Visual Rhetoric - Edwards

"We are homos iconis by our very nature, sight-driven animals that receive 90 percent of the data we collect and organize about the world through our eyes" It becomes a memory game, rather than processing it when it comes to images - Paul Messaris looked at connection between camera angles and notions of power and how they are formed during childhood. (Idea of selfies) - Martin Jay (1991) ocularcentrism, the centrality of vision and visual images in contemporary society. Images are important to, not separate from, human cognition and communication, (similar to the argument against digital dualism) - images are PERVASIVE in our world and we live in it and as we have lived in it for some time. - Suspicion of visual images; Religious notions around creation of images, dangers of idolatry or sacrilegious offense. Plato's divide between the "authentic experience" and visual simulation (shadows cast on the wall). - Aristotelian principles of logic and reason as the highest forms of public communication and persuasion. Logic and reasoning were equaled to the spoken work while images were equated to emotional appeals. Classic gender divide too. RATIONAL LOGICAL (MEN) vs EMOTIONAL (WOMEN) We can't predict this.

PROPAGANDA

****the control of opinion by significant symbols, stories, rumors, reports, pictures, and other forms of social communication. pg 9 - Concerned with; management of opinions and attitudes by the direct manipulation of social suggestion THREE IMPLEMENTS OF OPERATION 1/ military pressure (land, sea, and air forces) 2/ economic pressure (interference with access to sources of material, markets, capital, and labour power) 3/propaganda (direct use or suggestion) - government can influence its own people via; legislation, adjudication (formal judgment on disputed matter), policing, - to serve and protect? for who? propaganda, = equal with others ceremonialism - what is important or not, ritual, props etc. government uses propaganda on its people - promote economy of goods - stimulate military recruiting (GI bill, college paid, recruiters in High school - against enemy **The sacrifices of war had to be borne without complaints that spread dissension at home and disappointment in the trenches. pg. 10 ***PROPAGANDA IS THE WAR OF IDEAS ON IDEAS, pg 12 The natural state of humanity is peace, you benefit from changing in wars, so peace is not the natural state. State of persistent war!!! working through fear, feel like we need to always be on the defensive to KEEP PEACE. "The economic blockage strangles, the propaganda confuses, and the armed forces delivers the coup de grace" chief function is to demolish the enemy's will to fight by intensifying depression, disillusionment, and disagreement p 214. Ex. Mexicans and building a wall, they are rapists. Page 221-222 important ***Democracy, and indeed all society, is run by an unseen engineer.

Digital communication technology

1/ Manipulate = sometimes we don't care so long as we enjoy the benefit of the end result, mew media in a digital world open up vast manipulation opportunities to masses. What does this mean for memory? What does this mean for history? 2/Converge = telephony, computer data, and video are all digitized signals that can be transmitted and switched over the same network that is Internet Protocol-based, homogenous, none of seem to be experts anymore, know a little of some things. 3/Instant = careful vetting more difficult in a world of immediate info gratification. desire for more. makes us vulnerable to rhetoric. Mass communication and our small little world, jumping around to too much or too little exposure restricted, easily can be swayed. **Easy to get one over on people with all of this media. Too MUCH! New Media is digital, and whatever the generation is involved in, when do you stop? concept of integrity, technology are simply tools (we hide behind it, scare people with robots taking over), absence of author problem (we don't know who wrote it, where did it come from?).

Tricks of the deception trade

1/ frame it and claim it; estate tax transformed into the death tax. Estate says money/rich, to death which everyone does. LANGUAGE is powerful. system of language= reality, SAFER WORD HYPOSTHESIS, there is not reality without language. If there is a word for you, you then exist. No child left behind; how you define it or frame it, instead of teaching to a test. Affordable Health Care Act, small amount of money.. turned into Obama Act which people didn't like him. 2/Weasel Words; such the meaning out of a phrase, up to 50% off, you MAY already be a winner, largely, several, most, creating language to sell products. Snickers; words in your head to buy the candy, we want it to be true 3/Eye Candy; go with what you want to be try, real photos mean more, prescription drug commercials (the side effects are playing at the bottom of screen but SEE this really happy guy), Mission Accomplished, Plan for Victory. Photo opt/ Kennedy and his young son. What we see quickly gives us the full story?? What we see doesn't always match with what we are hearing.

Steel's 3 big innovations

1/ the arrival of distributed computing and incredible personal computing power 2/early 80's when FCC allowed some of the spectrum for wireless consumer phones 3/the 1984 breakup of monopoly AT&T (Ma Bell, Baby Bells, THE phone company.

Public Relations

Ivy Lee (1877-1934) worked for John Rockefeller, Ludlow massacre, internal literature for employee morale, how to get people together who work together. Edward Bernays (1891-1995) Developed PR theory, drawing from his uncle Sigmund Freud, "Torches of Freedom", campaign for smoking by getting women involved. PR "necessary" due to herd mentality. Thought the people were stupid.

Tricks of the Trade from UnSpun

1/if its scary, be wary; FUD = fear, uncertainty, doubt. WARNING: possible spyware detected. Be more wary, ask more questions, demanded more evidence. 2/a story that's too good; too dramatic, we WANT them to be true. Even if you want it to be true, you will want it to be true. Most homes do not own a lot of guns... not true, miscounted. Only want to see what we want to see, want it to be true. Actual information doesn't change. Knee jerk reaction, would like to go with the information that you hope is true. Finding info that you don't want to find, but go look for it. 3/the DANGLING comparative; keeps you fresher longer, compared to WHAT?? it will never complete what it is compared to, WE will fill in what we want it to. Our minds fill in the meaning, that we want, although they never make the claim. Think the best or worst. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, FAKE NEWS, GOING GREAT ASK SO and SO, TRUST ME (can't deliver what he is saying). Wait until we get to rhetoric... 4/ The Superlatives Swindle; the most, the highest, biggest in history, smallest ever, "Has any president been dealt a tougher hand?" "Worst environmental record in US History". We assume quickly that someone else has done the research. Happens when we don't think through statement. ECONOMY IS BETTER THAN EVER 5/ The Blame game; pointing a finger at an unpopular group and hoping to divert attention away from the weakness of your own evidence. Redirecting so you don't deal with it. (Bill Hall/Robbie, still don't have braille, Trump blames Obama 6/ Glittering Generalities; attractive sound but vague terms, carbonated high-fructose corn syrup with caramel coloring is "The Real Thing", Every politician is for "the middle class". Juicy Fruit gum, only 5% fruit. Your loving it, McDonalds, the rich especially want you to think that they are "just an average Joe".

U.S. Army Signal Corps

1860 with a primary responsibility for military communications. on July 21, 1971, the secretary of war tasked them with creating a pictorial history of the war of 1917. "Uncle Sam" poster created by James Montgomery Flagg (over 4 million printed, reused for WWII, inspired by 1914 British Lord Kitchener poster.

McGee model

1980, concept of ideograph; a widely used term or phrase with important ideological, rhetorical

First 25 Years of 20th Century

Preoccupation with PUBLIC OPINION: - new large urban populations - overall population growth - expansion of media messages ** leads to the formation of modern propaganda and public relations. Posters, radio, television.

pathos (emotion)

Appeal to emotion, awakening emotion in the audience so as to induce them to make the judgment desired. We are suffering from this more now, Facebook, social media etc. Too much pathos, no logos and little ethos is where we are NOW!! there isn't a good balance.

Logos (logic)

Appeal to logic, reason

Context for visual rhetoric

As mentioned, traditional rhetorical studies would only look at official proclamations (Presidential speeches) - Whereas visual rhetoric would look at the SOCIAL EFFECTS of president's photo opportunities - we could even look at how historical figures might be depicted in photographs and how that might affect public memory of those figures. - VR acknowledges that in a media-saturated age, OUR PERSUAVICE ENVIRONMENT IS AS MUCH ABOUT PICUTRES as it is about words. Ex. Jon Jon under his dads desk, Obama great with kids, Instagram pictures that look good. - Always putting up image that may not be us, can't be trusted

Kairos

Building a sense of urgency for your cause, an opportunity and constraints contradicting the moment, what are the opportunity or constraints

War Bond Drives

Drives to encourage citizens to buy bonds to raise money for the war effort, emphasis at all times participation rather than propaganda - observer to participant. Personalize it, help out your brother, average Joe worker, I'm going to help out too. MINUTE MAN LOGO - citizen-soldier who has principles, symbolism.

Maurice Halbwachs On Collective Memory 1877-1945

French philosopher and sociologist who coined the phrase collective memory. Early meeting with sociology founding father Emile Durkheim in 1905 when he was 28, inspired him to take up the study of sociology. Halbawachs died in the Nazi concentration camp Buchenwald. with social materials, within social contexts, and in response to social cues. Social frameworks for individual memory.

Jan Assmann (1938-)

German Egyptologist, Jan Assmann distilled Halbwach's concept of collective memory into two distinct ideas. Communicative memory and cultural memory

George Creel

Headed the Committee on Public Information, for promoting the war effort in WWI. help build unity and morale and communicate policy, helped find young men looking for a cause.

Propaganda pioneers

Ideas spread to influence public opinion for or against a cause. George Creel (1876-1951) Journalist who headed CPI during WWI. Harold Lasswell (1902-1978) Academic who studied the effect of propaganda, beginning with its use during WWI

Poster goal

PEOPLE SHOULD WAKE UP TO FIND A VISUAL MESSAGE EVERYWHERE - LIKE A NEW SNOW - EVERY MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD SHOULD BE REACHED AND MOVED BY THE MESSAGE

social media

Photoshop, adding color, taking pictures every year for 40 years. (ex. Brown sisters), archives were made in black and white, when pictures stand in for our memory.

World War II BIrd and Rubenstein Reading

Posters were inexpensive, accessible and ever-present. Design for Victory; posters were the ideal agent for making war aims the personal mission of every citizen. 1/ WAR FRONT TO THE HOME FRONT; what we do at home, helps our soldiers 2/COMMERCIAL and FINE ART; done with high art to look good. Didn't look at everyday life, looked professional. 3/ addressing every citizen as a combatant in a war of production, wartime posters united the power of art, sealing the idea that the factory and the home were also arenas of war. PRIVATE industry got involved, to enlarge people's views of their wartime responsibilities, the poster could persuade in part due to its ready access in work and public places. - private industry followed the government's lead in wanting to use posters to convert the economy to an all-out war economy and eventually dwarfed the government's in number and variety. - RUEL PARDEE TOLMAN - built an archive, the US National Museum began collecting these posters beginning 1942. He wanted to preserve these. Ex. Rosy the riveter, raising flag - 1920 - not much poster industry -1940 posters were part of a media landscape

Martin Jay - Scopic Regime

Scopic Regime: an ordering of experience influenced by hegemony expressed through visuality and socially ratified images. (Cartoons - SIGHT IS THE PRODUCT OF SOCIETY - Asians are now seen more on television.

Harold Lasswell (1902-1978)

Significant work; - propaganda technique in the World War 1927 -politics; who gets what, when , how 1936 - "war of 1914" so quaint, now first of WW. - ***a word has appeared, which has come to have an ominous clang in many minds - Propaganda, pg 2 from reading. -"We live among more people than ever, who are puzzled, uneasy or vexed at the unknown cunning which seems to have duped and degraded them" pg 3 - people are feeling "discouraged democrat" - a more pragmatic approach; keep the majority convention BUT dictate to the majority, pg 5 - international propaganda = interests overlap boundaries, pg 6, precursor to real-time global economy, and convergence culture, export of Western culture. Three examples; 1/ prestige of Japanese, 2/ myth of a single guilty nation, 3/ Soviet propaganda for US recog.

collective memory

The experiences shared and recalled by significant numbers of people. Such memories are revived, preserved, shared, passed on, and recast in many forms, such as stories, holidays, rituals, and monuments.

Emergency Management War

The study of preparation for, response to, and recovery from disaster or crisis situations.

visual rhetoric

The use of images as an integrated element in the total communication effort a speaker makes to achieve the speaking goal. Built to persuade Ex. the best YOU for a medication, but have to give you side effects.

Rayford Steele

Traditional and New Media (2009) - Author's thesis is that new media becomes very relative to their time and immediate experience AND New media for now can roughly be equated with the advent of digital technology. Right for MANIPULATION Mass Media timeline; change came because of Industrial Revolution and Transportation - Photography 1826 -Telegraphy (1830's) -Telephone (1876) - Phonograph (1877) -Motion Pictures (1888) - Radio (1888) 1950's TV: in the living room, black and white, small screen, fuzzy, limited programming, expensive to own, erratic service - television History of Computing; BASED ON MATH/combinations - Strong Museum of play - 1930's John Atanasoff - the Atanasoff Berry computer - 1936 Alan Turing: Turing Machine = Turing improved the already existing Polish bombe to search for possible correct settings used by the German Enigma machine; used rotor order, rotor settings and plugboard settings, - 1940 ENIAC -1950 - Thomas Watson Jr. pushed International Business Machines into building computers June 1951, US Census Bureau 1976 Apple I Woz and Jobs (1970's started video games/ pocket calculator) - By the 1980's IBM got into the PC market, eventually surpassing Apple

Janis Edwards

Visual Rhetoric - Visual Rhetoric: 2 meanings 1. PERSUASIVE expression that feature some visual image or FORM that functions to influence or convey meaning Attributes; instrumental, public, intended for an audience, situated, take symbolic forms and potentially persuasive effects (we are not a blank slate, may not have any effect - somewhere in the middle). - can include VERBAL ELEMENTS as well, but the visual image is the CENTRAL component of the message. - Audience may respond with an emotional reaction to the image. - image may prompt specific associations; advertisement, political cartoon, protest sign, photo collage that addresses social issues (911 photos) 2. a public message or process that CONSTITUES MEANING, and this meaning may ILLUMINATE CULTURAL AND CIVIC VALUES as well as provide insight into historical and contemporary strategies of persuasion - how visual artifacts CONSTRUCT and create MEANING (memorial wall, reflective material) - not just strategies of looking but also HOW they are looked at. - the force and potential generated by visual forms; visual rhetoric broadens the definition of public discourse to include all variety of messages.

World War 1 propaganda and poster

WWI (1914-1918) was the first time propaganda became a government sanctioned, essential element of fighting a war. Lasswell (1927), PROPAGANDA TECHNIQUE in WWI defines propaganda as the control of opinion by SIGNIFICANT symbols, by stories, rumors, reports, pictures and other forms of social communication. The unity of civilians is achieved by the REPITITION OF IDEAS rather than military movements

Propaganda and posters

WWI - the New York Times were known as the first press agents war. The US secretaries of war, state and the Navy sent President Woodrow Wilson a letter on April 13, 1917, Committee on Public Information (CPI)

Propaganda Techniques

WWI Propaganda techniques and persuasive tactics are used to influence people to believe, buy or do something.

style

a complex system of actions, objects, and behaviors that is used to form messages that announce who we are, who we want to be, and who we want to be considered akin to. it is therefore also a system of communication with rhetorical influence on others

history

a continuous, typically chronological, record of important or public events or of a particular trend or institution. we often think of history of objective facts, dates, and numerical figures, HOWEVER history is also often a narrative that is build upon subjectivity. archive, autobiography,

nostalgia

a longing for something past; homesickness, sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations. Original meaning was to refer to a medical condition; for centuries, homecoming, pain, extreme homesickness. ITs NEVER about a place, it's about a time!!! Can't go back in time.

Ideology

a system of ideas and ideals, especially one that forms the basis of economic or political theory and policy. this influences our behaviors

human memory

an information processing system that works constructively to encode, store, and retrieve information. the actual faculty by which our minds can store and recall information OR something remembered from the past; a recollection. 2 famous case studies that have helped our understanding of memory (HM/1953 and EP/1990) amnesia, epileptic seizures, to stop seizures removed part of brain, lost memory frontal and temporal lobes where memory occurs, it's never just one woman and her memories. we are not on an island. we have capacity to store and retrieve information, we use this capacity to recall persons and events we have had experiences with. We make our shift from understanding memory as an individualized concept to a social one. Hippocampus

Goffman (1959)

as we become preoccupied with self-presentation in everyday life, we come to think of rhetoric as a way to manage impressions beyond limited, particular occasions of speeches and essays. Front of the house compared to back of the house in a restaurant. Trying to be persuasive to the people in front of us.

Barry Brummett, Rhetorical Style (2009)

author's thesis is that traditionally, style was treated as secondary to content when analyzing rhetoric. traditionally, two main divisions: LINGUISTIC and PERFORMATIVE. Here Brummett is placing his "style" under performative - lit review reveals no common agreement about whether language chosen is important or whether it is just decoration. - Brummett goes all the way back to Aristotles Rhetoric and Cicero to support the importance of style. Though for Aristotle, style was still understood - based on Aristotle style. - discusses 20th century rhetorical thought and theory, including the rising importance of metaphor. - mass media changed things, more people get more information at one time. Needs to entertain. - Richards (1936) metaphor was the underlying principle of all language and that therefore we cannot speak plainly and with total accuracy about the world and our experiences. WE can connect this to the construction of history itself. - WE USE NARRATIVE

ethos (ethics)

beliefs or character of a group, moral competence, expertise, and knowledge

feral children

children who have had NO society contact

collective memory vs history

collective memory: the memory of a group of people, typically passed from one generation to the next. NOT always, but collective memory often has to do with a trauma, history: a continuous, typically chronological, record of important or public events or of a particular trend or institution.

Pre-ruins

designing something not for "now" but in the hopes of it becoming a symbol for what was. (Ex. Egyptians and Nazi's) after it was new, we will come back and enjoy it again

Halbwachs's Thesis

human beings only remember as member of social groups (no one is an island), simply put, individuals as SOCIAL GROUPS or community members are who remember, it is an individual membership in a social group that provides meaning to their memories, Halbwach's conception was limited to the individual human lifespan.

Propaganda

information that is spread for the purpose of promoting some cause, especially for war! Visual Rhetoric = persuasive expression that features some visual IMAGE or FORM that functions to influence or convey meaning (PERSUADE to do something, like the save dogs/Sara McGlaughlin song) VS Propaganda; information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view (corn syrup commercial for corn sugar, it is organic, at the end of commercial high fructose corn syrup, and that is known as negative for us, sugar in our foods) False premise, relabeling, we hear sugar we think natural, we know though it's corn syrup that isn't healthy, misleading.

communicative memory

memories of everyday life communicated orally within the group

effect of culture on memory

memory and our experience of time - culturally - transformed somewhere between the Middle Ages and the 19th Century. This is due to a combination of; increased possibility for abstract thought, increased industrialization and urbanization, decline of religious worldviews, decline in traditional forms of political authority. Kosselleck 1985; a shift from a "space of experience" to a horizon of expectation Aries 1974; by the 19th century the past was not longer felt to be immediately present but was something that required preservation and recovery. part of our identity.

John Berger, "Ways of Seeing"

men act and women appear, visual images can provide a prevailing cultural construction. How we construct a culture by television. Ex. US in center of map of world. African Americans are thief's and are portrayed on news.

recollection

shared past, shared identity

cultural memory

speech that is more "focused" (objectified and institutionalized) that can be passed between generations.

Rhetoric

the art of using language effectively and persuasively especially the use of figures of speech and other compositional techniques. Try to persuade people to do something, Ethos, pathos, logos Aristotle's Rhetoric Socrates, then Plato, then Aristotle Aristotle called epideictic "a form of rhetoric that blames or praises on ceremonial occasions, addresses an audience that evaluates rhetor's skill

epideictic rhetoric

the type of rhetoric that reaffirms cultural values through praising and blaming. Recalls the past and speculates about the future while focusing on the present, employs a noble, dignified, literary style, and amplifies or rehearses admitted facts.

rhetorical style

the way the speaker uses language, including word choice, sentence construction and figurative devices, non verbal, gesture, clothing and expression. "This sense of life lived in public with rhetorical effect that is not tied to language is quite consistent with later permative understandings of style (p. 253) - a theme sounded through classical rhetoric is that one should study persuasion because it would be too bad to leave goodness and truth undefended while evil and falsehood win over audiences.. Today we may say that about the study of style pg. 255

Television

was new media but did not destroy radio, but it did change it. Sort of like movies about the past whose sets are too homogeneous. - Kennedy-Nixon debates of 1960 changed media and politics; Newton Minow - 1961 "vast wasteland" speech and The Best of Enemies (2015 - Vidal vs. Buckley on ABC - 1957 satellites were launched, changing the scope and distribution of new media in the 60's. - The three networks became our primary source of news, advertising, entertainment - Trump pretended to be rich and authority, know how to play a role.