Rhetoric In Popular Culture

Front 1

rhetoric

Back 1

1. rhetoric: how messages influence people. the ways in which words influence people
2. in this book we study the ways that signs influence people.

Front 2

rhetoric

Back 2

1. rhetoric: how messages influence people. the ways in which words influence people
2. in this book we study the ways that signs influence people.

Front 3

power

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3. power- the ability to control events and meanings
4. everyday experience is alive with persuasive influence
5. disempowerment of women happens from moment to moment

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sites of struggle

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. people who benefit from privilege need to see the sources so they can live ethical lives. people who are not privledged need to see the sources so they can struggle against it.

look into more

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privilege

Back 5

look in to more.

Front 6

influence/ management of meaning

Back 6

look into more

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sign

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B. The building blocks of culture: signs
1. how things and events come to have meaning
2. glamour and mystery could be attached to a certain perfume.
3. a sign is something that induces you to think about something other than itself (not just salt.. salt and the eggs you had.. the MEMORY attached to the salt)

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indexical

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indexically- sometimes the thing (sign) and the memory(meaning) are connected by cause or association. smoke is an index to fire. the meaning of cat is “a dog” because it fits indexically. one part of the meaning of cats is thier association as enemies of dogs.

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iconically

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conically- sign makes you think of something else because it resembles that thing. like on SNL when they dress up as OBAMA and make you think of that; voices, stances, gestures.

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symbolically

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symbolically- something that people agree to make a meaning. for example, book = the thing im reading vs. GLORPUS= the thing im reading. we all agreed to it. symbolic meanings are the most difficult to learn because the are not natural and they vary from one group to another. “fall out’ could mean faint in some countries or nuclear war to a scientist. words are not the only things: red, white, blue pattern is US but because they made it so. you can discover symbolic meaning or forget it, but you cannot legislate it. but the meaning for gay used to be “happy and carefree” so the symbolic meanings can be changed.

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slippage

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stopped here

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slippage

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how the meanings of signs can change like happy to homosexual

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artifact (3) things

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1. action/ event of object perceived as a unified whole
2. having widely shared meanings
3. manifesting group identification to us.

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artifact as a unified whole

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the bottom stripe of the US flag is nothing without its other parts

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having widely shared meanings

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not that theres anything wrong with that from seinfield

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manifesting group identification

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American: geographical. Male or female

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note that the meaning of artifacts are ______ ______

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socially created

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high culture/ elitist culture

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very best, high intellectual. the ballet, symphony, beethoven... not rock and roll

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contemporary meaning of culture (popular)

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culture nourishes those who live within it. we need to be able to talk to people and meet people and everything, group identification, everything in our "whole ways of life"

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popular culture

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systems that most people share or that most people know about.

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characteristics of culture

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highly complex and overlapping
- entail consciousness or ideologies
-are experienced through texts

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highly complex and overlapping

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cultures can be big or small, there isnt a single whole way to just be part of one culture.

-fragmentation : when you can belong at the same time to many different groups/ cultures
- contradiction: religion and work on Sunday

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entail consciousness and ideologies

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ideology used to mean: false beliefs the rich imposed on the poor. ideologies are based on the artifacts.

contradictions within a single culture: martin luther king = american culture but stands for harmony and a turbulent time.

preferred meaning:the sum of meanings is implied by a SYSTEM of artifacts, the church, baptism (preferred for Christianity.)

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experieced through texts

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a group of words or symbols or a baseball game all in a certain pattern to create a certain feeling.

texts are how we experience culture

discrete and diffuse texts
discrete: letter in the mail
diffuse: facebook wall, linked to another wall and another.

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ch 2. discussion of power struggles

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**those who have the power of words have control over the wor;d. hitler: germans are the only good human beings. men control over women with as incomplete copies of men.

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sophist

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one who is more concerned with having an argument than with establishing the truth.

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basic complaints against the sophists

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they really didnt have knowledge about public speaking
2. they need to learn about what theyre speaking about cause anyone could speak about anything.

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legacies of the ancient traditions

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rhetoric is a function, to influence poeple. in different forms of tv or text

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verbal

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laguage and nonverbal

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expositional

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public speaking. to argue and explain. obama made arguments but did not explain his ideas.

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discrete

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text messages. their own space and time. certain speech at a certain hour but not where theres coughing or music.

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hierarchical

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one person in advantage of others for a moment during a public speech. one person talking the others listening. message, source, reciever

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traditional rhetoric and paradox of power

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paradox is an apparent contradiction.

power to control both events and meaning.it depends on how a person sees a recovery as hopeful or helpless.

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greek paradox

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rhetoric helps build a democracy but the greek understanding of rhetoric as verbal, expositional discrete and hierarchical may not be as democratic as it seems.

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what changes the definition/interpretation/ theories of rhetoric?

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population: exploded. more urbanized. farm populations to the city. more people exposed to more variety of artifacts, created a mass culture.
technology: we are exposed to more technology and they are different than any other technology in human history. same global culture of messages everywhere.
-Pluralism: aware of many different perspectives. allows others to be in control of society and meanings and it legitimizes signs that are not within the greek laws of rhetoric.
- knowledge: people are more understanding of other cultures its ok for others to be different.

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neo- aristotelian criticism: why is it still relevant/?

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to look at law, places of worship, school all places where speaking and rhetoric and argument are occuring. the situation, the speaker, the speech, the evluation.. a way of critiquing.

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nonverbal texts

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images, not just words

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metonymy texts

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name of a way of thinking meaning reducation. the president is a metonymy of a whole branch of goverment. reduce middle east to images of its problems

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narrative texts

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telling stories. fridat nght lights. `

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diffuse texts

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whole experience of watching televised football. small group, talking, issues relating to other issues of life, people come and go,everything mixed up all creating enjoyment but there is no boundaires on the space of hte system so its diffuse.compared to reading a newspaper article in a room with coffee thats discrete.

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democratic texts

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people walk through a sea of sings in LA because they have the ability to choose what they like or not versus just a speech where they sit there and have to listen