Response for the week of 2/9-2/13, CMJR 205

Olivia Hernandez
2/10/09
CMJR 205
Rhetoric Response # 4

In response to the question from “Citizen Jones”:

3) Using the information in the reading by Warnick and Inch, I would like to ask for someone to analyze the following ads from the 2008 Presidential campaign: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wv4bYWBTgdw , http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpmFd25tRqo , http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHe_FQGfdyo , http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1azQcs-8iI , http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdrRk8KQukY

As we read in this selection, evaluating the claim, reasoning and evidence is critical to argument analysis. Which of the above ads was most powerful? Were any overly strong and therefore off-putting? What are the different audience assumptions, orientations and background knowledge that each claimant is relying on in order to make his or her argument persuasive? Please use the concepts from the reading to make your analysis, rather than your own biases.

In the context of this field of argument, politics, all of these ads were overdoing it. Each one’s rhetoric was seemed flawed. My two favorites or at least the one’s that I find least grating are Barack Obama’s “Barney Smith” ad and Hilary Clinton’s “Phone Call” ad.

Both Obama and Clinton make a connection with their audience with their ads. They aren’t talking about foreign policy directly; they are talking about the emotions of the people who would vote for them. They are creating a message for their audience in a way that they hope will help the audience connect to them.

The argument model for Clinton if Warnick and Inch would look at these ads is thus:

I have spent years working directly in both domestic and foreign politics and my husband used to be president, allowing me access to high-risk politics (Evidence.) Because of this, I am an experienced politician; I know what I am doing and am prepared to make quick decisions (Reasoning.) I am the person most equipped to answer the important phone calls in my duty as a potential president (Claim.) She doesn’t say, but implies, that she is better than the other nominees.

Obama’s would follow like this:

McCain, in my interpretation of his voting record, supports tax-cuts for corporations that export jobs to other nations. People are losing their jobs to outsourcing of work (Evidence.) If John McCain is president, he may continue to support corporations that outsource, and in doing so they will continue to outsource positions to other countries and more people will lose their jobs (Reasoning.) I am a better candidate to vote for because if you vote for John McCain, your job is in danger (Claim.)

These are ads that still bother me, because they don’t go into depth about the voting records or ideals of either candidate, but they are still preferred.

I felt that both the John McCain ad and the Tom Tancredo ad were both off-putting, the Tancredo ad especially. If the McCain ad had stuck to the facts, without using imagery that implied some sort of future where things have gone to hell, I would have found it infinitely more effective because it used real, compelling information.

All of these advertisements functioned from a base of fear. They exploit the fear in their audience to make themselves seem superior in the face of trying times.

I think that the ads are all based in recipient orientation. According to Warner and Inch this approach to argument “causes us to consider the nature of the audiences to which an argument is addressed.” The assumptions that each ad is making about its audience is based in fear and anxiety, though in differing levels and about different subjects. Tancredo assumes that his audience is afraid of foreigners wreaking violent havoc in our nation and assumes that the fact that other, hazy, unknown, politicians will not protect them. Tancredo claims he can because he favors border protection. This is not a strong enough argument. What do his opponents favor? How will forcing people out of the country protect us from violence? His argument’s reasoning and claim are flawed. He perceives the right things in his audience orientation but doesn’t come to a claim that would be effective for his audience—I think he just alienates them and inspires fear because of the intensity of the images and claims he makes. He doesn’t offer them the options that he should have explored within the audience orientation.

Clinton and Obama are both guilty of using the audience’s fear in attempts to craft a more effective claim. It is Clinton’s perceived fear of inexperience, and Obama’s perceived fear of having the wrong person in the white house that acts as the basis for their reasoning.

I don’t think campaign ads are ever as engaging or effective as they should be. They always put off the audience they are trying to connect with in the way that they address the audience—as if we don’t know any facts and will be swayed by persuasive words or images or attitudes, without hard facts.

Answer for Week 2/2-2/6

Olivia Hernandez

2/4/09

CMJR 205

Rhetoric Response for the Week of 2/2-2/6

In response to Elaine’s question about the Kenneth Burke article:

“ 1. After this, Burke discusses the contradictions found among proverbs that I found to be rather interesting. If proverbs are meant to serve as methods for dealing with a given situation, isn’t it reasonable that such contradictions exist? For example, following a proverb that aims to provide a helpful hint to reach success will result in either a success or a failure. Let’s say that the person did indeed fail after first obeying the helpful proverb. The person might then seek a proverb of consolation that might encourage a second attempt. We, as humans, are not successful in all of our endeavors and therefore seek words of encouragement, consolation, and incentive to match any situation we find ourselves in. It is natural that proverbs are contradictory, then, because we require a number of different attitudes to complement what we humans experience. We are constantly re-working our strategies in order to achieve our goals, which thus create the necessity of a range of proverbs that we may tailor to our emotional needs. What do you think of my interpretation of Burke’s ideas?”

This interpretation of Burke’s essay does a great job of delving deeper into the information and ideas that he presents about proverbs. I agree with Elaine’s introspective assessment of how humans use proverbs.

Burke speaks at length at his idea of proverbs as much debated “strategies.” In this essay that attempts to explain the “sociology of literature”, Burke starts with proverbs as a way of examining how the medicinal “literature” of proverbs can be socially reflective. He attempts to categorize the emotions that proverbs capture. “There is realism for promise, admonition, solace, vengeance, foretelling, instruction, charting, all for the direct bearing that such acts have upon matters of welfare,” Burke writes in page 296, emotional welfare.

Burke seems to subscribe to the notion that proverbs themselves create the human condition that seeks them, almost like the Lakoff and Johnson we read last week about metaphors transcending their status as literary devices and becoming the stage that the situation is played out on.

Perhaps we act on one proverb, knowing that we can always find a separate proverb to catch us as we fall, proverbs can guide us and then save us both in the situation and emotionally, which seems to be what Elaine is implying.

Elaine thinks of proverbs as devices that humans “tailor to our emotional needs.” This is why proverbs can contradict each other, because human emotions contradict each other. We can be needy in one moment and feel fiercely independent the next. How could we exist within the confines that these proverbs and metaphors create in our society if they were not contradictory enough to include our broadest range of emotions and needs?

Burke identifies proverbs as “strategies for dealing with situations”, which I think more than supports Elaine’s interpretation of these proverbs of both motivation and saving grace. This certainly also fits into my own view of proverbs in our interactive society.