English 505
Rhetorical Theory
Session Seventeen Notes
Goals/Objectives:
1) To begin to understand Critical Approaches to Rhetoric, especially as they relate to Power and Ideology
2) To begin to understand Marxist Theory in rhetorical studies, especially as it relates to Ideology, Power, and Hegemony
Questions/Main Ideas (Please
write these down as you think
of them)
Critical Approaches to Rhetoric
Approaches to rhetoric that are often termed critical approaches (also called critical
studies) usually concern how power and ideology are expressed through rhetoric
Previously, much of the discipline did not seek to question the underlying motives or
intentions of rhetors
Critical Approaches to Rhetoric
Based on the belief that rhetorical critics should provide objective descriptions and
evaluations of rhetorical practice using rhetorical theory as a guide and model
Critical Approaches to Rhetoric
Those who argue for the critical approach to rhetoric (e.g., Philip Wander) claim “that it
would be productive for rhetoricians to view discourse as an agency of economic and
political power, and to bring rhetoric’s considerable repertoire of textual analysis skills to
bear to understanding how political and economic power is mediated, reinforced, and
challenged in the texts we study.”
Critical Approaches to Rhetoric
Brummett (1994) defines critical studies as a group of theories that are critical in attitude,
methodological, concerned with power, and interventionist
Critical Approaches to Rhetoric
Critical in Attitude
Critical approaches to rhetoric are concerned with looking beneath the surface of a text
This approach assumes that things are often other than (or more than) they seem
Critical Approaches to Rhetoric
Brummett says that critical theorist are not necessarily hostile, negative, or destructive
toward rhetoric
They only “want to know what else is going on besides the obvious”
EX: a critical analysis of a movie
Critical Approaches to Rhetoric
Methodological
To uncover these deeper meanings, critical approaches to rhetoric are methodological in
nature
Critical Approaches to Rhetoric
That is, critical theories are designed to investigate the meaning of a rhetorical text and the
complex relationship it has to its context as well as make judgments about the meanings or
influences of the text
Critical Approaches to Rhetoric
First, critical methodologies are designed to uncover the meaning(s) or a rhetorical text
In many cases, critics do not seek to uncover a single meaning for a text, but rather to show
how that text might mean different things to different people
Critical Approaches to Rhetoric
Second, critical theories seek to explore the complex relationship a rhetorical text has to its
context
The methodology of critical theories does not seek to establish a simple cause-effect
relationship between rhetoric and its impact
Critical Approaches to Rhetoric
Instead, critics try to uncover the multiple ways that meanings arise and how audience
members are influenced by them
EX: the relationship between television and violence
Critical Approaches to Rhetoric
Third, critical theories seek to evaluate rhetoric
Critics judge whether rhetoric – its meanings and effects – are good or bad, positive or
negative, desirable or undesirable
Critical Approaches to Rhetoric
Remember that the Aristotelian methodology was basically just interested in whether the
rhetor met his or her goal
Critics working from a critical studies perspective would be less likely to say that a
magazine advertisement, for example, was or was not effective
Critical Approaches to Rhetoric
Critical theory would instead be interested in how a rhetorical text creates expectations and
norms in society about what is desirable or undesirable
EX: pretty much any old car commercial, etc.
Critical Approaches to Rhetoric
Concerned with Power
Critical studies examine what power is and what it has been understood to be, and how
power is created, maintained, shared, lost, and seized
We typically think of power that is exercised through political means or force
Critical Approaches to Rhetoric
Critical studies, however, is also interested in the more subtle forms of power managed
through rhetorical texts
Critical Approaches to Rhetoric
For critical theorists, power is most interesting when it concerns the empowering and
disempowering of large groups of people, that is, when it is seen to relate to groups of
people – referring to characteristics such as race, class, or gender – rather than to individual
persons
Critical Approaches to Rhetoric
Interventionist
Critical theorists do not restrict themselves to examining power relationships in society, but
instead they try to play an active role in intervening where there is disparity in power
Critical Approaches to Rhetoric
This perspective assumes people have choices about how to live their lives and that rhetoric
is the means though which we learn about our choices
Critical theorists seek to explain the consequences of particular choices and in doing so,
they influence how people make them
Critical Approaches to Rhetoric
At a higher level, critical theorists are involved in politics and persuasive movements, and
they communicate their ideas about power through the popular and news media
EX: Ono and Buesher’s (2001) analysis of Disney’s Pocahontas
Critical Approaches to Rhetoric
Rhetoric and Marxism
Critical approaches often use Marxism as a theoretical basis for making observations about
ideology and power
Critical Approaches to Rhetoric
Marxism, of course, is based on the perspective of materialism, which contends that real,
physical objects or conditions give rise to culture and our experiences
Marx made this distinction by defining two key concepts: the base and the superstructure
Critical Approaches to Rhetoric
The base refers to actual practices and products of capitalism, including land, buildings, and
money
These material objects lead to a superstructure, which includes the social, political, and
religious institutions of a culture as well as the social consciousness of its people
Critical Approaches to Rhetoric
Culture, in this view, is dependent on the material economic forces within the culture
Marxism is also obviously concerned with class struggle, especially the struggle between
the bourgeoisie or capitalists, and the proletariat, or workers
Critical Approaches to Rhetoric
Because they control the capital and modes of production, the bourgeois controlled the
superstructure of the society
Marx and Engels called on the proletariat to band together and take power from the
bourgeois, which would make the world more egalitarian and just
Critical Approaches to Rhetoric
Marxism in Rhetorical Theory and Criticism
Cloud (1994) has identified three main strains of Marxist ideology that are present in
rhetorical theory and criticism: materialist, idealist, and relativist
Critical Approaches to Rhetoric
The materialist view of rhetoric focuses on how rhetoric conceals or reveals political or
economic forces
This view, which never loses sight of what is tangible or material and seeks to reconcile
rhetoric with the reality that people regularly witness and experience, is aligned most
closely with traditional Marxism
Critical Approaches to Rhetoric
In the idealist view, rhetoric is viewed as a material force that determines the ideas that
people have about their world and culture
Theorists adopting this perspective see rhetoric as existing in the clothing, advertising,
television shows, and so forth, of a culture
Critical Approaches to Rhetoric
These rhetorical texts create ways of thinking within the culture that leads to material
relations
In other words, people assemble fragments of rhetoric into texts that make sense to them
In the relativist approach, rhetoric creates reality
Critical Approaches to Rhetoric
According to this approach, the critic is not in a credible position to adjudicate the truth or
falsity of discourse or to speculate about whose interests are served by a particular set of
texts
By taking a view of reality that is based on rhetorical texts, theorists and critics cannot
adopt a moral or political critique toward rhetorical practice
Critical Approaches to Rhetoric
Ideology, Power, and Hegemony
Three key terms in Marxism are ideology, power, and hegemony
Ideology is defined by Brummett as “an interrelated system of meanings that are generated
by the system of artifacts that comprise a culture.”
Critical Approaches to Rhetoric
First, an ideology is a system of meaning
Meaning is based on perception
What something means to me may be different from what it means to you
An ideology, then, is a set of related perceptions that people have about their world
Critical Approaches to Rhetoric
These perceptions, or meanings, are related to each other in that they are concerned with the
same general ideas, or principles
Second, an ideology is generated by a system of artifacts, which refers to a set of symbols
that have powerful meanings for a group of people
Critical Approaches to Rhetoric
EX: The American flag or The Statue of Liberty
Taken together, a system of artifacts suggests ways of thinking or believing
From an early age, we are taught the meaning of these symbols and what they represent
Critical Approaches to Rhetoric
These meanings help us form beliefs that in turn cause us to perceive events in a particular
way
Finally, ideology is related to culture
That is, an ideology is held by a group of people who are similar in some way (national
groups, racial groups, gender groups, or organizational groups)
Critical Approaches to Rhetoric
In each case, the group, or culture, of individuals will likely have similar ways of seeing
themselves and others because of how they have learned to perceive the objects in their
environment
Critical Approaches to Rhetoric
Power is the ability to control meanings within a culture
A culture will only rarely have a single set of beliefs about the meaning of artifacts that
exist within that culture
Instead, there will exist a dominant way of generating meaning that is not shared by all
within the culture
EX: a confederate flag
Critical Approaches to Rhetoric
The extent to which a view is accepted by members of a culture is determined by the
relative power of the proponents of each view
Rhetoric enters the picture in several ways
First, the artifacts upon which ideology is based are largely rhetorical in nature
Critical Approaches to Rhetoric
Flags, statues, advertisements, clothing, and so on, are all artifacts that give rise to ideology
Each of these artifacts can be viewed rhetorically
Second, rhetoric is used to manage the meaning of those artifacts; that is, rhetoric is used to
gain, manage, and negotiate power
Critical Approaches to Rhetoric
Hegemony is most often traced to Antonio Gramsci, an Italian communist writing in the
early 1900s
Hegemony is the subtle control exerted over a culture’s ideology by the dominant class
Critical Approaches to Rhetoric
The rule by hegemony is so subtle that those who are oppressed by others willingly allow
themselves to be oppressed
EX: a television commercial about a guy up to his eyeballs in debt
Critical Approaches to Rhetoric
Gramsci identifies ways that control is exerted within a culture and gives examples of
coercive control as it is exercised by means of legal institutions, laws, and even authorized
physical force
One example is rigid control over information
Critical Approaches to Rhetoric
Also, the dominant class uses rhetoric in such a way as to make certain beliefs and values
appear to be common sense
EX: a beautiful, lush, green lawn
Summary/Minute Paper: