Rhetorical Critique
Genre
Ideology
Feminism
Generic Criticism
• Not “Common”
but
GENRE
• Communication
situations fall into
types or categories:
– Deliberative-Political
– Forensic-Legal
– Epideictic-Ceremonial
Edwin Black’s 1965 critique of
Neo-Aristotelianism
1. There are a limited number of situations
in which a rhetor can find themselves.
2. There are limited numbers of ways in
which a rhetor can and will respond
rhetorically to a given situation.
3. The reoccurrence of a given situation
type through history will provide a critic
with information on rhetorical responses
available for the specific situation.
Examples
• Eulogies
– Speeches eulogizing Eleanor Roosevelt, George
Harrison, the Columbia astronauts and Ronald
Reagan should have commonalities
•
•
•
•
•
Songs and Poetry
Political Speeches
Sermons
Advertisements
Jeremiads
Selecting an Artifact
• Three options:
– Generic Description
• Artifacts that appear to share similarities across
time, especially in nature and function.
– Generic Participation
• An artifact that is supposed to belong to a genre
but doesn’t appear to fit.
– Generic Application
• An artifact you want to assess how well it functions
and conforms to the genre it supposedly belongs.
Generic Description
(inductive reasoning)
1. Observe similarities in rhetorical
responses to particular situations.
2. Collect artifacts that occur in similar
situations of the kind.
3. Analyze the artifacts to discover shared
characteristics.
4. Formulate an organizing principle for the
specific genre.
Generic Participation
(deductive reasoning)
1. Describe the perceived situational
requirements, the substantive and stylistic
strategies, and the organizing principle of the
genre.
2. Describe the situational requirements, the
substantive and stylistic strategies, and the
organizing principle of the artifact.
3. Compare artifact and genre to see if and how
the artifact is indeed part of the genre.
Generic Application
• The first three steps are the same as
Generic Participation:
½ Describe both genre and artifact’s:
• situational requirements
• substantive and stylistic strategies
• organizing principle
3. Compare artifact and genre
4. Evaluate the artifact according to its success in
fulfilling the characteristics and goals of its
genre.
Ideographic Criticism
Ideological Criticism
• Focus on Beliefs & Values
– Social
– Political
– Economic
– Cultural
•
•
•
•
Who are we/they?
What do we/they stand for?
What are our/their values?
How do we/they relate to others?
Immigration
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Too many people coming into country.
Immigrants come to live off welfare.
Economic refugees.
Take jobs.
Inner city crime.
Should be deported.
“Real” refugees only.
Examples
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Patriotism
Anti-Communism
Christian-Right
Multiculturalism
Liberalism
Neo-Conservatism
Anti-Terrorism
Survivalism
A Set Pattern of Beliefs
Structuralism
• “Go seahawks”
• The “Grammars” of systems.
• Systematic inventories of elements and their
relationships.
• Claude Levi-Strauss
– The structure and grammar of myth.
• Semiotics
– The science and analysis of signs.
– Words-font styles-camera angles-gestures-clothes-etc.
Other Forms Ideological Critique
• Marxism
– Materialism with capitalistic scapegoat
• Deconstructionism
– Exposing underlying meanings
• Postmodernism
– Society has been transformed by media and
technology
• Culturalism
– Oppressive relationships
The Hegemonic Cultural View
• The privileged cultural view has
preeminence.
• After 9/11
– Should we invade Iraq?
– Administration’s view prevaled.
• To maintain dominance the hegemonic
view must be renewed, reinforced and
defended continuously.
Confrontational?
• The primary goal of the ideological critic is to
discover and make visible the dominant ideology
or ideologies embedded in an artifact and the
ideologies that are being muted in it.
• To give voice to those whose interests are not
represented.
• The aim is the emancipation of the human
potential being thwarted by an existing ideology.
Selecting an Artifact
• Almost any Artifact works
– Political texts are common choices
– Popular culture artifacts
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Advertisements
Television shows
Films
Sports
Concerts and music genres
Coffee houses and Restaurants
Posters
Analyzing the Artifact
(2 steps)
1.
Identify the nature of the ideology
–
Membership -Who are they? Where are they from? Who
belongs? How to become one?
–
–
–
Activities -What do they do? What is expected? Why do they exist?
Goals -Why do we do this? What do they want to accomplish?
Values & Norms –What are the main values? How do they
evaluate themselves and others? What should NOT be done?
–
Position & Relations -What is the social position? Who are the
enemies/scapegoats? Who is like them? Who is different?
–
Resources –What are the essential resources available to them?
What do they need?
Analyzing the Artifact
(2nd step)
• Identify the strategies that support the
ideology
– The rhetorical strategies are almost infinite.
– Nature of the ideology –How acceptable is it to others?
Who is it acceptable to? Inconsistencies? Contradictions?
– Communicative Genre –How do they communicate?
– Size of Audience –Mass mediated? Face-to-face?
– Content –What do they emphasize? Deemphasize? Hide?
– Style –Active or passive? Word/Phrase choices?
– Interactional strategies –Body language & clothing?
With whom do they identify?
Feminist Criticism
• Feminist Criticism has its roots in a social-political
movement:
– feminist or women’s liberation movement
– aimed at improving conditions for women
• Definitions:
– “women and men should have equal opportunities for
self-expression”
– “movement towards a society where woman can live a
full, self-determined life”
– “the theoretical study of women’s oppression and
strategies to end that oppression’
– “struggle to end sexist oppression”
– ‘a struggle to end the ideology of domination that
permeates Western culture”
Three stages or “waves” of Feminism
• 1st wave: mid 19th century to 1920’s
– Right to vote (Suffrage Movement)
• 2nd wave: 1963 to early 1980s
– Betty Friedan’s A Feminine Mystique (1963)
– Liberal, Radical and Marxist Feminists
– Lesbian and Cultural Feminists
• 3rd wave: 1980s to Present
– Feminists born after 1960
– Go beyond a “middleclass, white, able-bodied,
heterosexual” emancipation to the freedom of all
women and men of colors, religions, classes, sexuality,
worlds and abilities
Feminism and Communication
• Karlyn Kohrs Campbell, The Rhetoric of
Women’s Liberation (1973)
• Scholarship dedicated to the critique of the
rhetoric of the movement
• Focuses on particular goals like ERA
• The recognition that women had been
neglected by rhetorical studies
• Defined “What is a women’s perspective?”
Feminist Critique has:
• emerged as a method to intervene in the
“ideology of domination”.
• feminist critics as concerned with
relationships of dominance of all kinds,
not just women.
Selecting Artifacts
• Any rhetoric that marginalizes or subordinates
groups can be analyzed using feminist critique
• Any artifact that presents a view of race, gender,
class, sexuality, religion, ability or identity in a
way that angers, inspires, challenges or
frustrates you may apply.
• Even things like:
– Football?
– Architecture?
– Art – Camille Paglia's, Sexual Personae
(1990)
Naomi Wolf
• What is a feminist?
You are a feminist if you believe:
– Women matter as much as men do.
– Women have the right to
determine their lives.
– Women's experiences matter.
– Women have the right to tell the
truth about their experiences.
– Women deserve more of whatever
it is they are not getting enough of
because they are women: respect,
self-respect, education, safety,
health, representation, money.
– -- Naomi Wolf, Fire With Fire
2 steps in Analyzing the Artifact
1. Analysis of the construction of gender
– Or whatever aspect of identity is your focus
2. Exploration of what the artifact suggests
about how the ideology of domination is
constructed and/or maintained and/or
how it can be challenged or transformed.
MY NEW
FEMINISM
by
Adam Strange
1996
48" x 48" Oil on
Canvas
Works Cited
• Three & Post Modern Feminism by Kelly Ann
Thomas,
http://www.picassodreams.com/picasso_dreams/art/
• Ideology Illustrations © 2003 C. James Parks,
http://www.zmangames.com/products/Ideology/
• MY NEW FEMINISM by Adam Strange 1996
http://adamstrange.com/index.html
• Presentation content adapted from:
Sonja Foss Rhetorical Criticism: Exploration and
Practice, 3rd Ed. Waveland Press, Prospect Heights,
Illinois: 2004