Social Media as Rhetoric

I can honestly be the first to say that social media consumes me. And yes, I do mean to say consume here because that’s exactly what it does to me—it eats away at my free time, gobbles up my train of thought, and snacks on my little pieces of productivity. No matter how much I try to avoid it, I can’t—especially in the world of writing. Even right now, I’m logged into Facebook. It’s a problem, really. However, working for Outside Bozeman, social media important for my job I’m constantly editing blogs, posting on Facebook, or tweeting. Then, because I think I’m super witty and incredibly clever, I have to log back into these social media sites to see how many people have liked, commented on, or shared what I’ve said.

A couple weeks ago, I found this article: http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2012/02/daily-chart-0.

It talks about the Facebook community as a whole in regards to its users. Basically, if Facebook users were a country, it would be the biggest, based on population, following closely behind China and India. Obviously, I’m not the only person addicted. In fact, there are an estimated 50 million other people who log on everyday like I do.

Here’s a video on basic facts about social media. Keep in mind that even though this was near the end of 2011, some of these facts have already changed just within the year.

With the advent of social media, many people have been concerned about the decreasing forms of human narrative. Hard copy newspaper sales have decreased and the use of grammar books have plummeted. While these are real things, they aren’t completely our focus with this. What I want to focus in on is how social media is being used as rhetoric.

I decided to do a little research of my own this past weekend looking through my Facebook feeds and Twitter feeds trying to find trends among what people say about what they post. I wasn’t too interested in the pictures, but instead how people interpreted and presented things. Here are three specific things I’ve found personally:

1.  Ignorant simplicity – People really enjoy this sense of childlike behavior that happens through the posting of very uncomplicated posts.

2.  Fierce and vehement opposition of all counter-arguments – There is a huge abundance of name-calling, pointed “you’re wrong and this is why” statements, and also flat out lies just to prove a point.

3. Absence of dull and lac of attention grabbing content – When people post something, they want it to be read, entertaining, and shared. They do this through the use of humor and cunning statements. People that get the most feedback are those that practice this well.

Now, I’m not saying these things previously listed are true of everyone. There are always exceptions. These are just observations that are trending.

As we’ve probably all heard by now, Aristotle focuses in on three principles to rhetoric—ethos, pathos, and logos. They address the personal credibility, emotion, and logic behind an argument.

With this in mind, you do actually see each of these things in social media. There are people that post things that encompass all of these facets of rhetoric. People choose to portray themselves in a specific way to reach a specific audience. Because it’s the Internet and you can mostly do what you want, people can make themselves seem like whatever they want. I’ve seen people incredibly shy in face-to-face conversation, but then fill their Facebook feeds with strong opinions and politics and sports.

People influence people. It’s just basic human nature. Yes, advertisements drive our thinking visually, but it’s friends and coworkers that influence us based on their opinions. Many people see social media as a way of advancing their own agendas. This is where the rhetorical side of social media comes in. People seek to influence and persuade people, not too different from Socrates. In my opinion, I think that’s the whole point of social media — so people who have things in common can all talk about and share their opinions on whether that’s family, music, politics, or whatever else. The possibilities for rhetorical discourse in social media are endless.

There are some people in fervent opposition of social media, especially in regards to small children. In fact, an article posted in the New York Times back in April warns us of the dangers of social media. It states that children are losing the ability to self-reflect and that it takes away emotions that spark rational thinking and the capability to relate to people. They see this as being extremely dangerous for the next generation.

As with anything, power can be used for good or bad. The power in this case is the Internet. People can, for the most part, do what they want to with it. They can say what they want, when they want, and where they want. It’s a community all it’s own and the major place of rhetorical discourse still alive within our society. Social media can and does influence our thoughts and actions. Sometimes this is good, other times this can be bad. Whatever the case, social media is very likely to continue being a major rhetor within our world — it’s up to us as the audience to decipher from the rhetoric what we choose to believe.

*On a side note, please make an effort to unplug every now and again. The Internet is awesome, so is Facebook, but remember those friends actually making the profile accounts. They’re real people with real lives. Remember reality.  

Final Project Idea

I'm thinking I want to do something with social media. Social media has been a huge influence in the modern world for awhile now. It would be really interesting to delve into what exactly that influence is for this project. It also opens up a door of sorts into other forms of creativity other than just a paper. I'm thinking something really visual maybe a pecha kucha presentation, video making, or heavily photo driven blog entry. If any of you have any suggestions or comments, let me know! The more brains working, the better.

Visual Rhetoric

Investigating visual rhetoric was actually kind of fun! I decided to Google it just for starters, and found there are so many articles on visual rhetoric about advertising.

This is what I found to help make sense of visual rhetoric. I don't know if any of you will be able to open it, but here's the link if you want to try:

http://www.jstor.org/stable/466134?seq=1

It's all about how photojournalism is inspired by rhetoric. The authors address instances such as an immigrant mother, the Challenger explosion, people living during World War II, and others to make their point. They provide pictures to explain how facial expressions displayed in a picture can inspire empathy within a person.

I received an ad in the mail from the Democratic Party on Friday. Actually, I've received many ads, but one in particular was the only one I've actually looked at closely. The front depicts a woman sitting on the floor, her arms folded over her knees, in a seemingly dark and desolate room. On the back it says something to the effect that Dennis Rehberg doesn't support abortion even if it kills the mother. I felt so tricked! From the front of the ad, I couldn't even tell it was political. It made me feel totally bad for this woman, whom I've never met and is probably an actor for the photoshoot. Nonetheless, it still made me feel so sad for her. This ad is the epitome of visual rhetoric to me - a visual image communicating a message without words, just tugging on your heartstrings a little bit, or in this case, a lot!

I really wish I had a picture of this ad to post on here, but alas, I am on campus. When I get home, I will try to remember to take a picture and upload it to here so you can see what I'm talking about.

*Update* Here's the picture of the political ad I was talking about

Too Much Testosterone for One Stage

This second debate was, by far, better than the first. The moderator controlled the topics better and the answers were better by both Romney and Obama. They still kept cutting her off though! Especially Romney. That's just rude and makes me not like you.

But, all in all, I couldn't tell who won exactly. Obama supporters seem pretty happy and Romney supporters seem pretty happy too. Something that really threw me off at first was the fact that Romney was wearing a blue tie and Obama was wearing a red tie. It's interesting how we associate colors like that to political parties! It was just neat!

In the beginning, I thought Obama was nailing it and Romney was like struggling to survive. Romney just wasn't answering the questions, he seemed to just point fingers and blame Obama for what he'd done to the economy or hadn't done to fix taxes for the middle class. After a bit, they both started getting more into their answers and answered the questions well, which made the debate interesting. When talking about foreign policy, they looked like they were about to swing a punch. Like the title suggests, there was just too much testosterone! Romney really pushed his CEO status and Obama addressed his status as the President.

One thing I noticed throughout the entire debate was that Obama really addressed the crowd in just about everything he said. He used a lot of "we" and "you" statements. He seemed to be able to connect with the people better in his responses. That could be because of his status as President. He has had lots of practice. On the other hand, Romney used a lot of "I" statements. It made me uneasy and a little disconnected. Romney's responses were just harder to follow than Obama's.

Unspoken Rhetoric

This was definitely an interesting assignment for sure. I originally had a topic idea of analyzing in-depth the role of ethos, pathos, and logos in previously elected US President’s. The more I looked into the topic, the more bored I started to feel. I knew that if I were boring myself, I would probably bore all of you as well. So last minute, I decided to change my topic to something I found much more interesting – body language as rhetoric. 

*Disclaimer* I'm sorry for any strange formatting... blogger didn't really like my word document.

 

Unspoken Rhetoric: A Look into Body Language

Something that I’ve heard for a long time throughout life in is that actions speak louder than words. The older I get, the more and more I am beginning to agree with this statement. A smile can completely change the mood of someone’s day and a turn of the body in spite of a remark can completely change an onlooker’s viewpoint. There is rhetoric that can be found and seen in our actions. Sometimes it can be faint and other times it can be as visually loud as an atom bomb. Either way, body language and the look of a person can be viewed as rhetoric. I also see this being acknowledged in this current election season.

I decided to look at the majority of this analysis through the lens of Aristotle’s version of ethos. Ethos is all about the look of a character – the trustworthiness or credibility of the speaker. The goal of ethos is to display trustworthiness, convey a good impression, and establish social authority. In the current Presidential election, these are all desirable characteristics. Each candidate seriously needs to appeal to his audience in a way that will make them respond in a positive way. This is where ethos steps in and where body language becomes a driving force.   

To start off, I decided to look at the candidates and see what it means to look Presidential. Here’s what I found with a quick Google search:

http://www.bostonmagazine.com/articles/2012/01/the-presidential-look-mitt-romney/

This quick posting details the physical appearance of Mitt Romney and why that is going to win him the Presidency, in the authors’ opinion. A face-reading expert, Mac Fulfer, analyzes Romneys' face. He goes through Romneys’ picture and analyzes his chin, eyes, ears, and lips. Fuller says that, in the presidential election, U.S. citizens are looking for a candidate with “warrior traits” someone to “fight for us.” Although this analytical approach can be considered a little sketchy, it is kind of interesting to read how people can read the look of another person.

Next, just as a little experiment, I decided to ask a couple of my friends to email me a picture off of Google of a person who looked presidential, but was not currently engaged in politics. Here’s what they sent to me - George Clooney and Michael Douglas. 

  I couldn’t help but note the similarities between these two men: both have grey hair, suit and tie, are at least 50 years old, and are kind of large and in charge being that George Clooney and Michael Douglas are two of the most well known and highly paid actors in Hollywood. Their looks portray the message of boss-tastic. They want to be recognized and are given that recognition due to their status. The same could be said of Mitt Romney and Barack Obama as well.

There’s the same sort of look for these two men – suit and tie, grey hair. Their look inspires ethos, whether they plan for it to or not. Their grey hair helps show their age and wisdom. It also gives us as the voter’s reassurance because they look similar to the men who have come before them in the US presidency. 

Linguistic manipulation is incredibly important in political rhetoric. They have to be able to persuade people. If a person cannot do that then well, they should not be running for an elected public office. The same can be said of body language and look as rhetoric. If the person does not sound, look, or appear to match the part, they won’t be elected.

It’s interesting how people’s body language, such as the two men mentioned above can be translated into rhetoric. According to the Definitive Book of Body Language (Random House 2007), a person’s eyes and posture have a lot to do with rhetoric.

Eyes can either tell or withhold information. Eye contact is a human need and is necessary for bonding. This is one reason why we are told to make eye with our audiences contact when giving speeches. It helps to convey a message, not only with your words, but the look you convey through your eyes.

Posture is another form of rhetoric that the book addresses. One can acquire a sense of interest or disinterest in a person by observing the way a person stands or sits. The position of a person’s shoulders, back, arm placement, and foot direction are all cues as to what a person is feeling in the moment with what they are saying or hearing. Examples of this can be feelings of insecurity, annoyance, pride, and many others.

After learning the very basics of body language analysis, I decided to put my newly acquired skills to the test and see how President Obama fared in his body language rhetoric. I chose President Obama to analyze simply because there are more videos of him. This video addresses the rhetorical devices of story telling and repetition used by President Obama in his speeches.

Throughout this video and his famous “Yes We Can” speech in 2008, you also see the rhetorical devices of metaphor and personification. You also see him with very large hand gestures that display his desire for openness.

There’s so much more to body rhetoric than what I’ve mentioned in here. I feel like I’ve just skimmed the surface. It is an important tool of rhetoric, especially in the Presidential debates that many people tend to overlook in general because most of it is read through our brain subconsciously. A lot of communication goes unsaid – this is where the art of the rhetoric of body language becomes vital. Body language conveys an unspoken message that we all pick up on, whether we realize it or not.