What effects do media sources have on how we perceive the world? We see certain things through lenses that are shaped and formed by our opinions, thoughts, and ideas that we hold to be true. When we are faced with mediated rhetoric, does the frame cause us to use our lenses in a different way? How can it not? If someone holds a red pen, but before showing it to you they spray-paint it black, are you going to perceive this pen as red or black when they present it to you? Unless there is another source telling you additional information, you will hold what was presented to you as true and say that it was indeed a black pen. We are very vulnerable to the media and the power that they possess. Media is like an advertisement. It's presented to us in hopes to persuade, educate, or inform, but most of the time it is a one-sided process. Sometimes it's framed by a famous person representing it, and sometimes it's framed by the content itself. Someone who has no contact with any “outside” people but gains all information from a television set would have a very different opinion of the world compared to someone who has never watched a television. Friday in one of my sociology classes a representative from another class gave us a questionnaire to fill out for a study they were conducting. The study had to do with how weight was portrayed on television. There were questions dealing with different people sizes and how often they are represented on television (news positions, reality television, etc…). This coincided with the questions that followed about self-image and whether or not we were satisfied with our own bodies. It is difficult in our society to promote positive body image feelings to people because of frames that are constructed about the “correct” body shape, weight, and size. How would the world be different with a nation-wide issue, concerning obesity, if this mediated frame was different? I don’t think we will ever find out.

Ethics

Discussing ethics in other classes as well I have pondered the question of how we adopt ethical behavior. Is this something that we are raised with or is it something that we take hold of only when needed? Is it part of our personalities or it is it used only in situations that we need to use it in? Are we ethical by nature and deterred from that, or are we unethical and deterred from that? I think that we have choices in everything we do that is related in some way to ethics. Whether or not I get dressed in the morning is an ethical choice that I make (mostly benefiting those around me, and on cold day, myself as well). I chose whether or not I will contribute in class and whether or not I will make it a positive learning environment for those around me. I have an effect on the daily results all around me. Perhaps these choices are simply ethical standards that I choose to follow, but nevertheless they are important for me as an individual by way of making an effective as well as ethical choice.

Cultures

You wake up. Was it all a nightmare or is this reality? The people you see to your left do not look like you and do not act like you. You turn to your right and those people don’t have the same clothing as you and apparently do not speak the same language as you. You say hello, but this is obviously not the correct thing to do in this culture because if you didn’t have everyone’s attention before, you sure do now. Glares and stares come your way but after a few minutes you are “old news”. They begin conversing in a most unusual way. Hands are held high when one is speaking. Those who are listening must bend at the knees and fold their hands. What kind of rhetoric rules are these? Each person has different colored shoe laces and soon you understand that this is a kind of identification. You, wearing your slip on shoes with no laces are definitely an outcast. This culture looks so complicated in the rules and ways in which they communicate with one another. Is it really that different though from our own communication and rhetoric? Why isn’t our rhetoric unusual? Why are we so quick to accept our own cultures rhetoric? We don’t think twice about hugging our friends when we meet them, or giving a handshake when we are first introduced to someone else. These cultural rhetorical tools may seem common to us, but to someone else, they might feel like the alien above.

I have rights as a woman. I can write a speech and deliver it to my peers. I have the right to assemble and let others know my feelings about topics that are near and dear to me. These rights that I have were fought for by people who came before me who could not do these things freely. Who do I thank for my freedoms to express myself rhetorically? Do I thank those women who stood on the steps giving their speeches while being shouted at and threatened? Do I thank those women who were injured, spat on, and humiliated in the past for freedoms I enjoy today? Thinking about it I even question how often I even ponder who or why or when to thank anyone for what I take for granted today as my rights as a woman. Recently I mailed my ballot for the elections that ended last week. It did not cross my mind once however that without the fight from women in the late 1800’s I might not have been able to fill in those ovals and vote myself. In the third feminist movement today we are seeing an almost reversal of the movement in the 1970’s. Women aren’t as forward with their extreme independent feminist ways as they were 30 years ago. Is this just because women do not have respect for what women have done in the past, or have our societal norms and values changed? How will this recent feminist movement change the way women are respected and represented as a part of our society? It will be interesting as a woman to see how my own viewpoints change of my gender and how the ideas of society come to change as well.

We do it everyday. Whether we’re aware of it or not, we have to prove to others that what we’re telling them is not a bunch of “BS” that’s coming out of our mouthes but is actually legitimate. We back our arguments up by using aspects of argumentation as we examined in class last week. We can consciously construct an argument that has data, warrant, and a claim depending on what the persuader is trying to convince the audience of and also depending on what the audience already accepts as true (the level of dispute). I think it is naturally our way of constructing our arguments in this way also although sometimes there is a grey area when trying to pick out the warrant and the claim (data is usually fairly easy to identify).
Campbell’s ideas of extending the definition of rhetoric to apply to more issues than simply speech and persuasion have really unlocked my ideas of rhetoric.
Next time I’m aware that argumentation is a part of my rhetoric or is someone else’s I will attempt to apply the “D”, “W”, and “C” and see how it has an effect on the persuasion element of the argument.

Style and Delivery have such a huge impact on our rhetoric that without considering these variables, we are leaving out a major piece of the pie. Speaking of pie...lets look at some examples of hyperbaton, a style that can have a significant impact on rhetoric.

Normally we can say "The pie was delicious and juicy." However, by using hyperbaton we can change this around into a more influential and powerful sentence by stating "Delicious and juicy the pie was." What effect does this wording have on rhetoric?

Perhaps the magnitude of the result is left for the audience to know; however, these forms of speech can be much more persuasive.

Every time I hear a sentence that uses hyperbaton I always think of Yoda. In fact, while riding in the car this weekend my brother and dad continued on and on attempting to say everything "Yoda-style". In order to break this up, I barged in and explained that his form of speech is much of the time in a style in accordance with hyperbaton speech, explaining what we had learned in class on Thursday.

They seemed fascinated by this for about 30 seconds then went on to say everything "Darth Vader-style" to which I gave up trying to find an explanation for...

I see so many similarities between the historical viewpoints of rhetoric and those about this topic today. There was one line by Cicero in the presentation that specifically stuck out in my mind. “A flute player cannot play without his flute. An orator cannot tell his story without an audience.” This metaphor used by Cicero was a very good example about how rhetoric was used historically. The audience was seen as a necessarily accessory to the speaker; whereas today, the speaker is put at a much lower level compared to the interest of the audience. To me it seemed rhetoric was a very solid, black and white occurrence. There needed to be a speaker and an audience and the speaker had to convince the audience of an issue or argument. Rhetoric seemed to be a lot of convincing, as rhetoric seems to have intent within content, but not always necessarily within its consequences. I think it is also true today concerning the emotional connection that the speaker must have when connecting with an audience. I think historically rhetoric was seen more as a presentation of information for persuasion whereas today rhetoric can and is applied to many more simplistic forms of communication.

I’ve never understood the word “rhetoric” or what lies behind those eight letters as a meaning. I’m not sure if I can confidently grasp onto a meaning even now; or if I ever will. I’m in the middle of a tug of war with my mind telling me what this word means while the other part of my mind is contradicting my own self.

I’m told rhetoric includes words, images, and gestures presented to an audience for some kind of purpose. Does the purpose only include the “sender’s” delivery or does this include the reaction and consequences by the audience? If that purpose or reactive consequence is not met by the audience does this make it not rhetoric, or does this make it an unsuccessful form of rhetoric? If rhetoric involves an audience, then what constitutes an audience? Does there need to be a group of people sitting with all attention focused on “the man up front” or are passersby considered an audience?

I understand that we’re still in the beginning of this broad topic and through these next few class periods specifically, my thoughts on this subject will meld and mold into something more solid.

From conclusions that I can draw at this point, humans are naturally rhetorical beings. We naturally tend to rely on symbols, strive to have or be an audience, seek and work towards defining truth, and have the desire to analyze the world around us. These descriptions can apply to our natural tendencies as a human race, and also can apply to the idea of rhetorical theory. It will be interesting to get all of the different perspectives on rhetorical theory as well; to compare histories and conclusions about this idea of communication and persuasion.