Media Rhetoric

Rhetoric is, perhaps, one of the most abused words in the English language. Politicians dismiss one another's statements as “mere rhetoric” or demand that an opponent “get past the rhetoric and discuss real solutions.” Such usage portrays rhetoric as empty, pompous speech with little substance behind it, but that is an unfair depiction. Before one can delve into the topic of media rhetoric, one must have a clear understanding of rhetoric itself. This can be perplexing because the phenomenon of rhetoric is often defined in different ways by different disciplines. For example, in sociology and media studies, when one talks about the ways in which a message is framed, the underlying issue is actually a question of how a movement or media outlet engages in rhetorical processes.

Aristotle defines rhetoric as “an ability, in each [particular] case, to see the available means of persuasion.” However, there is more to rhetoric than simply persuasion. Kenneth Burke observes that a key function of rhetoric is to foster identification. People use rhetoric to make sense of the world linguistically and symbolically; through rhetoric, people define themselves and their relationships to others, cast blame or praise on individuals and groups, ascribe motives for actions, and interpret events. In other words, empirically observable phenomena are the province of the sciences, but phenomena that are perceptible only through our symbolic representation of them (such as nation-states, political identity, and religious ideologies) are firmly in the domain of rhetoric.

Rhetorical theory has long been based on traditional oratory, but as media have become an increasingly important part of society, rhetorical scholars have paid closer attention to how the medium shapes the message. This is not a new idea, of course. Marshall McLuhan famously proclaimed that “the medium is the message,” meaning that the medium is by no means a neutral conduit, but rather an integral part of how we perceive the message. The 1960 Kennedy-Nixon presidential debates provide an excellent illustration of how rhetors can benefit from or be thwarted by the medium. Many who watched the debates on television thought that Kennedy won, largely because of the nonverbal cues that made Nixon appear sickly, untrustworthy, and sinister. However, many of those who listened to the debates on the radio felt that Nixon had won the debates. In essence, what changed was how one draws on ethos, or that credibility that is drawn from the speaker him- or herself, that entices one to believe him or her. However, the means by which one persuades in general had also changed as a result of the shift in the media environment (the Kennedy-Nixon debates were the first presidential debates to be televised). Other scholars, such as Kathleen Hall Jamieson, suggest that Ronald Reagan understood well the power of the visual medium, giving him a rhetorical edge over those who were less gifted at drawing on the resources of that medium.

Gender scholars have examined the difference between sex and gender, suggesting that sex is biologically constructed while gender is socially constructed. Although family plays a considerable role in how norms of gender performance are shaped, the media also play a significant role in shaping and perpetuating these constructions. Some of the [Page 222]concerns often raised by media effects scholars include body image and eating disorders, adolescent sexual behavior, the influence of the consumption of sexually explicit or violent media, and the creation or reinforcement of potentially damaging gender norms.

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