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Articles Conference Reviews |
200758MerysSession 5.8: Special Delivery: The Production and Distribution of Multimodal Public Rhetoric
Jim Ridolfo (Michigan State University), Anthony Michel (Avila University), David Sheridan (Michigan State University) The ways in which public discourse is created and disseminated changes the ways in which it is in turn collected and absorbed by individuals as well as by the public at large. It is exactly these issues of creation and consumption of public rhetoric that the presenters in this panel address. Jim Ridolfo, Michigan State University: "Frame & Counterframe: YouTube & Rhetorical Circulation" Ridolfo begins his presentation by showing Apple’s Macintosh Commercial via YouTube as a way to segue way into the real object of discussion, the remaking of that commercial into Vote Different, an anti-Hilary Clinton, pro-Barack Obama plug. Looking at these two clips, Ridolfo discusses the ideas of delivery in public discourse and the rhetoric encapsulated in recomposing this media. Parkridge 47, the creator of Vote Different, plays on the public’s relationship with the original commercial and its knowledge of Apple/Macintosh then and now, in order to create a message about current politics. Additionally, the public discourse surrounding the purpose of Vote Different as well as its authorship become part of the overall rhetorical situation in which the public participates and creates. The question of what this means for online delivery is what drives this part of Ridolfo’s examination. He turns to John Trimbur’s analysis of the disregard writing instructors usually have for delivery. He quotes Trimbur by stating, “Trimbur argues, ‘neglecting delivery has lead writing teachers to equate the activity of composing with writing itself and to miss altogether the complex delivery systems through which writing circulates’.” He goes on to include that “According to Trimbur, ‘delivery can no longer be thought of simply as a technical aspect of public discourse. It must be seen also as ethical and political—a democratic aspiration to devise delivery systems that circulate ideas, information, opinions and knowledge and thereby expand the public forums in which people deliberate on the issues of the day’.” Ridolfo shows Trimbur’s ideas at work with these examples, and warns that composition instructors need to begin to teach students about the role of delivery in their compositions. Anthony Michel, Avila University: "New Media Technologies, Community Groups and Social Movements" Michel’s presentation focuses around the idea of social movement organizations versus community activist organizations, and the ways new media influences their rhetorical effectiveness in reaching their audiences. As an example of the ways in which public rhetoric is employed in these two types of organizations, he examines True Blue Women, an organization that began as a social movement connecting Kansas women who felt alienated by the outcome of the 2004 election, but which has subsequently undergone changes that have aligned it more as a community activist organization focused on rhetorically reframing the idea of “family values.” What Michel then looks into is how new media technologies help and hinder this organization, and others like it, to reach its goals of creating networks among people, while balancing local connections with more global concerns. The main issue that Michel points out is that such organizations do well for themselves by “develop[ing] strategies that address the complex interplay between the movement’s purposes […] and dominant characteristics of (mass) media [as well as] combin[ing] ‘old-fashioned’ technologies such as banners with high-tech mobile tools of communication.” In other words, a highly nuanced look into an organization’s outreach base is necessary so that the incorporation of various new media technologies enhances its goals without estranging its particular member, and potential member, network. Michel ends his presentation by speaking briefly about using this example in teaching and asking students what the effects of the various rhetorical reframing moves are, both in terms of the movement itself as well as in the media associated with it. David Sheridan, Michigan State University: "Where Do We Draw the Line? A Framework for Deciding Which Technologies We Should Study and Teach" Sheridan’s presentation, as the title so well shows, asks the question “where do we draw the line in rhetoric’s inclusiveness.” He focuses on how in many ways what we see as rhetoric has expanded quite a bit so that it now includes not just the written and spoken word, but also sound, image, music and film to name a few. What Sheridan finds interesting, however, is that while this inclusiveness in definition seems to be infinite, that a line is drawn in what we actually teach in classrooms, and how the time/energy of a rhetoric course is spent. During the presentation, he gives two very compelling examples of areas of rhetorical study that may be worth spending “33% of the rhetorical education” of a class, the rhetoric of game design and the rhetoric of manufacturing objects. To illustrate his points he uses the game September 12th: A Toy World, and MIT’s Fabrication Laboratory, or “Fab Lab.” In both of these examples, the argument is actually embedded the design or manufacturing processes themselves. Using both of his examples, Sheridan illustrates why more time could be spent in our courses not just on the ways in which games or objects function as arguments, but on how those arguments are actually embedded in their creation as well. What he leads to is really a discussion on the institutional and public rhetoric that prevents our rhetorical study from widening even as our definition of it does. It seems that he sees the main reasons behind the lag in studying these areas is due, at least in part, to the infrastructural investment required to engage in a particular rhetorical practice, i.e. the time, technology, mental energy, etc. needed to engage this study. Sheridan also mentions issues involving invisible divisions such as divisions of labor into different disciplines of media production versus rhetorical production, division of media and mode and the privileging of the written word over other media as hindrances to this advancement. Overall, the information I heard during this session is very intriguing. The presenters do an amazing job creating a cohesive way of looking at several variant facets of multimodal public rhetoric. I truly look forward to the reading the final products of all their work.
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