Summary Re sume Political Rhetoric - Julie Sevenans
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Course
Political Rhetoric (1100PSWMRD)
Institution
Universiteit Antwerpen (UA)
This summary was created in the first semester of academic year and summarizes Professor Julie Sevenans' lectures for the course Political Rhetoric. The notes are complemented by some clarifications from the book Politics & Rhetoric by James Martin. The document includes 56 pages.
POLITICAL RETHORIC
1 Introduction ................................................................................................................ 3
1.1 The importance of political rhetoric ............................................................................... 3
1.2 What is rhetoric? ........................................................................................................... 3
1.3 Political rhetoric?........................................................................................................... 3
1.4 Warm-up exercise.......................................................................................................... 3
1.5 A diverse research field? ................................................................................................ 4
1.6 Is rhetoric a bad/dangerous thing? ................................................................................. 4
2 Ancient rhetorical classifications and techniques ......................................................... 8
2.1 Occasions of speech ....................................................................................................... 8
2.2 The issue ....................................................................................................................... 8
2.3 Four (five) canons of speech........................................................................................... 9
2.4 Discovery (detection) of the argument (1) ...................................................................... 9
2.5 Arrangement of the argument (2) ................................................................................ 11
2.6 Style (3) ....................................................................................................................... 12
2.7 Delivery and memory (4) ............................................................................................. 15
3 Mass media & rhetoric .............................................................................................. 16
3.1 The mediatization of politics ........................................................................................ 16
3.2 The rhetoric of politicians ............................................................................................ 17
3.3 The rhetoric of mass media .......................................................................................... 18
3.4 Media: curse or blessing for political rhetoric?.............................................................. 20
4 Research methods in political rhetoric ....................................................................... 21
4.1 Rhetorical political analysis (RPA) ................................................................................ 21
4.2 Quantitative content analysis ...................................................................................... 24
4.3 Experimental research ................................................................................................. 25
4.4 Other methods ............................................................................................................ 26
5 Emotion & incivility ................................................................................................... 26
5.1 Perspectives on emotions in rhetoric............................................................................ 26
5.2 Incivility in politics ....................................................................................................... 29
5.3 Emotional rhetoric: curse or blessing? .......................................................................... 30
6 Guest lecture by Eran Amsalem – Integrative complexity .......................................... 31
6.1 Background: what is political persuasion? .................................................................... 31
6.2 Context: a changing political rhetoric ........................................................................... 31
1
, 6.3 Framework: integrative complexity .............................................................................. 31
6.4 Theoretical model........................................................................................................ 32
6.5 Experimental tests of the model .................................................................................. 32
6.6 Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 34
7 Guest lecture Yves Dejaeghere - Deliberative democracy........................................... 36
7.1 Democracy as a puzzle? ............................................................................................... 36
7.2 What answers do we have now and what might be some ailments with it? ................... 38
8 The rhetoric of populist leaders and parties ............................................................... 39
8.1 What is populism? ....................................................................................................... 39
8.2 Elements of populist rhetoric ....................................................................................... 41
8.3 Use of populist rhetoric ............................................................................................... 44
9 Gender & rhetoric ...................................................................................................... 46
9.1 Gender inequality in political rhetoric .......................................................................... 46
9.2 Feminism and rhetoric ................................................................................................. 48
9.3 Gender roles as a means to persuade ........................................................................... 50
10 Visuals in rhetoric .................................................................................................. 51
10.1 Intermezzo: survey experiment by master students Polcom .......................................... 51
10.2 The importance of visuals ............................................................................................ 52
10.3 Visuals & media access ................................................................................................ 53
10.4 Visuals & media control ............................................................................................... 53
10.5 Image as argument ...................................................................................................... 54
10.6 Conveying logos........................................................................................................... 54
10.7 Conveying ethos .......................................................................................................... 54
10.8 Conveying pathos ........................................................................................................ 55
10.9 The psychology of visuals ............................................................................................. 55
10.10 Journalistic bias in the visuals? ................................................................................. 56
2
,1 Introduction
1.1 The importance of political rhetoric
• The art of persuasion
• No politics without persuasion
• Reason: uncertainty
• Persuasion by speech vs. persuasion by force
o Vote for the party = not forced → you accept the power
▪ Makes regimes last longer <-> persuasion by force
• The fundamental political skill
1.2 What is rhetoric?
• Greek: ‘retoriketekhne’
o Rhetor = speaker
o Tekhne = art
• Studying rhetoric
o learning the practical skills of persuasion
o studying the persuasiveness of speech → the analyse
• No limited to spoken words (oratory)
o Written word, visuals
1.3 Political rhetoric?
• Many areas of thetorical studies
o E.g. Law, organization studies
• Persuasion in the political realm
• Not limited to politicians!
o E.g. activists (movements or humans like Greta T.), the media through which
politicians communicate, journalists
• “What makes a political speech persuasive (or not)?”
1.4 Warm-up exercise
• “Most famous persuasive speech in history”
→ Martin Luther King – I have a dream
• Activist leader of civil rights movement
• August 1963
• March on Washington for jobs and freedom
• 100 years after Emancipation Proclamation (Lincoln)
o End of slavery
• Elements
o Slow talking
o Comparison to history (bad times)
o The place: capital
o Rights of ‘every American’
o Every state is being mentioned → he addresses the speech to you
o Repetition: “Now is the time”, “I have a dream”
o My friends
o Rhythmic, rhyme
o Metaphors
3
, o Allusions (= an indirect reference to a person, event or thing -> evoke visuals)
o Humour
o Arousal of emotion
o His credibility as a person
▪ Who he is → children → it’s also his issue
o Displaying eloquence, expertise (references to history…)
1.5 A diverse research field?
• Different backgrounds, different questions
o Linguistics (rhetorical figures)
o Psychology (emotions vs. the cognitive)
o Political science (questions of power)
o Communication science (mass media)
• Each with their own terminology & research methods
• Difficulty: they don’t always talk with each other
• This course: eclectic approach (different traditions)
1.6 Is rhetoric a bad/dangerous thing?
1.6.1 Rhetoric, a contested notion…
• Words often associated with rhetoric: ‘mere’ ; ‘empty’
o Rhetoric is contrasted with reality e.g. What companies say what their priorities are
aren’t really their priorities
o Association with danger
▪ polarisation – e.g. attack on capital because of the rhetoric of Trump
▪ rhetoric can be false e.g. anti-vaccine misinformation
▪ → people can be persuaded of anything e.g violence
• At the same time: no democracy without free speech?
1.6.2 Rhetoric was central to ancient democracy
• Greece, 500 B.C.
• From aristocracy to democracy (from small elite to ordinary people (farmers) debate)
o Demos = people
o Ekkledia: the assembly where everyone gathered to discuss
o Highly participatory system
▪ Status of being citizen comes with obligations
o Rhetorical skills were important (everyone had to do it not only politicians)
o Teachers: sophists
▪ Sophos = wisdom
▪ E.g. Gorgias, Protagoras
o Culture of oral transmission
o Different views of classical thinkers
• Plato
o Belief in one moral ‘truth’: 100% clear what is good and bad but only few know this
▪ Allegory of the cave
• we as people live in a cave with a fire behind us, all that we see are
shadows from things outside of the cave
• only people who are smart can go out of the cave and see the real
things
4
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