In Module 1 we took a look at the history of Rhetoric. You may be asking yourselves, how does that relate to me and my life today? As stated in Module 1, the history of Rhetoric is the history of how we study and perceive messages—which is a central point of Communication Studies. But what impact do these messages have? How are these messages representative of our lived experiences in today’s world?
Public Communication Studies
Rhetoric is most often viewed as a form of public communication. What we mean by public communication is not as simple as it sounds. Public communication can mean communication that is not private—such as a public display of affection. It can also mean communication intended to reach a large audience. It also refers to the rhetorical construction of reality, because rhetoric and public argument are the means of establishing social and cultural rules, political action, and legal processes (Fassett, Warren, & Nainby, 2018; Griffin, Ledbetter, & Sparks, 2018).
If we accept the rhetorical construction of reality—we can also use that to lay the foundation for generating social change. As we learned in module 2—critical paradigm scholars often focus on how their work can change the world (Fassett, Warren, & Nainby, 2018; Merrigan & Huston, 2015; Wander, 1983). These scholars also often study rhetorical texts that were created to construct and change the world.
Think about The Declaration of Independence. The document is an example of a number of rhetorical processes. Yet the impact of the document within its historical context and in today’s interpretation that matter—that’s how we judge the value of the words and messages contained in the text.
Public Argument
Studies in public argument are among the earliest academic studies. They are rooted in the rhetorical studies field, with a focus on Aristotle'sCanons of Rhetoric and the way that arguments are constructed. Arguments in the public sphere are formed by various epistemological concerns, particularly economics, religion, ideology, and cultural tradition (Fraser, 1993). Public arguments are therefore constructed, in part, by the archaeology of knowledge as described by Foucault, which we looked at in previous modules, and is how the history of knowledge production and what is deemed valuable knowledge is connected to evolving power structures.
For this reason, when we study public argument, we look at the context of the argument, for both the speaker and the audience. This means we look at how the arguments are shaped by the ideologies, histories, economies, and traditions associated with the speaker and the audience. Public arguments also take on very expected styles and narrative approaches, many of which are tied to the structure of the argument itself. These narrative structures reflect the type of argument one might expect in relation to the ideological concerns that promote that argument. This also connects to Fisher's narrative theory, as we discussed in earlier modules, by stressing how humans communicate easily through stories and the structural components associated with stories are powerful communication tools. The dominance of stereotypical characteristics in hero stories, for example, does not always easily translate to a heroine.
In recent decades, public arguments are also studied in terms of the media platforms used to generate and promote the messages. In 1964 Marshal McLuhan published Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. In it was a phrase that would become one of the dominant ways media would be analyzed for several more decades, and reintroduced with the growth of digital social media. McLuhan argued, “The Medium is the Message,” that we should study the media form itself rather than the message separate from the medium. His argument is that the media form has a social impact, based on the way that stories are told in each platform type. This becomes another layer of how public arguments are tied to narrative structures, specifically because different media platforms highlight different aspects of storytelling. A famous example often cited is the idea that during the Kennedy and Nixon presidential debates in 1960, most radio audiences felt Nixon had won the debates based on his language use, but television viewers preferred Kennedy because of how nonverbal communication is visible on television, and because Nixon did not look as appealing in a traditional masculine way.
Further, the arrival of MySpace and Facebook online, along with podcasting, Twitter, YouTube, Google Video, blogging, and other means of streaming, instantly downloading, and viewing interactive media has partially disrupted the traditional structures of the media industry. Henry Jenkins describes this phenomenon as Media Convergence (Jenkins, 2004). For Jenkins, convergence is about how single messages flow through multiple forms of media simultaneously. Adding to the changing patterns of mediated messaging and public argument, digital media are, by nature, intertextual; they refer to and cite each other and themselves constantly. They also go through multiple forms of gatekeeping, where producers, copyright owners, editors, and other agents can act to change the message to suit their ideological needs, a process of digital reflexivity (Lengel & Newsom, 2014; Newsom, Lengel, & Cassara, 2011). This is part of the narrative architecture of social media and impacts controls on both how stories are told and how they are shared (Jenkins, 2007). This is particularly challenging when advocative, political, and other public arguments are made. Audience based messaging in this case can give the appearance of being "authentic", but these messages go through processes of gatekeeping that are just as structured, and possibly more structured, by institutional forces. Contemporary debates about "fake news" highlight this complexity, especially when intentionally biased messages are strategically aimed at distinct audience groups (Bennett, & Pfetsch 2018; de Zuniga, Correa, & Valenzuela, 2012; Greenhow & Lewin, 2015; Hashemi & Ghanizadeh, 2012; Pew Research Center, 2014a, 2014b).
From Propaganda to Politics
In many ways the contemporary field of communication studies emerged after the First and Second World War due to an increased interest in propaganda studies (Jamieson & Kenski, 2017). This evolved into a focus on how media forms, content, delivery methods, and message reception work, and how the epistemological concerns studied in rhetoric and argumentation impact the process of messaging. The field of political communication focuses on the relationship between three components of communication: political agents, the audience, and the media. This approach is rooted in the transmission model of communication (Shannon, 1948; Shannon & Weaver, 1963), which looks at how messages are transmitted from a sender (the agent) to a receiver (the audience) through a communication mode or process (the media).
Political communication theory therefore focuses on the relationship between the political system and the citizens, how messages transmitted by political institutions, including advertisers, politicians, interest groups, advocates, and/or government sources are received by citizen audiences (Jamieson & Kenski, 2017; McNair, 2017). Political communication also looks at how citizens through advocative and submissive or resistance processes respond. Jamieson and Kenski (2017) define "political communication as 'making sense of symbolic exchanges about the shared exercise of power' and 'the presentation and interpretation of information, messages or signals with potential consequences for the exercise of shared power'" (p. 5). McNair (2017) gives a somewhat simpler definition: "purposeful communication about politics" (p. 1).
The ideal that political communication is a shared exercise of power implies that citizens, political actors, and the media all participated in the process. The goals of this ideal are rooted in the notion of a social contract between the government and the governed (the citizens). However, political activity does not always illustrate that political agents are willing or likely to share information and authority with the masses. Recent debate over a Washington State public records bill that would exempt State Legislators from the State's Public Records Act illustrates this key issue (O'Sullivan, 2018).
Twenty-first century social media has greatly impacted political communication. This includes both news media and politicians using media, as well as effective citizen engagement in civic and academic processes. Research has shown that voters and political participation in the 21st century is strongly tied to standpoints within ideological silos (Pew Research Center, 2014a, 2014b), and therefore producers of political communication direct their rhetoric toward those distinct audience groups.
This generates and reinforces ideological segregation between audience groups. Further, political news stories and the biases associated with their sources become strong predictors of perceptions and actions, including voting, speech, and even hate crime (Adorjan, 2011; Bonn, 2016; de Zuniga et al., 2012). Both biased information and intentional misinformation provided by biased media and political groups is designed to appeal to ideologically-driven consumer groups.
Audience Analysis
Public communication is communication aimed at general audiences, and debates over how complete information needs to be for audiences dates to the era of classical rhetoric. Scholars from all three paradigm approaches are concerned with public communication reaching audiences for a variety of reasons. Behaviorists seek to study how public communication influences groups of audience members to behave in particular ways. Interpretivists are interested in how different groups get meaning from public texts, and how those texts are structured to generate specific actions and goals. Critics are more focused on evaluating the positive and negative impacts of public communication on people within various different social standings, as well as to use public communication as a platform for various advocacies.
Attempting to know your audience—who they are and how they became who they are—is vitally important for anyone who communicates in and with the public. In any communication situation, a speaker or writer must consider the audience: who are you trying to move or affect? What is the best way to share your beliefs so your audience will hear them? (Warren & Fassett, 2015, p. 117)
Different audiences respond to different ideals, values, topics, and arguments. Media producers spend a great deal of time determining what topics are in the public interest or topics that will generate interest and response from multiple audience groups and demographics (Dunwoody, 2008). In recent decades, particularly due to changes in media consumption patterns associated with social media, public communication research has focused on reaching targeted consumer groups more directly than in previous eras (Bennett, W.L., 2018; Pew, 2014; Ems & Gonzales, 2016). This is because today's consumers utilize a larger number of communication platforms, including interactive ones, where targeted marketing strategies can help producers identify topics, ideals, and even products that are likely to appeal to consumers based on their communication technology usage.
Some producers focus on expanding their market shares and, therefore, their audiences. One way producers do this is to try to figure out how much information is too much, or when they need to limit details to increase consumption. There are specific areas of public interest where an assumption of audience perception often places intentional limits on the thoroughness of public information (Boudet, Clarke, Bugden, Maibach, Roser-Renoufm Leiserowitz, 2014; Bucchi, 2008; Scheufele, Jamieson, & Kahan, 2017). Science communication, for example, is often simplified for consumers on the assumption that too much detail would not be easily understood. Selections of stories to cover in science journalism, further, is generally focused on health and biology, which are assumed to draw more consumer interest than many other areas (Dunwoody, 2008). Health communication is also often tied to advocative measures, especially in attempting to use public communication to change human behavior patterns (Worden & Flynn, 2002).
Now that science communication has become obviously politicized (Scheufele, Jamieson, & Kahan, 2017), do we need to rethink how science communication is presented to the public? Is it ethically responsible for communicators to limit the content covered in science communication for the general public, or should more complete coverage be promoted? What other areas of communication are simplified or redacted (i.e. media coverage of war)? Are there audience groups potentially harmed by the simplification of the message? Is it the responsibility of audience members to seek out multiple sources and verify not only the accuracy, but also the completeness of the information they obtain?
Effective and accurate audience analysis aids in ensuring a message reaches the intended consumers, but carries with it ethical considerations. We need to keep the ethics of messaging in mind as we look at public communication, its processes, and its impact.
References
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