Arguing Monuments and Material Rhetoric

The concept of "materiality" and how physical objects argue is becoming popular in rhetorical criticism. Scholars are beginning to theorize that buildings, cities, monuments, and other physical objects can argue, influence people, and tell stories -- just like words. The history of "the material turn" is quiet expansive (as I've discovered while writing my dissertation about it), but I will summarize some key points before discussing examples.

Traditional rhetorical criticism focused on the speeches of great orators and analyzed the word choices and potential effects. Scholars slowly began to incorporate other objects of study like groups of speakers, genres of speeches, and non-elite speakers. These variations still focused on the spoken and written word, however. Larger changes emerged when scholars began looking at how physical spaces constrain or offer opportunities in the way that speeches invite or construct possibilities for audiences. Moving through a space that has physical obstacles is similar to spoken commands or laws that restrict movement. Physical spaces and objects can themselves be symbols (like words) that have embedded meaning, affect, and significance. Materiality invites audience participation and makes arguments.

The first example of arguing monuments is the Portrait Monument at the US Capitol. The marble monument shows three elegant busts of prominent women in the women's suffrage movement: Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Lucretia Mott. There is room for a fourth bust in a lump of un-carved stone in the rear of the monument.

Picture retrieved from Architect of the Capitol

This monument makes a clear argument that the work of women's rights is unfinished. There may have been great women in the past who deserve to be honored, but there is still the need for activism, activists, and progress. Furthermore, viewers of the monument are invited to honor the memories of these three great women by continuing on their work. Their memories do not invoke a sense of completeness or finality; their faces encourage the audience to ask, "what more can be done?" Some people have thought that the unfinished section is meant to be completed when the US elects the first female President. This, however, goes against the intention of the artist, Adelaide Johnson, to show the perpetually unsolved state of gender equality.

Another example is the Atheism bench. This monument is the first public monument to atheism, or a lack of belief in divinity. The American Atheists lost a court case to have a monument to the Ten Commandments removed from a Florida Courthouse. Instead of removing the monument, the court offered them the opportunity to build their own monument. The monument is a bench so as to be a functional piece of public display. It is covered in quotations that specifically mention religion and the American political and legal systems.

Picture retrieved from Time Magazine

The Atheism bench claims space for non-belief outside of a courtroom that, like Lady Liberty, should be blind to concerns of religion. The bench argues that religious belief should not be a factor in the courts. The bench also argues that public space should be free and open space where no ideas should dominate and none should be excluded. The bench also includes, in writing "consequences of breaking the Ten Commandments" as a direct verbal argument against the Ten Commandments monument displayed on the other end of the courthouse.

These are just two examples of how physical spaces can produce arguments. Oftentimes, memorials are coupled with verbal statements, like the Atheism bench, but it is important for scholars to note that images, monuments, and material things can produce independent, standalone arguments.

Please Vote for Me: Introducing Democracy to Children

In my media and politics class in the spring, we watched a fascinating documentary called "Please Vote for Me". It is currently available on Netflix and I encourage everyone to watch it as it has interesting implications for systems of government and global politics in addition to being a fun and enjoyable watch.

The premise of the film is that a classroom of young children (8-9 years old) in China is going to implement democratic voting for their class monitor. This position was previously appointed by the teacher, but now a student will be chosen as a representative of the class. Three children decide to run for the position, the previous class monitor (Luo Lei) and a female (Xu Xaoifei) and male challenger (Cheng Cheng).

From nearly the very beginning of the election, Cheng Cheng takes aggressive action in securing votes and manipulating his classmates. Though very young and unfamiliar with democracy and elections, he instinctively employs political tactics. For example, during various stages of the election, Cheng Cheng promises classmates positions if they vote for him, makes a promise to Luo Lei that he will get Cheng Cheng's vote (in order to get Luo Lei to vote for him), fabricates lies about Luo Lei and Xu Xaoifei and tells them to each other, plants students in Xu Xaoifei's audience to yell at her during speech, and overall using language and strategies that one would assume are beyond his 9 years of age. Making promises that cannot be fulfilled is a common tactic of American politics and one that happens near immediately in the classroom election. Catchy slogans such as "read my lips: no new taxes" sounds great and are persuasive, but practically are unlikely and strategic fabrications. Lying about candidate positions or exaggerating negative qualities has become more and more prevalent in negative advertisements and debates. From "swift-boating" to claims of Mormonism being a cult, exaggerations and lies are commonplace in political rhetoric.

I don't want to spoil the ending and who wins the election, but the tactics involved and the strategies that emerge in these three young children are truly fascinating. I believe that this movie speaks to the complications that emerge when people are given a voice, as the temptation to cheat, lie, and manipulate for each vote to power is an unmistakable part of the system. One would hope that politicians would be above the immature attitudes of children, but it is obvious from this film that people of all ages can be consumed by the thought of power in the climb to the top.

A connection that I cannot help but make is the relationship to values, a topic that highly interests me. I have previously discussed values in political speeches, and this topic is also relevant to "Please Vote for Me", because each student appeals to different values when searching for the election. In a tense debate between Cheng Cheng and Luo Lei, the question of honesty versus confidence arises. Previously, in an attempt to guilt Luo Lei into casting a vote for him, Cheng Cheng says that his vote will be for Luo Lei, because that is what is fair (despite his intention to vote for himself). In the debate, Luo Lei asks Cheng Cheng who he will vote for, prepared to either attack Cheng Cheng on his confidence or his honesty. When Cheng Cheng is called out on his lie, the classroom begins to question Cheng Cheng's previously made promises, collapsing his efforts to garner votes.

It brings to mind what values Americans place in their leaders and hope to find. Is the value of loyalty important? Then perhaps there is the explanation for Gingrich's fall, as his series of wives does not paint a loyal husband figure. Is the value of faith important? Then perhaps Romney will be facing a large difficulty convincing the American public that his Mormonism is a Christian faith. Is the value of change as important this time around? Then perhaps Obama still has a chance to be re-elected. What is interesting is the parallel between how values are influential in an American presidential election and a classroom election in China. The act of electing someone draws forth not only their policies, but also their character as an entire person, regardless of situation, location, age, or importance.

Article Review: Rhetorical Criticism of the 2008 Election, Bloomfield & Katula, 2012

At risk of being self-serving, this week I am reviewing an article that I wrote at my undergraduate university, Northeastern. My reasoning for this is that I will be presenting it at the International Communication Association conference next week in Phoenix, and I believe that walking through the piece with specific attention to limitations and implications will help prepare me. Feedback and comments are always welcome, but on this post in particular.

The purpose of the study was to evaluate the use of values in presidential announcement speeches. Using the three front-runners from the Republican and Democratic parties in 2008, the types of values and their frequencies were coded for compliance with value theory. Perelman & Olbrechts-Tyteca (1969) outline 5 ways to begin the process of persuasion, named the "premises of agreement". They proposed that values are one of these premises and that values can be split into concrete and abstract categories that correspond with conservative and liberal ideologies, respectively. Matching these ideologies with their current political label, researchers created a list of abstract and concrete values (based off of public opinion polls) to see if politicians were using the "correct" values. Assuming that values are more successful in creating agreement with those of the same ideology, the politicians that are most successful in doing this may see the most success in the campaign.

Using Trent and Friedenberg's 1978 evaluation of announcement speeches as "telescopic" of the campaign, the announcement speech was coded for each candidate. The results showed that Obama, Edwards, and Paul were the only candidates that used a specific type of value more than another, with Obama being the only one that used the "correct" type of value more. McCain, Clinton, and Romney showed no statistically significant preference for either value (alpha level = .05). Paul used significantly more abstract values (liberal) than concrete values (conservative) and Edwards preferred the opposite. Obama significantly favored abstract values, which according to Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca are associated with the liberal ideology, which is his own party affiliation, p = .02.

This results have important implications for how candidates are structuring their campaigns to appeal to voters and creates a quantitative measure for a rhetorical technique and its success.

There are important limitations to the study, which are outlined further in the paper, but will be listed here:

• coding of the speech was done in an "inauthentic" environment
• speech was read, not heard
• there are many factors that determine presidencies, so the narrowing of success to one variable is impossible
• though determining factors and their influence is important for scholars of political rhetoric and communication
• only coded one speech of the campaign instead of a sampling of multiple speeches
• creating a completely inclusive list of values is probably impossible, so this study may be missing other important values that would be influential in forming agreement

This article is to be presented at ICA in its current form and I am happy that another project (about the difficulty in coding for values) is in progress due to this study.