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Public rhetoric

Public rhetoric refers to discourse both within a group of people and between groups, often centering on the process by which individual or group discourse seeks membership in the larger public discourse. Public rhetoric can also involve rhetoric being used within the general populace to foster social change and encourage agency on behalf of the participants of public rhetoric. The collective discourse between rhetoricians and the general populace is one representation of public rhetoric. A new discussion within the field of public rhetoric is digital space because the growing digital realm complicates the idea of private and public, as well as previously concrete definitions of discourse. Furthermore, scholars of public rhetoric often employ the language of tourism to examine how identity is negotiated between individuals and groups and how this negotiation impacts individuals and groups on a variety of levels, ranging from the local to the global.

Public rhetoric participants edit

A public, not to be confused with the public, is composed of members that address each other, are addressed as a group, and also subscribe to specific ideals. Michael Warner describes a public as "being self-organized, …a relationship among strangers …[where] merely paying attention can be enough to make [one] a member."[1] Robert Asen notes that identity formation of members of a public "entails mutual recognition among members of diverse cultures." [2] To Warner, publics are a social space where information is exchanged and is required for the exchange of information.

Counterpublics edit

Within the public sphere, dominant publics exist whose discourse can subordinate other publics or exclude them from a related discourse. Counterpublics are the result of discourse and/or people feeling marginalized, ignored, inadequately voiced, or silenced within the public sphere. "Counterpublic refers to those publics that form through mutual recognition of exclusions in wider publics, set themselves against exclusionary wider publics, and resolve to overcome these exclusions," writes Asen.[3] Where dominant public groups typically manufacture heteronormative public spaces and discourse, counterpublics seek to insert or reinsert voices and perspectives of and from publics. Discourse then abnormalizes or even challenges dominant public rhetoric. Warner describes the facilities of counterpublic using the LGBTQ+ community:

Within a gay or queer counterpublic, for example, no one is in the closet: the presumptive heterosexuality that constitutes the closet for individuals in ordinary speech is suspended. But this circulatory space, freed from heteronormative speech protocols, is itself marked by that very suspension: speech that addresses any participant as queer will circulate up to a point, at which it is certain to meet intense resistance. It might therefore circulate in special, protected venues, in limited publications. The individual struggle with stigma is transposed, as it were, to the conflict between modes of publicness. The expansive nature of public address will seek to keep moving that frontier for a queer public, to seek more and more places to circulate where people will recognize themselves in its address; but no one is likely to be unaware of the risk and conflict involved.[4]

As Asen furthers, "Individuals do not necessarily recognize exclusions and resolve to overcome them by virtue of their location in a social order."[5] Asen maintains that claiming a counterpublic of this form can diminish counterpublic forms to particular contributors who share specific interests with other members but might not consider each other as allies.[5]

Subaltern and bourgeois groups edit

Amid publics and counterpublics, prevailing ideology, discourse, and images can create a hierarchy of group members and the rhetoric thereof. The struggle for political and social power within the public sphere between publics gives rise to dominant and weaker internal publics within a public, namely subaltern and bourgeois publics, respectively. For example, in their article "Graffiti Hurts in the United States," Terri Moreau and Derek H. Alderman describe an anti-graffiti task force, Graffiti Hurts, advocating for the eradication of urban graffiti in public spaces. This organization funded mural projects that would serve as a deterrent for would-be graffitists. While graffiti is often considered a lesser art form compared to the classical arts such as music, canvas painting, and sculpture, the mural projects "actually work to carry out a 'normative' prescription of landscape. The normalization has the ability to eradicate the potential for alternative constructions of public expression. As [Kurt] Iveson observes, 'A legal mural might have some effect in making ... people's culture more visible in public space, but often this is on someone else's' terms.'[6]"[7] Keith Haring argues that the dominant images of a gay counterpublic produce "clones" representing "well-built," effeminate, white males.[8] While whiteness is idealized, racial minority imagery and representation was and remains marginalized.

A bourgeois subgroup within a public is primarily composed of "private individuals…[that] do not 'rule'.... Instead, their ideas infiltrated the very principle on which the existing power is based."[9] The bourgeois within a public represent a prevailing definition of the relevant publics and thereby control a greater degree of shared space for the related discourse between the larger public membership.

Strangers edit

Strangers are those who are not aware of their membership within a particular public. They are capable of being members of a public; however, they can also hold no opinion or in other ways pay no attention to their potential membership to a public. Strangers are normally not those who ignore their membership (which implies one is aware of being a member of a public). To Warner, without the presence of strangers in a public sphere, public discourse cannot occur because it is a requirement for public discourse to address strangers and provide them the awareness to identify themselves as an addressed public.[10]

Orientation edit

Public rhetoric participants produce discourse relative to a larger conglomerate of people or publics. Within the public sphere, different publics engage their own or other publics in conversation creating discourse that affects their own and other groups through definition of public boundaries, redefining public structure, and dispersing related public ideology. For a person to produce public rhetoric, one would self-identify with a public.[11] Media, culture, and geography are the more predominant orienting processes that channel people towards and away from specific publics. Through public rhetoric, publics can recruit strangers and embed or polarize members of the same or other publics. Political propaganda and product advertisement are two concrete examples of forces that orient strangers and publics through analog and digital media. When people engage in public discourse, "describ[ing] themselves and others, they do not engage in a value-neutral and transparent process. Rather, representational processes implicate participants in (often unacknowledged) choices regarding how people should be portrayed".[12] As one begins to form judgments regarding the image of a public, of a particular ideology, or of the protocols governing inclusion and exclusion in public discourse, that person then gains membership within a relevant public, thus becoming, in part, a representation of the whole image of said public.

How one is introduced to a public varies as existing knowledge and experience can augment how one perceives a public and public rhetoric. Tony Hiss points out how places can orient and disorient civilians. In his discussion, Hiss describes public parks as having the function of "changing the way we look at things, diffusing our attention and also relaxing its intensity…".[13] The geography of the park often contrasts the image of the city in which it exists. Effective entrance design for parks encourage visitors to enter, displacing prior experience in exchange for "park experience", in a transition that navigates the visitors smoothly to and from the park experience.[14] Similarly, when strangers are introduced to public discourse, orientation processes enable strangers to adopt and displace specific images of a public and evoke their membership to the new public.

Rhetoric for public use edit

According to David J. Coogan and John M. Ackerman, "rhetoric is in the midst of discovering anew its usefulness."[15] As service learning and civic engagement increase at colleges and universities, rhetoric begins the process of regrouping and becoming relevant in the community outside of the academy. In both the field of English and of communication, rhetoric's reputation needs to be repaired and adapted to meet the needs of the general populace. In general, the public view of rhetoric is a negative one. It is the talk of politicians—filled with lies and manipulation. Instead, the public work of rhetoric should try to lead to social change. Scholars such as Ellen Cushman and Cynthia Sheard demonstrate this belief in their work; these and other scholars believe that rhetoricians should use their tools for the good of the public. In order to make this shift in rhetoric's reputation, rhetoric needs a new set of guidelines by which to prepare rhetoricians to participate in social action.

Rhetoric in praxis as social action edit

Because rhetoric and composition are so closely related, the composition classroom becomes an open space for fostering social activism through service learning and allowing students to develop a sense of agency for both their scholarship and their interactions with the public. Ellen Cushman tells readers in her article "The Rhetorician as an Agent of Social Change" that "one way to increase our participation in public discourse is to bridge the university and community through activism. Given the role rhetoricians have historically played in the politics of their communities, [Cushman believes] modern rhetoric and composition scholars can be agents of social change outside the university."[16] Through their respective institutions, Cushman argues that both young and old scholars of rhetoric and composition can use their educational expertise to connect with the public outside of the university that, as scholars, they are typically estranged from. Because universities are often situated as counterpublics within the overall public of the geographic area in which they are located, it appears that scholars often feel prohibited from approaching and participating in the outside community.[17] In order to negate this feeling of being restricted from community engagement, Cushman urges members of the rhetoric and composition community at universities to participate in service learning.

Reciprocity from practicing rhetoric in public spaces edit

In an attempt to bridge the gap between the university and the community, Cushman suggests ways to "empower people in our communities, establish networks of reciprocity with them, and create solidarity with them."[16] In order to invent this network of reciprocity, Cushman urges rhetoricians and students within the university to venture outside of the boundaries of the institution, foster relationships with members of the community, and to perform work that benefits the community. Hopefully the scholar perceives a kairotic moment in which they come to an understanding of the relationship between the community and public rhetoric and are then, in turn, able to write and publish on their work. In essence, "[Cushman is] asking for a deeper consideration of the civic purpose of our positions in the academy, of what we do with our knowledge, for whom, and by what means."[18] Aside from the reciprocity that inherently comes from performing social activism within the general community, engaging with those outside of academe allows scholars to improve the public's general conception of rhetoric, thereby increasing the field's ethos in the eyes of the general public.

Reforming the public's view of rhetoric edit

While the general populace currently views "doing rhetoric" as "menacing our fellow citizens with lies and misdirection,"[19] these devices have the ability to allow rhetoricians and social activists alike to bring about social change and repair rhetoric's reputation in the eyes of the general populace. For example, in Cynthia Sheard's article, "The Public Value of Epideictic Rhetoric," she discusses how epideictic rhetoric, which has traditionally elicited a negative public opinion, can be used to foster social change. Sheard calls rhetoricians to embrace a process of "[r]econceptualizing epideictic in order to emphasize ... [i]ts close connection to the public sphere and its visionary quality ... "[20] Sheard continues to explain that "epideictic discourse alters the reality in which it participates by making its vision a reality for its audience and instilling a belief that the power for realizing the vision lies with them."[21] According to Sheard, this ability to alter the audience's perception of reality, an ability that epideictic rhetoric was once criticized for, is exactly what gives this device the power to involve the general populace in social activism and persuade them to view rhetoric in a positive light instead of describing it as a manipulative device.

Spaces edit

Spaces are the sites in which public rhetoric happens. These sites are not necessarily physical, geographically bound places, but metaphysical spaces in which discourse is shared and mediated by the members of specific publics.

Places vs. spaces edit

To understand the spaces in which public rhetoric is enacted, it is important to understand the differences between "space" and "place." In his book The Practice of Everyday Life, Michel de Certeau, defines places as an "instantaneous configuration of positions."[22] To Certeau, places are geographically bound, locatable sites. These sites are defined by location and spatial relations to other places.

Certeau claims that places are different from spaces because places are "ultimately reducible to being there" while spaces are specified "by the actions of historical subjects." [22] While places could be pointed to on a map and are defined by what is physically inside of them, spaces are sites where things have happened. A space is defined by the interactions that individual agents have with it, not by its physical features. Certeau gives the examples that the place of a street becomes a space only when people walk on it and the places of texts only become spaces when people read them.[22] When people engage in a discourse with a place, when they participate in public rhetoric there, it becomes a space.

Utopias and heterotopias edit

Michel Foucault built on Certeau's definition of space in his essay, "Of Other Spaces: Utopias and Heterotopias," pointing out that spaces were defined by "a set of relations that delineates sites which are irreducible to one another and absolutely not superimposable on one another."[23] He argued that these individual, specific spaces could be placed in two main types: utopias and heterotopias.

Utopias edit

According to Foucault, utopias are spaces with no real place which present society in its perfected form.[23] Since these spaces are not places that exist in reality, but rather as a result of the rhetoric that surrounds them, they are described as fundamentally unreal places.

Heterotopias edit

Heterotopias are real spaces that exist in every culture. Unlike Utopias, they are places that exist in physical space and can be indicated by their location. Foucault describes these heterotopias as "effectively enacted utopias in which the real sites, all the other real sites that can be found within the culture, are simultaneously represented, contested, and inverted."[23] These heterotopic spaces transcend a single place as their value comes from the interactions that take place inside of them, but the fact that they are universally constructed and recognized allows for them to be pointed to geographically.

Middle spaces edit

Middle-spaces, according to David Coogan, are spaces in which rhetors from different publics can come and have an engaging discourse. As Coogan discusses, these are both physical and ideological places in which agents from two given publics c[an] come together to engage in discourse about "the 'codes' to evaluate conduct, entertain political possibilities, and in other ways arrange their affairs."[24] These spaces are especially conducive as places for counterpublics and publics to meet to question the commonplaces or ideological statements. In enacting discourse in middle spaces, counterpublic discourse can be heard and have influence on public discourse.

Tourism as public rhetoric edit

In discussions of public rhetoric, tourism refers both to the act of traveling to a physical location in search of a transformative experience and to the metaphorical action of traveling into the experiential world of another. Public rhetoric scholars use the language of tourism to examine individuals and communities' relationships to each other.

Identity politics edit

Scholars of public rhetoric frequently invoke the language of tourism to discuss individual and group identity. This is often done to disrupt notions of individuality. Jürgen Habermas, for instance, chronicles the emergence of the concept of the individual in Western society, only to demonstrate the individual's sublimation before the regulating function of the public sphere: "With the interweaving of the public and private realm, not only do the political authorities assume certain functions in the sphere of commodity exchange and social labor, but conversely social powers now assume political functions. This leads to a kind of 'refeudalization' of the public sphere."[25] Habermas' concern for the political and social ramifications of individual versus public identity is one shared by other public rhetoric scholars.

Toxic tourism edit

Whereas the Western conception of the Subject tends to emphasize individual autonomy, scholars of public rhetoric challenge the notion that individual identity exists separately from the surrounding world. This challenge to Enlightenment notions of identity is exemplified by the work of Phaedra Pezzullo. In Toxic Tourism, Pezzullo argues that tourism as practice has the potential to help bridge the divide between Subject and Object by facilitating interaction on a multi-sensory level. Pezzullo suggests that embracing tourism's ability to engage all of the body's senses "may help those of us who study tourism to become more reflexive about our own culpability in privileging and, thus, perpetuating oppressive and colonial sensibilities."[26] The language of interconnection and responsibility pervades public rhetoric's concern with tourism as a process that mediates relationships between human beings.

Researchers such as Pezzullo have discussed the large extent that notions of toxicity are reflected in the ways that certain groups are marginalized. For instance, Pezzullo writes "that the 'toxic baggage' the nation carries exceeds the material impact of toxins and public discourses about them. It includes our cultural perceptions of our bodies and the bodies of 'polluted' and 'polluting' Others."[27] Thus, the language of toxicity is not limited to describing polluted areas or even victims of pollution. Toxicity is used to identify and rhetorically isolate segments of the population that do not conform to the Public's normative expectations. Yet, as Pezzullo also suggests, the practice of tourism allows for travel between the Public and those citizens and groups who stand outside it. Pezzullo suggests that toxic tours, for instance, stand to allow the marginalized and often ignored Other to "look back" at the tourist who is experiencing the toxic area.[28] The experience of becoming the Object of the Other's gaze raises the possibility that the tourist's perspective on the Other may be altered in the exchange, thus raising the possibility that the practice of tourism can induce transformation in the tourist.

Tourism and publics edit

Taken in a broad sense, the practice of tourism enables interactions that allow for the formation and maintenance of publics. Tourism as a concept does not merely connote the movement of bodies from one physical place to another; it also refers to the internalization and externalization of ideas. As Michael Warner indicates, the ability to exchange ideas is what enables the participatory creation of the public sphere and is, therefore, a source of great power: "Speaking, writing, and thinking involve us-actively and immediately-in a public, and thus in the being of the sovereign. Imagine how powerless people would feel if their commonality and participation were simply defined by pre-given frameworks, by institutions and law, as in other social contexts it is defined through kinship. ... Such is the image of totalitarianism."[29] Examined as an exchange of ideas, the practice of tourism allows individuals to engage in discourse with other individuals, thereby creating publics.

Key to Warner and other scholars' understanding of publics is the notion of voluntary participation. The citizen-tourist must willingly encounter the perspectives of other citizens. In this sense, public-creating tourist practices are not limited to "the pundits and wonks and reaction-shot secondary celebrities who try to perform our publicness for us ... [, but include] people whose place in public media is one of consuming, witnessing, griping, or gossiping rather than one of full participation, or fame."[30] Warner goes on to state that, "a public can only produce a sense of belonging and activity if it is self-organized through discourse rather than through an external framework."[30] Just as the tourist who travels to a different geographic area chooses to do so, a choice that invites the possibility of being transformed by the experience, the citizen-tourist must choose to engage in discourse with other citizens in order for that exchange to create and maintain a public.

Birthplaces of public rhetoric: the street & the riot edit

In its most organic form, the discourse of the public sphere arises spontaneously. In his seminal work "The Public Sphere: An Encyclopedia Article" Habermas discusses the bourgeois public as an instrumental development in the history of publics but recognizes the limitations of the bourgeois public for modernity: "Although the liberal model of the public sphere is still instructive today with respect to the normative claim that information be accessible to the public, it cannot be applied to the actual conditions of an industrially advanced mass democracy…".[25] The size of the modern state limits the ability of the democratic populace to truly engage in a conversation of public rhetoric. Thus, instead of self-regulating, many of the public's demands need to be met by the state, which could not please everyone on such a large scale. When these needs are not met, the scale of the democracy requires a dramatic catalyst to bridge the distance between the citizens and bring to light the need for change.[25]

The most basic (albeit violent) form of public would be that of the riot, which is engendered by "competitions of interest, competitions which assume the form of violent conflicts."[25] Although this public is less civilized and perfect than is desirable, the spontaneity and power of riots and civil unrest—which Habermas refers to as "the street"—often affect change, as has been demonstrated throughout modern history time and time again. Without any sort of organized formation, the riot embodies the public sphere; the citizenry reacts to an issue with an outburst of the same opinion (one they may not realize they shared) and has thus created a publicly driven rhetorical discourse surrounding the issue.

The riot is organic; often considered barbaric or savage because of the raw emotions involved. Cynthia Sheard claims that it is a result of "the ways in which words fail us… all-too-common images of violence must make us wonder, indeed, whether words can make any difference in our lives."[31] Although the riot may have devastating consequences, it is purposeful in its ability to create recognition of a problem across a nation, bridging the gaps of class and distance the issue may otherwise find insurmountable. For example, the Black Lives Matter movement is now global due to the riots following the kairotic police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO. Many of those who have never before been affected by police violence towards black males have now seen the movement "in their own backyards," and protests have arisen across the country, while both the mainstream and social media coverage of Ferguson has enabled this issue to be prescient in the minds of many far-removed citizens.

Digital public edit

A digital public can be considered as a few different entities. According to Patricia G. Lange, a digital space is a social network, or a group of people related to each other in some way.[32] Digital social networks in which knowledge is communicated and shared have been labeled "epistemopolis."[33] An epistemopolis facilitates the growth of communities in a specific space around a specific topic.[33] These digital social spaces are complicated by the possibility of anyone in the world being related to anyone else in the world in any given way at any given time; measurements or regulations or requirements for defining a specific digital space would need to be applied on an individual basis. While this isn't necessarily up for debate in fields that study digital realms, it does present challenges for public rhetoric because it provides a more complex, tangled conception of a public.

A digital space can take any of a variety of forms: chat rooms, social media networks, blogs, private journals, news sites, question and answer forums, professional marketing pages, online shopping sites, etc. Additionally, digital space allows for cultural interaction in a way that is not possible in analog device spaces.[34] It is important to note that the internet is a social construction, designed for social interaction among various contexts (including economic, discursive, etc.).[35] To this end, digital spaces can be manipulated, adapted, or even created for different, specific functions. Consider Wikipedia: "the free encyclopedia anyone can edit." This site encourages individuals to share more information, making verified knowledge public and collaborative. Another example is Douglas Eyman's text Digital Rhetoric: Theory, Method, Practice.[36] Eyman wrote a print and a digital version of this text and includes a statement encouraging readers to take, revise, reuse, and circulate his original text, which is why he made the book available for free online.

Public rhetoric in the digital realm edit

The digital sphere presents a new set of challenges for public rhetoric. With issues of authorship, autonomy, and anonymity, the field crosses back and forth constantly between private and public. Individuals can create a digital persona, an avatar, while keeping their actual identity a secret. It is relatively easy to steal content and present it as your own (leading to copyright and plagiarism issues). To a certain extent, "technology has fused with human consciousness itself,"[37] resulting in a collective, shared, public memory.[38] Many people may oppose or feel threatened by advancements in technology, especially the internet. Some question personal and financial safety, a fear that may be heard as part of the argument opposing use of digital spaces. Opportunities for extended communication, in a plethora of different ways, litter the argument for development of digital spaces and tools. For example, digital social activism (also referred to as internet activism or cyberactivism) is a growing movement that uses digital spaces to spread awareness and encourage action regarding various topics.[39] Analog spaces tend to allow for a smaller audience than digital spaces, and therefore (typically) results in less action.

Digital rhetoric is important to consider when thinking about digital publics. Individuals create online identities, influencing how a digital audience can be addressed. This in turn influences how the author uses the rhetorical canons in their composition.

The photographic image as an icon edit

Photographic images can function in public rhetoric as icons of U.S. public culture. According to Robert Hariman and John Louis Lucaites in No Caption Needed: Iconic Photographs, Public Culture, and Liberal Democracy, iconic images "work in several registers of ritual and response."[40] Public interpretations and influences of iconic photographic images manifest themselves as visual representations, or delivery of rhetoric. How these images function in public depends on the features of the specific image, the motivation for the image, and the responses from the public sphere.

What makes an icon an icon? edit

While multiple interpretations of photographic images as icons are discussed in conversations of public rhetoric, establishing what makes an icon an icon is important in order to identify and further analyze icons' functions. Hariman and Lucaites describe the seven characteristics of an icon as follows:

  1. is easily recognized by many people of varied backgrounds;
  2. is an object of veneration and other complex emotional responses;
  3. is reproduced widely and placed prominently in both public and private settings;
  4. is used to orient the individual [viewer] within a context of collective identity, obligation, and power;
  5. represents large swaths of historical experience and acquires its own history of appropriation and commentary;
  6. stands above the welter of news, debates, decisions, and investigations; and/or
  7. bears witness to something that exceeds words.[40]

If a photographic image holds one or more of the above-mentioned characteristics, it is considered an icon and fulfills several important functions in public rhetoric.

Functions of photographic icons in public life edit

As a version of public rhetoric, iconic images serve to compose meaning and persuade a public audience to respond in some way. According to Hariman and Lucaites, "each image presents a pattern of motivation that can make some responses more likely than others."[41] An iconic image semiotically promotes an interpretation by its audience that is by no means incumbent on the specific image, but likely will create a realm of similar meanings more frequently than others. Five vectors of influence are identified for iconic photographs: "reproducing ideology, communicating social knowledge, shaping collective memory, modeling citizenship, and providing figural resources for communicative action."[42]

Reproducing ideology edit

Iconic images have the capability of representing ideology, which Hariman and Lucaites define as "a set of beliefs that presents a social order as if it were a natural order, that presents asymmetrical relationships as if they were mutually beneficial, and that makes authority appear self-evident."[42] A photograph has the power to create such public meaning that can manipulate order, relationships, and authority as part of reproducing ideology.

Communicating social knowledge edit

Because icons are distinctively public visual images, they "recast social knowledge with regard to the distinctive concerns and roles of public life."[43] By tapping into the knowledge of the public to which they are being presented, icons effectively persuade members of a society and their social interactions, as any successful rhetoric does. Photographs can communicate social knowledge because they are accepted as representations of social performance.

Shaping collective memory edit

Photographic icons can negotiate collective memory as part of the social knowledge it communicates. An icon can shape public understanding of specific events and contexts at the kairotic time of their occurrence and thereafter. Thus, society as a whole acts as the audience of the rhetorical message sent about the time the photograph was taken. Hariman and Lucaites contend, "the more collective memory is constructed through the visual media, the more likely it is that the iconic photos will be used to mark, frame, and otherwise set the tone for later generations' understanding of public life"[44] in the specific time period.

Modeling citizenship edit

Members of the public interpreting iconic images can themselves be shaped by the messages sent by the icons, as can their rhizomatic relationships with each other. When viewing icons that portray U.S. citizens, the audience sees themselves in those citizens and emulates their portrayal of society. Iconic images essentially "display the public to themselves."[45]

Providing figural resources for communicative action edit

Since society can be considered "abstract" in terms of relationships between citizens, photographs serve to communicate such ambiguous citizenship and supply models for how to be a "good citizen." Hariman and Lucaites explain that "an iconic photograph can continue to shape public understanding and action long after the event has passed or the crisis has been resolved pragmatically."[46] The collective memory formed by iconic photographs inspire action to perform as a moral citizen and motivate public response.

References edit

  1. ^ Warner 2002, p. 56.
  2. ^ Asen 2002, p. 346.
  3. ^ Asen 2002, p. 358.
  4. ^ Warner 2002, pp. 86–87.
  5. ^ a b Asen 2002, p. 359.
  6. ^ Iveson 2007.
  7. ^ Moreau & Alderman 2010, p. 109.
  8. ^ Haring 2007, p. 333.
  9. ^ Habermas 1974, p. 51.
  10. ^ Warner 2002, p. 57.
  11. ^ Warner 2002, p. 3.
  12. ^ Asen 2002, pp. 355–356.
  13. ^ Hiss 1991, p. 34.
  14. ^ Hiss 1991, pp. 42–44.
  15. ^ Coogan & Ackerman 2010, p. 1.
  16. ^ a b Cushman 1996, p. 7.
  17. ^ Cushman 1996, p. 5.
  18. ^ Cushman 1996, p. 12.
  19. ^ Coogan & Ackerman 2010, p. 2.
  20. ^ Sheard 1996, p. 770.
  21. ^ Sheard 1996, p. 781.
  22. ^ a b c de Certeau 1984, p. 117.
  23. ^ a b c Foucault 1986, p. 24.
  24. ^ Coogan 2010, p. 160.
  25. ^ a b c d Habermas 1974, p. 54.
  26. ^ Pezzullo 2007, p. 175.
  27. ^ Pezzullo 2007, p. 72.
  28. ^ Pezzullo 2007, p. 33.
  29. ^ Warner 2002, p. 414.
  30. ^ a b Warner 2002, p. 415.
  31. ^ Sheard 1996, p. 765.
  32. ^ Lange 2007, p. 362.
  33. ^ a b Barron & Gruber 2011, p. 155.
  34. ^ Poster 2004.
  35. ^ Silver 2005, p. 196.
  36. ^ Eyman 2015.
  37. ^ Ong 1980, p. 140.
  38. ^ Brooke 2009.
  39. ^ McCaughey & Ayers 2003.
  40. ^ a b Hariman & Lucaites 2007, p. 1.
  41. ^ Hariman & Lucaites 2007, p. 8.
  42. ^ a b Hariman & Lucaites 2007, p. 9.
  43. ^ Hariman & Lucaites 2007, p. 10.
  44. ^ Hariman & Lucaites 2007, p. 11.
  45. ^ Hariman & Lucaites 2007, p. 12.
  46. ^ Hariman & Lucaites 2007, p. 17.

Sources edit

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  • Warner, Michael (2002). "Publics and counterpublics (abbreviated version)" (PDF). Quarterly Journal of Speech. 88 (4): 413–425. doi:10.1080/00335630209384388. ISSN 0033-5630. S2CID 144976068.}

public, rhetoric, refers, discourse, both, within, group, people, between, groups, often, centering, process, which, individual, group, discourse, seeks, membership, larger, public, discourse, also, involve, rhetoric, being, used, within, general, populace, fo. Public rhetoric refers to discourse both within a group of people and between groups often centering on the process by which individual or group discourse seeks membership in the larger public discourse Public rhetoric can also involve rhetoric being used within the general populace to foster social change and encourage agency on behalf of the participants of public rhetoric The collective discourse between rhetoricians and the general populace is one representation of public rhetoric A new discussion within the field of public rhetoric is digital space because the growing digital realm complicates the idea of private and public as well as previously concrete definitions of discourse Furthermore scholars of public rhetoric often employ the language of tourism to examine how identity is negotiated between individuals and groups and how this negotiation impacts individuals and groups on a variety of levels ranging from the local to the global Contents 1 Public rhetoric participants 1 1 Counterpublics 1 2 Subaltern and bourgeois groups 1 3 Strangers 1 4 Orientation 2 Rhetoric for public use 2 1 Rhetoric in praxis as social action 2 2 Reciprocity from practicing rhetoric in public spaces 2 3 Reforming the public s view of rhetoric 3 Spaces 3 1 Places vs spaces 3 2 Utopias and heterotopias 3 2 1 Utopias 3 2 2 Heterotopias 3 2 3 Middle spaces 4 Tourism as public rhetoric 4 1 Identity politics 4 2 Toxic tourism 4 3 Tourism and publics 5 Birthplaces of public rhetoric the street amp the riot 6 Digital public 6 1 Public rhetoric in the digital realm 7 The photographic image as an icon 7 1 What makes an icon an icon 7 2 Functions of photographic icons in public life 7 2 1 Reproducing ideology 7 2 2 Communicating social knowledge 7 2 3 Shaping collective memory 7 2 4 Modeling citizenship 7 2 5 Providing figural resources for communicative action 8 References 9 SourcesPublic rhetoric participants editA public not to be confused with the public is composed of members that address each other are addressed as a group and also subscribe to specific ideals Michael Warner describes a public as being self organized a relationship among strangers where merely paying attention can be enough to make one a member 1 Robert Asen notes that identity formation of members of a public entails mutual recognition among members of diverse cultures 2 To Warner publics are a social space where information is exchanged and is required for the exchange of information Counterpublics edit Within the public sphere dominant publics exist whose discourse can subordinate other publics or exclude them from a related discourse Counterpublics are the result of discourse and or people feeling marginalized ignored inadequately voiced or silenced within the public sphere Counterpublic refers to those publics that form through mutual recognition of exclusions in wider publics set themselves against exclusionary wider publics and resolve to overcome these exclusions writes Asen 3 Where dominant public groups typically manufacture heteronormative public spaces and discourse counterpublics seek to insert or reinsert voices and perspectives of and from publics Discourse then abnormalizes or even challenges dominant public rhetoric Warner describes the facilities of counterpublic using the LGBTQ community Within a gay or queer counterpublic for example no one is in the closet the presumptive heterosexuality that constitutes the closet for individuals in ordinary speech is suspended But this circulatory space freed from heteronormative speech protocols is itself marked by that very suspension speech that addresses any participant as queer will circulate up to a point at which it is certain to meet intense resistance It might therefore circulate in special protected venues in limited publications The individual struggle with stigma is transposed as it were to the conflict between modes of publicness The expansive nature of public address will seek to keep moving that frontier for a queer public to seek more and more places to circulate where people will recognize themselves in its address but no one is likely to be unaware of the risk and conflict involved 4 As Asen furthers Individuals do not necessarily recognize exclusions and resolve to overcome them by virtue of their location in a social order 5 Asen maintains that claiming a counterpublic of this form can diminish counterpublic forms to particular contributors who share specific interests with other members but might not consider each other as allies 5 Subaltern and bourgeois groups edit Amid publics and counterpublics prevailing ideology discourse and images can create a hierarchy of group members and the rhetoric thereof The struggle for political and social power within the public sphere between publics gives rise to dominant and weaker internal publics within a public namely subaltern and bourgeois publics respectively For example in their article Graffiti Hurts in the United States Terri Moreau and Derek H Alderman describe an anti graffiti task force Graffiti Hurts advocating for the eradication of urban graffiti in public spaces This organization funded mural projects that would serve as a deterrent for would be graffitists While graffiti is often considered a lesser art form compared to the classical arts such as music canvas painting and sculpture the mural projects actually work to carry out a normative prescription of landscape The normalization has the ability to eradicate the potential for alternative constructions of public expression As Kurt Iveson observes A legal mural might have some effect in making people s culture more visible in public space but often this is on someone else s terms 6 7 Keith Haring argues that the dominant images of a gay counterpublic produce clones representing well built effeminate white males 8 While whiteness is idealized racial minority imagery and representation was and remains marginalized A bourgeois subgroup within a public is primarily composed of private individuals that do not rule Instead their ideas infiltrated the very principle on which the existing power is based 9 The bourgeois within a public represent a prevailing definition of the relevant publics and thereby control a greater degree of shared space for the related discourse between the larger public membership Strangers edit Strangers are those who are not aware of their membership within a particular public They are capable of being members of a public however they can also hold no opinion or in other ways pay no attention to their potential membership to a public Strangers are normally not those who ignore their membership which implies one is aware of being a member of a public To Warner without the presence of strangers in a public sphere public discourse cannot occur because it is a requirement for public discourse to address strangers and provide them the awareness to identify themselves as an addressed public 10 Orientation edit Public rhetoric participants produce discourse relative to a larger conglomerate of people or publics Within the public sphere different publics engage their own or other publics in conversation creating discourse that affects their own and other groups through definition of public boundaries redefining public structure and dispersing related public ideology For a person to produce public rhetoric one would self identify with a public 11 Media culture and geography are the more predominant orienting processes that channel people towards and away from specific publics Through public rhetoric publics can recruit strangers and embed or polarize members of the same or other publics Political propaganda and product advertisement are two concrete examples of forces that orient strangers and publics through analog and digital media When people engage in public discourse describ ing themselves and others they do not engage in a value neutral and transparent process Rather representational processes implicate participants in often unacknowledged choices regarding how people should be portrayed 12 As one begins to form judgments regarding the image of a public of a particular ideology or of the protocols governing inclusion and exclusion in public discourse that person then gains membership within a relevant public thus becoming in part a representation of the whole image of said public How one is introduced to a public varies as existing knowledge and experience can augment how one perceives a public and public rhetoric Tony Hiss points out how places can orient and disorient civilians In his discussion Hiss describes public parks as having the function of changing the way we look at things diffusing our attention and also relaxing its intensity 13 The geography of the park often contrasts the image of the city in which it exists Effective entrance design for parks encourage visitors to enter displacing prior experience in exchange for park experience in a transition that navigates the visitors smoothly to and from the park experience 14 Similarly when strangers are introduced to public discourse orientation processes enable strangers to adopt and displace specific images of a public and evoke their membership to the new public Rhetoric for public use editAccording to David J Coogan and John M Ackerman rhetoric is in the midst of discovering anew its usefulness 15 As service learning and civic engagement increase at colleges and universities rhetoric begins the process of regrouping and becoming relevant in the community outside of the academy In both the field of English and of communication rhetoric s reputation needs to be repaired and adapted to meet the needs of the general populace In general the public view of rhetoric is a negative one It is the talk of politicians filled with lies and manipulation Instead the public work of rhetoric should try to lead to social change Scholars such as Ellen Cushman and Cynthia Sheard demonstrate this belief in their work these and other scholars believe that rhetoricians should use their tools for the good of the public In order to make this shift in rhetoric s reputation rhetoric needs a new set of guidelines by which to prepare rhetoricians to participate in social action Rhetoric in praxis as social action edit Because rhetoric and composition are so closely related the composition classroom becomes an open space for fostering social activism through service learning and allowing students to develop a sense of agency for both their scholarship and their interactions with the public Ellen Cushman tells readers in her article The Rhetorician as an Agent of Social Change that one way to increase our participation in public discourse is to bridge the university and community through activism Given the role rhetoricians have historically played in the politics of their communities Cushman believes modern rhetoric and composition scholars can be agents of social change outside the university 16 Through their respective institutions Cushman argues that both young and old scholars of rhetoric and composition can use their educational expertise to connect with the public outside of the university that as scholars they are typically estranged from Because universities are often situated as counterpublics within the overall public of the geographic area in which they are located it appears that scholars often feel prohibited from approaching and participating in the outside community 17 In order to negate this feeling of being restricted from community engagement Cushman urges members of the rhetoric and composition community at universities to participate in service learning Reciprocity from practicing rhetoric in public spaces edit In an attempt to bridge the gap between the university and the community Cushman suggests ways to empower people in our communities establish networks of reciprocity with them and create solidarity with them 16 In order to invent this network of reciprocity Cushman urges rhetoricians and students within the university to venture outside of the boundaries of the institution foster relationships with members of the community and to perform work that benefits the community Hopefully the scholar perceives a kairotic moment in which they come to an understanding of the relationship between the community and public rhetoric and are then in turn able to write and publish on their work In essence Cushman is asking for a deeper consideration of the civic purpose of our positions in the academy of what we do with our knowledge for whom and by what means 18 Aside from the reciprocity that inherently comes from performing social activism within the general community engaging with those outside of academe allows scholars to improve the public s general conception of rhetoric thereby increasing the field s ethos in the eyes of the general public Reforming the public s view of rhetoric edit While the general populace currently views doing rhetoric as menacing our fellow citizens with lies and misdirection 19 these devices have the ability to allow rhetoricians and social activists alike to bring about social change and repair rhetoric s reputation in the eyes of the general populace For example in Cynthia Sheard s article The Public Value of Epideictic Rhetoric she discusses how epideictic rhetoric which has traditionally elicited a negative public opinion can be used to foster social change Sheard calls rhetoricians to embrace a process of r econceptualizing epideictic in order to emphasize i ts close connection to the public sphere and its visionary quality 20 Sheard continues to explain that epideictic discourse alters the reality in which it participates by making its vision a reality for its audience and instilling a belief that the power for realizing the vision lies with them 21 According to Sheard this ability to alter the audience s perception of reality an ability that epideictic rhetoric was once criticized for is exactly what gives this device the power to involve the general populace in social activism and persuade them to view rhetoric in a positive light instead of describing it as a manipulative device Spaces editSpaces are the sites in which public rhetoric happens These sites are not necessarily physical geographically bound places but metaphysical spaces in which discourse is shared and mediated by the members of specific publics Places vs spaces edit To understand the spaces in which public rhetoric is enacted it is important to understand the differences between space and place In his book The Practice of Everyday Life Michel de Certeau defines places as an instantaneous configuration of positions 22 To Certeau places are geographically bound locatable sites These sites are defined by location and spatial relations to other places Certeau claims that places are different from spaces because places are ultimately reducible to being there while spaces are specified by the actions of historical subjects 22 While places could be pointed to on a map and are defined by what is physically inside of them spaces are sites where things have happened A space is defined by the interactions that individual agents have with it not by its physical features Certeau gives the examples that the place of a street becomes a space only when people walk on it and the places of texts only become spaces when people read them 22 When people engage in a discourse with a place when they participate in public rhetoric there it becomes a space Utopias and heterotopias edit Michel Foucault built on Certeau s definition of space in his essay Of Other Spaces Utopias and Heterotopias pointing out that spaces were defined by a set of relations that delineates sites which are irreducible to one another and absolutely not superimposable on one another 23 He argued that these individual specific spaces could be placed in two main types utopias and heterotopias Utopias edit According to Foucault utopias are spaces with no real place which present society in its perfected form 23 Since these spaces are not places that exist in reality but rather as a result of the rhetoric that surrounds them they are described as fundamentally unreal places Heterotopias edit Heterotopias are real spaces that exist in every culture Unlike Utopias they are places that exist in physical space and can be indicated by their location Foucault describes these heterotopias as effectively enacted utopias in which the real sites all the other real sites that can be found within the culture are simultaneously represented contested and inverted 23 These heterotopic spaces transcend a single place as their value comes from the interactions that take place inside of them but the fact that they are universally constructed and recognized allows for them to be pointed to geographically Middle spaces edit Middle spaces according to David Coogan are spaces in which rhetors from different publics can come and have an engaging discourse As Coogan discusses these are both physical and ideological places in which agents from two given publics c an come together to engage in discourse about the codes to evaluate conduct entertain political possibilities and in other ways arrange their affairs 24 These spaces are especially conducive as places for counterpublics and publics to meet to question the commonplaces or ideological statements In enacting discourse in middle spaces counterpublic discourse can be heard and have influence on public discourse Tourism as public rhetoric editIn discussions of public rhetoric tourism refers both to the act of traveling to a physical location in search of a transformative experience and to the metaphorical action of traveling into the experiential world of another Public rhetoric scholars use the language of tourism to examine individuals and communities relationships to each other Identity politics edit Scholars of public rhetoric frequently invoke the language of tourism to discuss individual and group identity This is often done to disrupt notions of individuality Jurgen Habermas for instance chronicles the emergence of the concept of the individual in Western society only to demonstrate the individual s sublimation before the regulating function of the public sphere With the interweaving of the public and private realm not only do the political authorities assume certain functions in the sphere of commodity exchange and social labor but conversely social powers now assume political functions This leads to a kind of refeudalization of the public sphere 25 Habermas concern for the political and social ramifications of individual versus public identity is one shared by other public rhetoric scholars Toxic tourism edit Whereas the Western conception of the Subject tends to emphasize individual autonomy scholars of public rhetoric challenge the notion that individual identity exists separately from the surrounding world This challenge to Enlightenment notions of identity is exemplified by the work of Phaedra Pezzullo In Toxic Tourism Pezzullo argues that tourism as practice has the potential to help bridge the divide between Subject and Object by facilitating interaction on a multi sensory level Pezzullo suggests that embracing tourism s ability to engage all of the body s senses may help those of us who study tourism to become more reflexive about our own culpability in privileging and thus perpetuating oppressive and colonial sensibilities 26 The language of interconnection and responsibility pervades public rhetoric s concern with tourism as a process that mediates relationships between human beings Researchers such as Pezzullo have discussed the large extent that notions of toxicity are reflected in the ways that certain groups are marginalized For instance Pezzullo writes that the toxic baggage the nation carries exceeds the material impact of toxins and public discourses about them It includes our cultural perceptions of our bodies and the bodies of polluted and polluting Others 27 Thus the language of toxicity is not limited to describing polluted areas or even victims of pollution Toxicity is used to identify and rhetorically isolate segments of the population that do not conform to the Public s normative expectations Yet as Pezzullo also suggests the practice of tourism allows for travel between the Public and those citizens and groups who stand outside it Pezzullo suggests that toxic tours for instance stand to allow the marginalized and often ignored Other to look back at the tourist who is experiencing the toxic area 28 The experience of becoming the Object of the Other s gaze raises the possibility that the tourist s perspective on the Other may be altered in the exchange thus raising the possibility that the practice of tourism can induce transformation in the tourist Tourism and publics edit Taken in a broad sense the practice of tourism enables interactions that allow for the formation and maintenance of publics Tourism as a concept does not merely connote the movement of bodies from one physical place to another it also refers to the internalization and externalization of ideas As Michael Warner indicates the ability to exchange ideas is what enables the participatory creation of the public sphere and is therefore a source of great power Speaking writing and thinking involve us actively and immediately in a public and thus in the being of the sovereign Imagine how powerless people would feel if their commonality and participation were simply defined by pre given frameworks by institutions and law as in other social contexts it is defined through kinship Such is the image of totalitarianism 29 Examined as an exchange of ideas the practice of tourism allows individuals to engage in discourse with other individuals thereby creating publics Key to Warner and other scholars understanding of publics is the notion of voluntary participation The citizen tourist must willingly encounter the perspectives of other citizens In this sense public creating tourist practices are not limited to the pundits and wonks and reaction shot secondary celebrities who try to perform our publicness for us but include people whose place in public media is one of consuming witnessing griping or gossiping rather than one of full participation or fame 30 Warner goes on to state that a public can only produce a sense of belonging and activity if it is self organized through discourse rather than through an external framework 30 Just as the tourist who travels to a different geographic area chooses to do so a choice that invites the possibility of being transformed by the experience the citizen tourist must choose to engage in discourse with other citizens in order for that exchange to create and maintain a public Birthplaces of public rhetoric the street amp the riot editIn its most organic form the discourse of the public sphere arises spontaneously In his seminal work The Public Sphere An Encyclopedia Article Habermas discusses the bourgeois public as an instrumental development in the history of publics but recognizes the limitations of the bourgeois public for modernity Although the liberal model of the public sphere is still instructive today with respect to the normative claim that information be accessible to the public it cannot be applied to the actual conditions of an industrially advanced mass democracy 25 The size of the modern state limits the ability of the democratic populace to truly engage in a conversation of public rhetoric Thus instead of self regulating many of the public s demands need to be met by the state which could not please everyone on such a large scale When these needs are not met the scale of the democracy requires a dramatic catalyst to bridge the distance between the citizens and bring to light the need for change 25 The most basic albeit violent form of public would be that of the riot which is engendered by competitions of interest competitions which assume the form of violent conflicts 25 Although this public is less civilized and perfect than is desirable the spontaneity and power of riots and civil unrest which Habermas refers to as the street often affect change as has been demonstrated throughout modern history time and time again Without any sort of organized formation the riot embodies the public sphere the citizenry reacts to an issue with an outburst of the same opinion one they may not realize they shared and has thus created a publicly driven rhetorical discourse surrounding the issue The riot is organic often considered barbaric or savage because of the raw emotions involved Cynthia Sheard claims that it is a result of the ways in which words fail us all too common images of violence must make us wonder indeed whether words can make any difference in our lives 31 Although the riot may have devastating consequences it is purposeful in its ability to create recognition of a problem across a nation bridging the gaps of class and distance the issue may otherwise find insurmountable For example the Black Lives Matter movement is now global due to the riots following the kairotic police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson MO Many of those who have never before been affected by police violence towards black males have now seen the movement in their own backyards and protests have arisen across the country while both the mainstream and social media coverage of Ferguson has enabled this issue to be prescient in the minds of many far removed citizens Digital public editA digital public can be considered as a few different entities According to Patricia G Lange a digital space is a social network or a group of people related to each other in some way 32 Digital social networks in which knowledge is communicated and shared have been labeled epistemopolis 33 An epistemopolis facilitates the growth of communities in a specific space around a specific topic 33 These digital social spaces are complicated by the possibility of anyone in the world being related to anyone else in the world in any given way at any given time measurements or regulations or requirements for defining a specific digital space would need to be applied on an individual basis While this isn t necessarily up for debate in fields that study digital realms it does present challenges for public rhetoric because it provides a more complex tangled conception of a public A digital space can take any of a variety of forms chat rooms social media networks blogs private journals news sites question and answer forums professional marketing pages online shopping sites etc Additionally digital space allows for cultural interaction in a way that is not possible in analog device spaces 34 It is important to note that the internet is a social construction designed for social interaction among various contexts including economic discursive etc 35 To this end digital spaces can be manipulated adapted or even created for different specific functions Consider Wikipedia the free encyclopedia anyone can edit This site encourages individuals to share more information making verified knowledge public and collaborative Another example is Douglas Eyman s text Digital Rhetoric Theory Method Practice 36 Eyman wrote a print and a digital version of this text and includes a statement encouraging readers to take revise reuse and circulate his original text which is why he made the book available for free online Public rhetoric in the digital realm edit The digital sphere presents a new set of challenges for public rhetoric With issues of authorship autonomy and anonymity the field crosses back and forth constantly between private and public Individuals can create a digital persona an avatar while keeping their actual identity a secret It is relatively easy to steal content and present it as your own leading to copyright and plagiarism issues To a certain extent technology has fused with human consciousness itself 37 resulting in a collective shared public memory 38 Many people may oppose or feel threatened by advancements in technology especially the internet Some question personal and financial safety a fear that may be heard as part of the argument opposing use of digital spaces Opportunities for extended communication in a plethora of different ways litter the argument for development of digital spaces and tools For example digital social activism also referred to as internet activism or cyberactivism is a growing movement that uses digital spaces to spread awareness and encourage action regarding various topics 39 Analog spaces tend to allow for a smaller audience than digital spaces and therefore typically results in less action Digital rhetoric is important to consider when thinking about digital publics Individuals create online identities influencing how a digital audience can be addressed This in turn influences how the author uses the rhetorical canons in their composition The photographic image as an icon editPhotographic images can function in public rhetoric as icons of U S public culture According to Robert Hariman and John Louis Lucaites in No Caption Needed Iconic Photographs Public Culture and Liberal Democracy iconic images work in several registers of ritual and response 40 Public interpretations and influences of iconic photographic images manifest themselves as visual representations or delivery of rhetoric How these images function in public depends on the features of the specific image the motivation for the image and the responses from the public sphere What makes an icon an icon edit While multiple interpretations of photographic images as icons are discussed in conversations of public rhetoric establishing what makes an icon an icon is important in order to identify and further analyze icons functions Hariman and Lucaites describe the seven characteristics of an icon as follows is easily recognized by many people of varied backgrounds is an object of veneration and other complex emotional responses is reproduced widely and placed prominently in both public and private settings is used to orient the individual viewer within a context of collective identity obligation and power represents large swaths of historical experience and acquires its own history of appropriation and commentary stands above the welter of news debates decisions and investigations and or bears witness to something that exceeds words 40 If a photographic image holds one or more of the above mentioned characteristics it is considered an icon and fulfills several important functions in public rhetoric Functions of photographic icons in public life edit As a version of public rhetoric iconic images serve to compose meaning and persuade a public audience to respond in some way According to Hariman and Lucaites each image presents a pattern of motivation that can make some responses more likely than others 41 An iconic image semiotically promotes an interpretation by its audience that is by no means incumbent on the specific image but likely will create a realm of similar meanings more frequently than others Five vectors of influence are identified for iconic photographs reproducing ideology communicating social knowledge shaping collective memory modeling citizenship and providing figural resources for communicative action 42 Reproducing ideology edit Iconic images have the capability of representing ideology which Hariman and Lucaites define as a set of beliefs that presents a social order as if it were a natural order that presents asymmetrical relationships as if they were mutually beneficial and that makes authority appear self evident 42 A photograph has the power to create such public meaning that can manipulate order relationships and authority as part of reproducing ideology Communicating social knowledge edit Because icons are distinctively public visual images they recast social knowledge with regard to the distinctive concerns and roles of public life 43 By tapping into the knowledge of the public to which they are being presented icons effectively persuade members of a society and their social interactions as any successful rhetoric does Photographs can communicate social knowledge because they are accepted as representations of social performance Shaping collective memory edit Photographic icons can negotiate collective memory as part of the social knowledge it communicates An icon can shape public understanding of specific events and contexts at the kairotic time of their occurrence and thereafter Thus society as a whole acts as the audience of the rhetorical message sent about the time the photograph was taken Hariman and Lucaites contend the more collective memory is constructed through the visual media the more likely it is that the iconic photos will be used to mark frame and otherwise set the tone for later generations understanding of public life 44 in the specific time period Modeling citizenship edit Members of the public interpreting iconic images can themselves be shaped by the messages sent by the icons as can their rhizomatic relationships with each other When viewing icons that portray U S citizens the audience sees themselves in those citizens and emulates their portrayal of society Iconic images essentially display the public to themselves 45 Providing figural resources for communicative action edit Since society can be considered abstract in terms of relationships between citizens photographs serve to communicate such ambiguous citizenship and supply models for how to be a good citizen Hariman and Lucaites explain that an iconic photograph can continue to shape public understanding and action long after the event has passed or the crisis has been resolved pragmatically 46 The collective memory formed by iconic photographs inspire action to perform as a moral citizen and motivate public response References edit Warner 2002 p 56 Asen 2002 p 346 Asen 2002 p 358 Warner 2002 pp 86 87 a b Asen 2002 p 359 Iveson 2007 Moreau amp Alderman 2010 p 109 Haring 2007 p 333 Habermas 1974 p 51 Warner 2002 p 57 Warner 2002 p 3 Asen 2002 pp 355 356 Hiss 1991 p 34 Hiss 1991 pp 42 44 Coogan amp Ackerman 2010 p 1 sfn error no target CITEREFCooganAckerman2010 help a b Cushman 1996 p 7 Cushman 1996 p 5 Cushman 1996 p 12 Coogan amp Ackerman 2010 p 2 sfn error no target CITEREFCooganAckerman2010 help Sheard 1996 p 770 Sheard 1996 p 781 a b c de Certeau 1984 p 117 a b c Foucault 1986 p 24 Coogan 2010 p 160 a b c d Habermas 1974 p 54 Pezzullo 2007 p 175 Pezzullo 2007 p 72 Pezzullo 2007 p 33 Warner 2002 p 414 a b Warner 2002 p 415 Sheard 1996 p 765 Lange 2007 p 362 a b Barron amp Gruber 2011 p 155 Poster 2004 Silver 2005 p 196 Eyman 2015 Ong 1980 p 140 Brooke 2009 McCaughey amp Ayers 2003 a b Hariman amp Lucaites 2007 p 1 Hariman amp Lucaites 2007 p 8 a b Hariman amp Lucaites 2007 p 9 Hariman amp Lucaites 2007 p 10 Hariman amp Lucaites 2007 p 11 Hariman amp Lucaites 2007 p 12 Hariman amp Lucaites 2007 p 17 Sources editAsen Robert 2002 Imagining in the Public Sphere Philosophy amp Rhetoric 35 4 345 367 doi 10 1353 par 2003 0006 ISSN 1527 2079 S2CID 145400330 Barron Nancy Gruber Sibylle 2011 Responsible Knowledge Workers Rhetoric Media and the Third Environment The International Journal of Technology Knowledge and Society 7 2 153 166 doi 10 18848 1832 3669 cgp v07i02 56202 ISSN 1832 3669 Brooke Collin Gifford 2009 Lingua fracta toward a rhetoric of new media Hampton Press ISBN 978 1 57273 892 8 de Certeau Michel 1984 The practice of everyday life University of California Press ISBN 978 0 520 23699 8 Coogan David J 2010 Sophists for Social Change The Public Work of Rhetoric University of South Carolina Press pp 157 174 doi 10 2307 j ctv6wghr9 15 ISBN 978 1 61117 304 8 JSTOR j ctv6wghr9 Hauser Gerard A 2010 Introduction The Space to Work in Public Life In Coogan David J Ackerman John M eds The Public Work of Rhetoric University of South Carolina Press pp 1 16 doi 10 2307 j ctv6wghr9 7 ISBN 978 1 61117 304 8 JSTOR j ctv6wghr9 Cushman Ellen 1996 The Rhetorician as an Agent of Social Change College Composition and Communication 47 1 7 28 doi 10 2307 358271 ISSN 0010 096X JSTOR 358271 Eyman Douglas 2015 Digital Rhetoric doi 10 3998 dh 13030181 0001 001 ISBN 978 0 472 07268 2 Foucault Michel 1986 Of Other Spaces PDF Diacritics 16 1 Translated by Miskowiec Jay 22 27 doi 10 2307 464648 JSTOR 464648 Foucault Michel 2004 Des espaces autres Empan in French 54 2 12 doi 10 3917 empa 054 0012 ISSN 1152 3336 Habermas Jurgen 1974 The Public Sphere An Encyclopedia Article 1964 PDF New German Critique 3 49 55 doi 10 2307 487737 ISSN 0094 033X JSTOR 487737 Hariman Robert Lucaites John Louis 2007 No Caption Needed Iconic Photographs Public Culture and Liberal Democracy University of Chicago Press ISBN 978 0 226 31606 2 Haring S 2007 Keith Haring and Queer Xerography Public Culture 19 2 329 348 doi 10 1215 08992363 2006 039 ISSN 0899 2363 Hiss Tony 1991 The Experience of Place Vintage Books ISBN 978 0 679 73594 6 Iveson Kurt 2007 Publics and the City Wiley ISBN 978 1 4051 2730 1 Lange Patricia G 2007 Publicly Private and Privately Public Social Networking on YouTube Journal of Computer Mediated Communication 13 1 361 380 doi 10 1111 j 1083 6101 2007 00400 x McCaughey Martha Ayers Michael D 2003 Cyberactivism Online Activism in Theory and Practice Psychology Press ISBN 978 0 415 94320 8 Moreau Terri Alderman Derek H 2010 Graffiti Hurts and the Eradication of Alternative Landscape Expression Geographical Review 101 1 106 124 doi 10 1111 j 1931 0846 2011 00075 x ISSN 0016 7428 S2CID 145803772 Ong Walter J 1980 Reading Technology and the Nature of Man An Interpretation The Yearbook of English Studies 10 132 149 doi 10 2307 3506938 ISSN 0306 2473 JSTOR 3506938 Pezzullo Phaedra C 2007 Toxic Tourism Rhetorics of Pollution Travel and Environmental Justice University of Alabama Press ISBN 978 0 8173 1550 4 Poster Mark 2004 Consumption and digital commodities in the everyday Cultural Studies 18 2 3 409 423 doi 10 1080 0950238042000201581 ISSN 0950 2386 S2CID 145606684 Sheard Cynthia Miecznikowski 1996 The Public Value of Epideictic Rhetoric College English 58 7 765 794 doi 10 2307 378414 ISSN 0010 0994 JSTOR 378414 Silver David 2005 Selling cyberspace Constructing and deconstructing the rhetoric of community Southern Communication Journal 70 3 187 199 doi 10 1080 10417940509373326 ISSN 1041 794X S2CID 143818779 Warner Michael 2002 Publics and counterpublics abbreviated version PDF Quarterly Journal of Speech 88 4 413 425 doi 10 1080 00335630209384388 ISSN 0033 5630 S2CID 144976068 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Public rhetoric amp oldid 1211445213, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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