- HallelujahLee
- May 3, 2009
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its time to ban reading
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Mar 11, 2024 21:04
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May 19, 2024 20:19
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- HallelujahLee
- May 3, 2009
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you face two hitlers. One only tells the truth and one only lies. One hitler is calm and the other's heart is filled with fury. You must reveal the calm hitler with only a single post.... what do you do?
biden is a rapist
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Mar 11, 2024 23:54
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- HallelujahLee
- May 3, 2009
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you dont have a blue check
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Mar 12, 2024 00:07
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- HallelujahLee
- May 3, 2009
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 Part 2: The Rhetorical Situation
One useful way to understand any given media source is a framework called "The Rhetorical Situation". This framework was developed to develop and analyze persuasive messages, but it's also great for just improving critical thinking about media. In any situation where communication is happening, each person communicating has three factors to consider.
Exigence (i.e. goal)
The speaker has a particular goal in mind. This goal could be specific political reform, the overthrow of the capitalist state, feeling better about themselves, getting laid, anything. The important thing is that, as covered in the first part, the goal is not the same as the message. When a right-wing pundit wants to fearmonger about a minority, they rarely say “you should be afraid of this minority”. They tell a story about some made-up atrocity that motivates that fear in their audience.
Your goal is not the same as what you are trying to communicate, and it’s not the same as what you want your audience to believe, nor is it the same as the text of the message you send (yes, this is the same lesson as in Part 1).
Audience
Messages need to be written in terms and forms that convey their intended content to a specific audience. If you’re speaking to one person or to a well-defined group and the situation is simple, you can “tailor” your message specifically based on what you know about them. In most situations, though, there are multiple audiences, including both intended and unintended audiences whose response still matters and can influence whether or not your goals are achieved.
Balancing how different audiences will respond to a message becomes more difficult as the number of audiences becomes more diverse. Coded language (like racist dogwhistles, speaking in Spanish, or references to the specific slogans of a protest movement) let the speaker try to split their message’s interpretation for different audiences. Most of the time, though, they’re stuck crafting a message that will offend or appeal to some set of different audiences, and try to reach a balance of different statements, appealing to different audiences, such that their general goals are achieved. If a speech seems tone-deaf, well, it may just not be tuned for your ears. That doesn’t mean it’s necessarily badly composed.
All of this is made infinitely harder by the fact that almost all audiences are now mediated; audiences they are only getting message after it passes through someone else’s hands.
Constraints
Mediators (like the press) are one example of constraints on a message- limitations of format, sources of noise (another concept from Part 1) or misinterpretation, limited time or money or access, that can restrict the speaker’s options. Each of these constraints can screw up an otherwise well-designed message, but the biggest constraint, the greatest restriction, in most modern communication settings, is attention. Everyone involved in communication is trying to figure out how to get their audience to read, to click through, and to share- and that distorts both the initial message, and every other medium or media that it passes through. It’s incredibly hard to get nuance or details through to an audience that isn’t somehow motivated to stick around- and right now most online media just intensifies this constraint.
Exercise 1
Here’s a practice problem to get a feel for what this entails.
Congratulations. You’re Joe Biden. You have to give your first state of the union speech, and Peter Thiel just drained all the blood out of your speechwriter. It’s all on you now, and your speech is in an hour. What’s your goal? What are your different audiences? What are the constraints on your speech? What do you say?
“Why am I not hearing about x?!”
Politicians do not actually control the media- and media attention is an incredibly fickle constraint. There is a constant churn of attempts to get and maintain media attention, and the media ecosystem is more fragmented than ever. The vast majority of press announcements, even from the white house, do not get billing even in conventional press. Mediated, self-reinforced selection newsfeeds like twitter give an even more limited picture. When you blame someone for “not talking about” something, bear in mind that they may actually be talking about that thing- you’re just not hearing about it because your sources of information aren’t providing it to you. If you find yourself asking this question, check to see if the politician or- well, let’s be real, it’s usually the democrats that get blamed for this- the democrats are actually talking about it, and it’s just not getting covered. And understand that “well they should talk about it more” usually means they get to do, or even just talk about, other things less…and you’re not the only person with the only priorities that they need to reach. Good governance does not attract attention like a fat man riding an escalator does. Find better, more direct sources that will tell you more about what is going on. Stop watching the fat man on the escalator.
Consider the message creator’s rhetorical situation
If you think someone is doing or saying something horrible and insane, ask yourself why they are doing it. People are rarely completely irrational, especially in communication. There is usually some motivation, even if it is self-interested or unethical. If your answer requires a conspiracy or some sort of global all-encompassing evil, or if you just don’t have any information that tells you why, your understanding of the situation is incomplete- and the current information source you are using to understand the situation is probably misleading you. Maybe the speaker can’t talk about the subject of a deliberation without derailing it, or there’s a liability issue. Maybe they’re trying to reach out to someone who doesn’t share your values, but whose support is vital to their goals. Maybe they are monstrous and psychotic, but they’re usually gonna have some underlying reason beyond their psychosis! Putting yourself in the shoes of the speaker and thinking through their rhetorical situation will let you start to view any message they put out more critically.
eat my butte
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Mar 12, 2024 16:55
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- HallelujahLee
- May 3, 2009
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also lmao i didn't realise the original d&d thread literally gave out homework on why a story about how negative opinions on student debt forgiveness were being promoted by think tanks was incorrect
lol
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Mar 12, 2024 17:06
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- HallelujahLee
- May 3, 2009
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the quintessential dnd freak 15000 words no substance nothing actually said
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Mar 12, 2024 17:54
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- HallelujahLee
- May 3, 2009
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the United States was and still is a democracy even during the periods of its history where it still had legal slavery and women lacked the vote
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Mar 16, 2024 19:32
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- HallelujahLee
- May 3, 2009
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Definitionally they weren’t people so it was perfectly accurate
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Mar 16, 2024 21:08
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May 19, 2024 20:19
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- HallelujahLee
- May 3, 2009
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I am here to gangstalk and harass people. I do those things and love doing them from the shadows
its time to sabotage your posts
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Mar 18, 2024 16:33
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Mar 11, 2024 21:04
