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Instruction video
Directions:
In the mini-lecture for this unit, you learned about Aristotle and his view of rhetoric as a pragmatic art. While most rhetorical scholars today are not trying to provide a handbook of persuasive strategies, there is still significant attention to how people can or should persuade others in public life.
We are going to do an assignment where you engage with contemporary material (Part I), analyze how that material helps us understand rhetoric as a pragmatic art (Part II), reflect on your own position (Part III), and find another potential source on the subject
As you interact with the material, focus on how the author(s) or speaker(s) help you answer following questions:
• What challenges can rhetoric pragmatically help us address today?
• How can it address those challenges?
PART II: They Say: Analyze how the material answers the guiding questions
After you read or watch your material, you will make a post where you discuss what the materials have to say about the two questions above. Try to summarize their position carefully.
PART III: I Say: Reflect on your own position on the subject
Next, offer your own position on the subject. What contemporary challenges can rhetoric help us address? How do you see it doing so?
Relate your position to that of the author or speaker you summarized. Where do you see things similarly? Where do you disagree or see things differently?
PART IV: Others Say: Find another potential source on the subject
Using those research strategies we learned in unit 2, find another potential source on the subject through a journal article, book, or book chapter.
You do not have to read or summarize this new source. Instead, (1) clearly identify the source and (2) explain why you think it might offer insight to the questions posed above. This will help you practice finding related scholarly sources on a common question.
Read this link and answer questions ^
https://drive.google.com/file/d/18A6uTjcWKnnDhvjpnOnqcGi9xXNH-lXE/view
Example from teacher
Text Example:
(Please note: This example uses a different article than the options listed above.)
Supplementary material (Part I)
Welsh, S. (2012). Introduction: The cure for what ails you. The rhetorical surface of democracy: How deliberative ideals undermine democratic politics (pp. 8-26). Plymouth, UK: Lexington Books.
They say (Part II)
According to Welsh, one of the key problems for democracy is that coherent public opinion or judgment is a fiction—public opinion is a multitude of raw, unfiltered, incoherent opinions that are only made coherent through skilled rhetors. Only the appearance of cohesive, collective judgment can be created through politicians using strategically ambiguous language to tie together the jumble of cacophonous ideas. Indeed, Welsh calls democracy “a means of coping with the fundamental impossibility of public opinion or public judgment” (p. 11).
Based on this diagnosis of public opinion as a fiction, Welsh critiques deliberative aspirations for democracy as chasing after the collective wisdom of the public that can never be attained. Welsh claims that deliberative and rhetorical theorists have replaced an understanding of democracy as people having power over their governance with a mythic understanding of considered public opinion guiding governance. Instead, Welsh defends traditional politics that have been scorned by deliberative and rhetorical theorists as the only solution to this problem of democracy. Skilled rhetor-politicians can bring together a cacophony of divergent opinions under the illusion of “public judgment” for an election. “Power-seeking” speech is important to democracy and should be embraced rather than condemned. (Showing how the supplementary material helps respond to the guiding questions)
I say (Part III)
Welsh says that democracy is not a mode of inquiry but is aimed at the institutionalization of power. Putting deliberative ideals, such as wisdom, ahead of this core pursuit is misguided. For deliberative democrats like me, we recognize that pairing “deliberation” and “democracy” together is putting together two different systems into a hybrid. The challenge both together help solve is the need for legitimacy in governance. Deliberative rhetoric does not only aim for collective wisdom, as Welsh claims, but inclusive discourse that guides the 60% who “win” in the contest for power to recognize and appeal to the 40% who lost and might otherwise be stuck in a permanent powerless position. Otherwise, democracy as a pure pursuit of power has nothing to say to the 40% who lose other than to try again in the next election.
In addition, Welsh also seems to discount deliberative rhetorical practices as toothless, giving the example of citizen forums having no direct impact on decision making. I would point to examples like the Irish Citizens’ Assembly that successfully put gay marriage on the ballot in Ireland (and it passed). It seems that Welsh may not have been aware of such deliberative practices that can help solve important pragmatic challenges. (My response to the guiding question / connection back to supplementary material)
Others say (Part IV)
Isaksen, J.L. (2011). Obama’s rhetorical shift: Insights for communication studies. Communication Studies, 62(4), 456-471. https://doi.org/10.1080/10510974.2011.588082 (Clearly identifying the new source)
I searched for the term “deliberative rhetoric” in Communication and Mass Media Complete, specifically in the abstracts of articles. The abstract for this essay from Isaksen claims to offer practical insights on shifting racial discourse to be more deliberative. This sounds highly relevant on the same topic as Welsh and on pragmatic uses of rhetoric. (Explaining why you think the new source might be rele
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