Star Wars is Terrifying for Women

This is too good not to pass along. . .

Simplifying. Reducing. Healthifying.

More evidence from the food front that macro-shifts in consumer choices/awareness are persuading companies to reconsider their products–and the future of food:

This summary comes from a recent Chicago Tribune article outlining the manifold effects the food movement has had on behemoth corporations.  Major players like Wal-Mart (largest food purchaser in the country), Kraft, and PepsiCo are scrambling to figure out how to twist fundamentally unhealthy products into “healthier options.”

To be more accurate, though, I should say that this is an effort to further twist fundamentally unhealthy products into something they can’t be.  We’ve been seeing great changes over the past several years: “Made with Whole Grain” now adorns cereal boxes from the top shelves (“adult” cereals) to the bottom (where the kiddies look); RbGH-milk is in significant decline; and “low-sodium” banners are proliferating across labels.  While the food is being tweaked, the accompanying advertisements are being amplified to a much greater extent.  “Change it a little and promote the hell out of it” has long been an approach of the food industry.  But of course, “just because a processed food is a little bit less bad than it used to be,” as the always-enjoyable Marion Nestle words it,  [it] doesn’t necessarily make it a good choice.”

Hobbyist rhetoricians might take pleasure in tracking a few threads in the food arena:

1) The obvious: changes in a food labeling.  Make it a game with your family and friends!  Award points based on a ratio between how brazenly stupid a phrase/picture is and its potential persuasiveness.  So for instance, “Picked Fresh!” would receive 20pts, while “Naturally Cut” could get up to 40pts, depending on the product.  When you find produce being declared “Cholesterol Free” then you’ve hit the jackpot!  Give yourself 100pts!  If you spot “Locally Known” then you’ve won the game: 1,000pts. (Points may be redeemed for candy-bars and/or plastic trinkets.)

500 points!

2) The less obvious: changes in food placement.  The layout of a supermarket is rhetorically designed, with staples such as dairy, bread, and meat often occupying the back corners.  Walk the periphery of a store and you’ll most likely find all the good stuff you need.  Walk through any of the numerous aisles in between and you’ll be confronted with staggering variations of corn and soy.  Chips and soda are located in the same aisle: while supermarkets very rarely make a profit off of soda, the percentage markup on chips easily makes up for it.  They know the salty goes with the sweet.

Though supermarket(er)s have known the appeal of placement for some time, the technics of it are going through a period of increased research scrutiny, with psychologists getting in on the game.  Thankfully, proponents and marketers of healthy foods are discovering that savvy rhetorical strategies are just as applicable to their product as those that push junk.  NPR recently reported that grocery stores are shining a new light on healthy foods–quite literally:

NPR: "Nudging Grocery Shoppers Toward Healthy Food"

Take product placement and soft, focused lighting, for example. Items that are highlighted in this way — even if they aren’t on sale — sell about 30 percent more, Wansink [author of Mindless Eating] says. They just look more appealing than products under harsh, overhead fluorescent lights.

One area where the rhetoric of food placement is getting a lot of attention is in the cafeteria.  I highly recommend you check out this interactive piece published by the New York Times that outlines how the lunch line is being redesigned to highlight healthier foods.  In one research report, the simple act of putting fruit in an attractive fruit bowl rather than the usual stainless steel bowl more than doubled the amount of fruit sales.  Putting the chocolate milk behind the regular milk (instead of beside) greatly reduced its selection.

Keep your eye out for how stores are shifting food placement to affect choice, regardless of whether it’s for the good or bad.

3) Time traveling through analogy: Big Food as Big Tabacco.  I’m beginning to see a lot more parallels being made between where Big Food is at right now with where Big Tabacco was at in the late ’80s and early ’90s, in the ramp up to the Master Settlement Agreement.  Tabacco companies got sued in an effort to recoup health care costs dumped on states.  We could see the exact same discussion about food taking place over the next few years, as more evidence arises that links our cheap food with high health care costs.  And just as Tabacco sought frantically for many years to discredit information that linked it to cancer, the Producers of Processed will work to undermine similar science that does little else than simply confirm common sense.  In the meantime, we can enjoy a variety of mind-spinning industrial concoctions that purport to have our best interests in mind; “lite-sugar” products are the equivalent of ultra-lite cigarettes.

I’ll be interested to hear from any rhetoricians out there where they’re seeing these elements and how they’re being leveraged.  Send word to Harlot in a savvy article and we’ll work to get it published, yo.

When he buys an item of food, consumes it, or serves it, modern man does not manipulate a simple object in a purely transitive fashion; this item of food sums up and transmits a situation; it constitutes an information; it signifies.

~ Roland Barthes

A Statement on Family

As we at Harlot prepare for the publication of our upcoming special issue focused on family rhetoric, I am struck by the relevance and import of Zach Wahls’ speech about family. In his speech opposing a resolution that would end civil unions in Iowa, he makes a bold statement about the rhetoric of family.

Rhetoric Quote of the Day

Huey Long, Governor of Louisiana from 1928–1932

Now You’re on the Trolley: An Introduction to Carny Rhetoric

I’m always on the lookout for examples of rhetorical instruction and performance that occur outside of the academy proper–rhetorics of the wild, if you will. Oftentimes, the purpose, scope, and motivations behind these rhetorics of the wild are quite different than the situations we teach in a college or university context. Case in point, venerable carny “talker” (and performer) Ward Hall has some videos out there explaining the tricks and tips of hooking rubes to get them to pony up for the various shows, games, and attractions of the carnival midway. It’s a fascinating look behind the curtain into the philosophy, strategies, and lingo of the carny underworld. “What Makes a Good Sideshow Talker?” (Link courtesy of BoingBoing).

(As a follow-up, I recommend watching the great 2007 Alison Murray documentary Carny, a gritty and sobering look at the hard lives of carnival workers.)

Hope, Change and… Salmon?!

A neo-Aristotelian analysis of Obama’s State of the Union speech might focus on how he builds credibility after a mid-term election gave significant traction to a Republican agenda.  A Lakoffian critique would look at which dominant metaphors work to shape the framing of other issues, like how “the race to educate our kids,” “this is our sputnik moment,” and the theme of “winning the future” all contribute to a framework of competition.  A Burkean cluster approach would organize key terms around frequency and intensity and extract an analysis from there.

Here’s what that would look like with regards to frequency:

But what about intensity?  NPR did some reader-response analysis, asking over 4,000 people to describe the speech in 3 words.  Here are the surprising results:

Um, I for one did not see that coming.  Granted, there are very few jokes made in State of the Union speeches, so one could argue that those that do make it in are bound to stand out.  But nevertheless, I find this surprising.

What can we glean from this data about the impact of Obama’s speech?  What can we suggest about the role of sarcasm in this situation?  What rhetorical methods do we have which can account for this anomaly?

To make matters perhaps even more interesting, here is the same data broken down into party-affiliations:

Republicans

Democrats

I’ll be curious to hear some of your responses to this data.

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** I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that Obama missed an opportunity to point out the plight of salmon.  All five species of Pacific salmon are endangered: Chinook, Chum, Coho, Pink, and Sockeye.  It was not long ago at all that this now-endangered species thrived.  From Derrick Jensen, a staunch defender of salmon and all wild life:

Painting by Rob Shetterly

At one time the Columbia River Basin was home to the greatest runs of salmon on earth. In 1839 Elkanah Walker wrote in his diary, “It is astonishing the number of salmon which ascend the Columbia yearly and the quantity taken by the Indians. . . .” He continued, “It is an interesting sight to see them pass a rapid. The number was so great that there were hundreds constantly out of the water.” In 1930, Idaho’s Coeur d’Alene Press wrote, “Millions of chinook salmon today lashed into whiteness the waters of northwest streams as they battled thru the rapids. . . .” The article went on to say that “the scene is the same in every northwest river.” Spokane, Washington’s Spokesman-Review noted that at Kettle Falls, “the silver horde was attacking the falls at a rate of from 400 to 600 an hour.”

Now the salmon are gone. To serve commerce our culture dammed the rivers of the Columbia River Basin. People at the time–beginning in the 1930s–knew dams would destroy salmon. Local groups and individuals–including those who knew salmon most intimately, the Indians–fought against the federal government and the river industries, but dams were built and now the fight is becoming even more desperate, as nine out of ten major salmon species in the Northwest and California are extinct or on the verge.

2011 Banished Words

It’s that time once again, where someone bring up words that have been overused and want banished into obscurity. According to Yahoo News, Lake Superior State University releases this list every year. This year’s list-topper is “viral,” which is more than fine with me if people stop saying the phrase “going viral,” but could run into some problems when trying to explain your next cold to your doctor. Other seemingly innocent words include epic, fail, and the American people.

Within a traditional context, these words probably wouldn’t bother anyone, but when put into the internet context, well, yes, it gets old extremely fast. I do find that so many of these words are anti-internet, though. Or, at least, the internet culture? Terms such as epic, fail, (epic fail), viral, and using google or facebook as verbs are specifically linked to the the way we’re using them within an online environment. Frankly, until google goes out, I don’t think I will stop googling searches and I don’t know anyone who finds the use of this perplexing or aggravating, so why ban it? Would banning these things also be denying a part of ourselves–the part that we choose to express online? Or would it be underestimating or not acknowledging this kind of culture that exists online?

Parenting and Culture (and Tiger Mothers)

A week ago, Amy Chua, a professor of Law at Yale Law School and mother of two Chinese-American daughters, published an excerpt of her book (Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother) that reflects on her Chinese parenting techniques. The response has been astounding with over 6,000 comments — and not just because of the provocative title the Wall Street Journal chose for it either.

Smiling Chinese Tiger, by Gobind Khalsa

“Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior” presents Chua’s parenting model, and she offers three differences between Chinese and Western approaches (which, naturally, are countered by Asian and Western parents alike in the comments section):

1. “Western parents are extremely anxious about their children’s self-esteem” while Chinese parents “assume strength, not fragility.”
2. “Chinese parents believe that their kids owe them everything” and “must spend their lives repaying their parents by obeying them and making them proud.”
3. “Chinese parents believe that they know what is best for their children and therefore override all of their children’s own desires and preferences.”

Each of the three points assumes a significantly different common ground between parent and child compared to a generalized idea of Western approaches, which means that parents can take entirely different starting points toward shaping their children’s personalities, work habits, attitudes toward difficult tasks, and so on.

An anecdote in the excerpt shows what this persuasive approach can look like. It gives some insight into the kind of language, threats, and physical constraints (not violent, but including orders to sit still) Chua uses to control the learning and disciplinary environment after her youngest daughter, Lulu, repeatedly fails to master a difficult piano piece:

I threatened her with no lunch, no dinner, no Christmas or Hanukkah presents, no birthday parties for two, three, four years. When she still kept playing it wrong, I told her she was purposely working herself into a frenzy because she was secretly afraid she couldn’t do it. I told her to stop being lazy, cowardly, self-indulgent and pathetic.

When her technique also repeatedly failed to bring the desired results, husband and wife conferred, and Chua continued:

I rolled up my sleeves and went back to Lulu. I used every weapon and tactic I could think of. We worked right through dinner into the night, and I wouldn’t let Lulu get up, not for water, not even to go to the bathroom. The house became a war zone, and I lost my voice yelling, but still there seemed to be only negative progress, and even I began to have doubts.

Eventually something clicked for Lulu and she began to pay the piece correctly – and her exclaims show how proud she was of herself. But here’s where the critics disagree: Is Chua correct in assuming Lulu is “strong enough to take the shaming and to improve from it,” or, as a writer at the New York Times repeats from a detractor, is Chua a “mommie dearest” figure raising a daughter destined for life in therapy?

Lots of questions, and lots of variables. Personally, what I think is interesting is parents’ struggle to follow one tradition while living and interacting in another. But I guess this is why Chua clarifies in a later interview that her book is a testament to the trails she went through as a bi-cultural (but Chinese-leaning) mother in a land with different basic assumptions about parent-child relationships. Whether her methods appear sound to us or not, my humble opinion is that we should applaud her attempts at sharing her experiences and reflecting upon them – a sign of good parenting in any culture.

Fairey, AP Settle Their Copyright Fracas

In a somewhat deflated postscript to my “Annotated Obama Poster” piece from 2009, Shepard Fairey and the Associated Press have apparently come to a workable solution to the copyright dispute surrounding Fairey’s “Hope” poster. I say “deflated” because this was an out-of-court settlement, and that settlement apparently entails a sharing of rights (and, by extension, any $$$ generated by the image). While that mediation might work for the principle parties involves, those of us wanting a clear legal precedent pertaining to digital-era IP/copyright issues will have to wait a bit longer. Read WIRED‘s coverage of the story here.

data, information, knowledge, wisdom

Thanks, Kate, for the great post on McCandless’s animated visualization.  (Information is Beautiful is also the title of a truly terrific book of visualizations that I highly recommend checking out.)

The use of the word “problem” set me thinking.  If there is a problem, what is it and where is it?  One could argue, I think, that the sheer selection of certain numbers to work with posits an argument of sorts (opting for these categories instead of others suggests their relative importance, in other words).   There’s even a bit of narrative quality to the piece, with the credit crisis debt trumping all others and set in the sequence such that the music dramatically picks up as it’s dropped. So perhaps the piece does have an argument; it’s just not clear-cut.

Which suggests to me that if there is a problem, it does not lay with the piece–but with us.  Our problem is that we are asked to interpret the information and construct an argument of what it’s arguing.  Our interpretation–what does it mean?–is then automatically pitted against other interpretations, which is to say, argument against other arguments.

McCandless actually has another visualization that provokes a similar line of questioning using different terms:

Using this vocabulary, the problem we’re presented with is transforming information (the simple story of linked debt-centric elements) to knowledge.  This transforming act is no doubt affected by the natural trajectory towards wisdom (us rhetoricians may think phronesis would fit better here than plain old “wisdom”), which makes the entire interpretative process infinitely more complex–and interesting.

I’d be curious to hear what you think of this chart: its basic assumptions, what might get added, how it might be altered for teaching, etc.  And I’m sure McCandless would, too.  In his posting of this he actually links to a rhetoric blog run by Catherine Schuler, Assistant Professor of English and Professional Writing at East Stroudsburg University, so he’s demonstrated that he’s linked to our community in some fashion.

On a final note, I was intrigued by McCandless’s mention with “Debtris” that we should expect more “motion infographics” in 2011.  Interest in infographics has exploded in the past several years (even though it’s been around for a long time), but the move towards animation and video is taking new routes recently.  Check out this fascinating video by the dynamic Hans Rosling, for example: