If you haven’t already, I encourage to check out enculturation‘s latest issue: Marshall McLuhan @ 100: Picking Through the Rag and Bone Shop of a Career, launched on the final day of centenary celebrations, 21 years to the day of McLuhan’s death. Editors David Beard and Kevin Brooks have pulled together quite a stunning issue.
image by stefan.erschwendner, flickr
I don’t know much about tenure or impact factors and journals. I don’t really know much about how academic journals get rated for prestige, influence, and coolness. But I’ve been thinking about new sorts of ratings for academic publications—especially those DIY publications. I’ve been thinking about those self-published pieces that don’t go through a journal but are published online ready to be experienced. There are some outstanding pieces out there that may not have a home in a journal but are important and need some support and academic cred. I’ve also been thinking about all the work comp and rhet teachers do online. I mean often they are blogging about rhetoric, vlogging about rhetoric, youtubing about composition, facebooking composition and, in general, engaging in academic activities through social media platforms that they never get credit for. So I wonder about liking and +1ng. And I ask ya these questions:
1. Should there be some sort of calculation (impact factor type) for articles, books, and websites based on likes and +1s and tweets ?
2. Could academic prestige be equated to social media numbers?
3. Should social media presence help with tenure?
If the answer is yes to any of the above then ya gotta ask the next questions:
1. Would a like from Villanueva mean more than a like from Muhlhauser?
2. Would a +1 from Yancey be rated higher than a +1 from Brad Pitt?
What would a university look like if tenure were based on social media presence?
Please like, +1, and tweet this post. I’m preparing for the future.
later
The Art of Manliness has a well written series of primers on classical rhetoric and the five canons.
Check ‘em all out:
Classical Rhetoric 101: An Introduction
Classical Rhetoric 101: A Brief History
I would like to see more (a lot more) of this type of rhetorical analysis:
For similar videos check out “Trailer For Every Oscar-Winning Movie Ever,” Charlie Brooker’s “How to Report the News,” and The Onion’s “Breaking News: Some Bullshit Happening Somewhere.”
More please.
I just found an interesting piece over at grist that charts a genealogy of sorts for the phrase, “War on Cars.” It a curious expression that’s been used to frame just about any type of regulation of cars, from congestion pricing (in London, for example) to investment in alternative transportation.
Click on image to access article
It doesn’t take much intellectual effort to look around and realize that our urban infrastructures are hardly waging a war on cars. But the factual absurdity of the phrase doesn’t mean it isn’t rhetorically powerful; maneuvering into a position of victimhood and defensiveness is often an effective move.
Not an entirely new idea, but this Australian video explores the notion of “scripted disorientation” as a technique used in places like shopping malls, supermarkets, and even Ikea to subtly persuade (trick) you into buying things you didn’t intend to:
Read More »
From the Disinformation website comes this post that illustrates the “micro” level of persuasion: two AP stories five decades apart reporting on two similar examples of unanimous parliamentary votes, using two different descriptors to characterize the event…
What institutional pressures determine these choices in diction?
Huey Long, Governor of Louisiana from 1928–1932
“When Confucius was asked what would be the first thing he would do if he were to lead the state—a never-to-be-fulfilled dream—he said, Rectify the language. This is wise. This is subtle. As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action: You liberate a city by destroying it. Words are used to confuse, so that at election time people will solemnly vote against their own interests. Finally, words must be so twisted as to justify an empire that has now ceased to exist, much less make sense. Is rectification of our system possible for us?”
Right now there are a gaggle of imaginative and intelligent students at Ohio State working on Critical Rhetoric Videos, an assignment that takes Raymie McKerrow’s concept of “Critical Rhetoric,” but uses digital video instead of print to perform the critique.
(go to www.elementsof276.blogspot.com to learn more about this assignment)
In attempting to better identify which rhetorical appeals will work best for their target demographic (mostly those between the ages of 19 and 26), we consistently come back to humor. This has me contemplating the potential value of a “precursor project”–more specifically, a parodic precursor–that would focus on the strategic use of humor before moving on to a project like the Critical Rhetoric Video.
So I thought I would share with you some great examples of parody, a term the Greeks used to describe works that imitated the epics in humorous fashion, poking fun at the style of master narratives. (Just consider the etymology: para (along side of) + ode (as in “lyrical ballad”).)
These examples are astounding for their efficiency in revealing the rhetorical structures of the genre they’re poking fun at, while engaging the audience with their own set of smooth rhetorical maneuvers:
(thanks to Alex Speck, who tipped me off to this bit-o-genius)
(thanks to Kendyl Meadows for this one)
(thanks to Kate Comer for finding this hilarity)
Harlot: A Revealing Look at the Arts of Persuasion
2008