“The Decision” and its reverberations

Perhaps I haven’t been looking too hard to find commentary that says otherwise, but I’d swear I haven’t come across one positive statement about LeBron James and his “Decision” to leave the Cleveland Cavaliers for the Miami Heat. I’m not talking about the decision itself but rather of its execution. If we momentarily ignore the truism that says all publicity is good publicity and look at the merits of the various PR campaigns associated with the event, we might find it safe to say they’ve been a slight disaster. (I’m trying to soften the criticism a bit.)

The two main events are probably the hour-long special on ESPN and the scathing open letter sent out by the Cavaliers owner, Dan Gilbert. The first has been called a “media circus,” “a cultural low point,” and “Embarrassing. Overdone. Underwhelming.” One writer stated that “James was so concerned with the pursuit of his celebrity that he ran [his fans] over with this self-empowering TV special.” Some have found it shameful that James would decide to hold his event at a boys and girls club and proceed to dump his many fans on national television: “[A]lmost overnight, one of basketball’s most likable figures has turned into a complete jerk.” One blogger even has even written a press release that should have been — but, sadly, wasn’t.

Dan Gilbert’s open letter has fared no better. It has been endlessly criticized, is costing him a whopping $100,000 in fines, and has even mysteriously disappeared from the NBA web site. The original letter showed up in Comic Sans font, a font style universally hated by folks in the design community. Apparently, the media relations staff at the Cavaliers “begged Gilbert to not send the email, but he ignored the pleas and wanted it out immediately.” I wholeheartedly feel their pain.

The letter has been compared to “10th grade melodrama,” the reaction a slave owner would have to his runaway slave (although others claim that Jesse James’ criticism actually makes Gilbert look better), and a venomous validation for James’ exit. It’s clearly a letter written in anger that would have greatly benefited from a calm eye and a red pen.

If you’re curious, here’s a copy (and here’s a visual of the original at this site). Do tell us what you think.

Dear Cleveland, All Of Northeast Ohio and Cleveland Cavaliers Supporters Wherever You May Be Tonight;

As you now know, our former hero, who grew up in the very region that he deserted this evening, is no longer a Cleveland Cavalier.

This was announced with a several day, narcissistic, self-promotional build-up culminating with a national TV special of his “decision” unlike anything ever “witnessed” in the history of sports and probably the history of entertainment.

Clearly, this is bitterly disappointing to all of us.

The good news is that the ownership team and the rest of the hard-working, loyal, and driven staff over here at your hometown Cavaliers have not betrayed you nor NEVER will betray you.

There is so much more to tell you about the events of the recent past and our more than exciting future. Over the next several days and weeks, we will be communicating much of that to you.

You simply don’t deserve this kind of cowardly betrayal.

You have given so much and deserve so much more.

In the meantime, I want to make one statement to you tonight:

“I PERSONALLY GUARANTEE THAT THE CLEVELAND CAVALIERS WILL WIN AN NBA CHAMPIONSHIP BEFORE THE SELF-TITLED FORMER ‘KING’ WINS ONE”

You can take it to the bank.

If you thought we were motivated before tonight to bring the hardware to Cleveland, I can tell you that this shameful display of selfishness and betrayal by one of our very own has shifted our “motivation” to previously unknown and previously never experienced levels.

Some people think they should go to heaven but NOT have to die to get there.

Sorry, but that’s simply not how it works.

This shocking act of disloyalty from our home grown “chosen one” sends the exact opposite lesson of what we would want our children to learn. And “who” we would want them to grow-up to become.

But the good news is that this heartless and callous action can only serve as the antidote to the so-called “curse” on Cleveland, Ohio.

The self-declared former “King” will be taking the “curse” with him down south. And until he does “right” by Cleveland and Ohio, James (and the town where he plays) will unfortunately own this dreaded spell and bad karma.

Just watch.

Sleep well, Cleveland.

Tomorrow is a new and much brighter day….

I PROMISE you that our energy, focus, capital, knowledge and experience will be directed at one thing and one thing only:

DELIVERING YOU the championship you have long deserved and is long overdue….

Dan Gilbert

Majority Owner

Cleveland Cavaliers

Tweeting into the Echo-Chamber (Or, The Oily Bird Gets the Worm… to Un-Apologize)

(Audio courtesy of Deadwood.)

I’ve long been fascinated by the art of the apology, or in some instances, the spectacular lack thereof. Case in point: a couple of weeks ago, Texas Republican Congressperson Joe Barton notably apologized to the corporate heads of BP in the wake of White House pressure to secure from the company a $20 billion payback fund. Soon thereafter, he retracted that apology… then later retracted his retraction… and then I got bored following the story, so who even knows the apology’s status as of this writing? The  malum discordiae for such tone-deaf flip floppery? According to Steven Andrew’s Examiner article “How to Use Twitter to Make Friends and Influence People,” it had an awful lot to do with Twitter*:

Literally before the GOP leadership and the conservative media fully realized what Barton had said, much less had time to think about the consequences, Barton’s comments and the GOBP idea had already ripped through twitter like wildfire and the narrative was set. The Republican establishment, their clumsy Fox News and talk radio dinosaurs rendered useless, panicked and ran for the exits.

Now that the traditional rightwing echo chamber has been knocked back on its heels by this unanticipated blast of disruptive feedback, it’ll be interesting to see how the “tweet factor” is accounted for in the future… And if Barton will eventually retract the retraction of the retraction.

* And maybe a little of this, too.

Science’s Rhetorical Bottleneck

Global climate change, childhood vaccinations, evolution, heliocentrism: in most areas of scientific inquiry, you will find its detractors. Thanks to the echo chambers afforded by the likes of cable news (always hungry to frame all issues as right/left controversies) and the web (where anyone with the bandwidth can stand on the shoulders of giants, if only to throw rocks at their heads), these detractors are getting  larger platforms from which to mount their offensives. The problem with science is that it relies too heavily on the scientific method, on empirical data, on the cool, unblinking logic of the microscope and slide rule… and too little on the rhetorical arts. Such is the argument forwarded by Erin Biba in her column in this month’s WIRED, “Why Science Needs to Step Up Its PR Game.” A snippet:

“Scientists hate the word spin. They get bent out of shape by the concept that they should frame their message,” says Jennifer Ouellette, director of the Science and Entertainment Exchange, a National Academy of Sciences program that helps connect the entertainment industry with technical consultants. “They feel that the facts should speak for themselves. They’re not wrong; they’re just not realistic.”

To spin or not to spin… while the white-coats are trying to figure that one out, I should add that some scientists tend to think that denial is a potentially insurmountable force, perhaps even hardwired in our brains. See: “Living in Denial: Why Sensible People Reject the Truth.”  *sigh!* With such scientific evidence mounting against the powers of persuasion, why even bother?

Now, this is how to target your audience

The 2nd Edition: [A]musing Ourselves

In the most recent issue of Harlot, my colleague Paul Muhlhauser and I published a satirical piece critiquing what we learn about genders and work from the November 2009 J.CREW catalog.  Yesterday, we posted a comment on our piece that extends our critique to the most recent issues of the catalog.  I’m copying our comment here for your delectation (and, selfishly, in hopes that some of you may enter the conversation we were hoping to start with our piece).  In case you didn’t know, each piece published on Harlot is “comment-ready”.  Just click on the “Add Comment” link below the piece and make your contribution!  [Caveat: you may have to register with Harlot if you are not yet registered.]

EXTENDING THE CONVERSATION (our comment on How Genders Work: Producing the J.CREW Catalog):

To be fair to J.CREW, they did “follow up” the Real Guys Relate feature with another issue that featured “real” women—women and their jobs. However, the feature is titled Who’s that Girl? rather than Who’s that Woman?. When women work, they are just girls. This sends the message that women’s jobs are really not equal to men’s.

Besides being called “girls,” these women are referred to as “muses” and “muse-worthy” in the introduction to the feature. This means they are sources of inspiration for others. In this context, the women inspire more than the job descriptions offered. What is striking is how these “real” women display behaviors consistent with women in How Genders Work. Though women are named and their jobs are listed, “girls” continue to be posed like the models in the magazine rather than the men who are aware of their positions and surroundings. Women’s posturing is still flirty as their toes are pointed inward, and they often look off to the side unaware of their surroundings and out of context. In addition, as if to counteract the effect women with jobs would have on a reader by unsettling a stereotype, J.CREW profiles the men who work at the British journal Monocle. These men become even more real as they are positioned in contexts of offices, city streets, and studios. The lesson we learn from this issue is that real men do real work—they exist in a real world, in context. Real women, on the other hand, may have real jobs but their work is to [a]muse.

To make matters worse, the issue following Who’s that Girl? once again features “real” men as workers and women models as flirtatious and air-headed. There are no “real” women in this issue. The theme for the issue is nature (as in landscaping, farming, and gardening). The instructions show us that women are incompetent and disengaged with regards to nature. Nature, for them, is an accessory. One model, for instance, looks as if she doesn’t know how to pot a plant. She holds it as if waiting for someone to help her. Another holds flowers—doesn’t do anything with them. Flowers are part of her “look.”

Men, in contrast, work with nature; they are competent and engaged. Rather than presented as an accessory, nature is presented as part of work and their livelihoods. In this feature, we return to the studio to learn about “The Naturals.” These “real” men are landscape designers, landscape photographers, agricultural directors, goat farmers, and agricultural farmers.

As these catalogs demonstrate, J.CREW has not changed their representation strategies. Though J.CREW attempted to represent “real” women, they failed. Our instructions still produce the J.CREW catalog. A second edition of our textbook would have a section for girls, muses, and jobs.

Contribute to the conversation!

TomTom’s Vader Viral Video Ad

This may be one of the best uses of viral videoing to promote a product I have seen to date:

Enjoy!

Parody as Rhetorical Analysis

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)

not Beyond Persuasion

I remember when British Petroleum changed their name to “Beyond Petroleum” in 2000.  When pressed about it, I bet most could, which means that their $200 million advertising campaign worked.  (Ogilvy & Mather won the 2001 PRWeek award for “campaign of the year,” if you need additional support for its effectiveness.)

One of the most successful greenwashes of all time, the rebranding of BP has led them to be viewed as one of the most “environmentally aware” oil companies.  The oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico is putting pressure on this perspective, of course, but there’s good reason to believe that BP’s image will recover.  They’re veterans, don’t forget: of oil clean-ups, congressional “interrogations” of weak safety measures and poor environmental records, and–most importantly–PR disaster management.

(Eric Dezenhall recently wrote about when a “late public-relations honcho for a big petrochemical company” once told him “that he knew it was time to retire when, after a spill, the CEO’s first call was to him: ‘Get up here, Harry, we’ve got a PR problem.”)

PR disaster management is where rhetorician mercenaries spring to action; these are the Navy SEALS of  rhetorical situations where making the weaker argument appear stronger seems nearly impossible.  The documentary Our Brand is Crisis reveals some of this rhetorical mercenary work:

So after having spent enough time vacillating between rage and despair while reading accounts of the (continuing) oil leak in the Gulf, I thought it best to go to Derrick Jensen for some words of wisdom.  In Endgame (Volume 1) Jensen discusses BP’s name change, which they framed as a “statement of priorities.”

This particular type of smokescreen has been most fully developed by a public relations consultant with the appropriately named Peter Sandman.  He has been nicknamed the High Priest of Outrage because corporations hire him to dissipate public anger, to put people back to sleep.  Sandman has explicitly stated his self-perceived role: “I get hired to help a company to ‘explain to these confused people that the refinery isn’t going to blow up, so they will leave us alone.’”

He developed a five point program for corporations to disable public rage.

First, convince the public that they are participating in the destructive processes themselves, that the risks are not externally imposed.  You asked for it by wearing those clothes, says the rapist.  You drive a car, too, says the PR guru.

Second, convince them that the benefits of the processes outweigh the harm.  You could never support yourself without me, says the abuser.  How would you survive without fossil fuels?” repeats the PR guru.

Third, undercut fear by making the risk feel familiar.  Explain your response and people will relax (whether or not your response is meaningful or effective).  Don’t you worry about it, I’ll take care of everything.  Things will change, you’ll see, says the abuser.  We are moving beyond petroleum and toward sustainability, says the PR guru.

Fourth, emphasize again that the public has control over the risk (whether or not they do).  You could leave anytime you want, but I know you won’t, says the abuser.  If we all just pull together, we’ll find our way through, says the PR guru.

Fifth, acknowledge your mistakes, and say (even if untrue) that you are trying to do better.  I promise I will never hit you again, the abuser repeats.  It is time to stop living in the past, and move together into the future, drones the PR guru.

Speaking to a group of mining executives, Sandman, who also consults for BP, stated, “There is a growing sense that you screw up a lot, and as a net result it becomes harder to get permission to mine.”  His solution is not actually change how the industry works, of course, but instead to find an appropriate “persona” for the industry.  “Reformed sinner,” he says, “works quite well if you can sell it…’Reformed sinner,’ by the way, is what John Brown of BP has successfully done for his organization.  It is arguably what Shell has done with respect to Brent Spar.  Those are two huge oil companies that have done a very good job of saying to themselves, ‘Everyone thinks we are bad guys…We can’t just start out announcing we are good guys, so what we have to announce is we have finally realized we were bad guys and we are going to do better.’ … It makes it much easier for critics and the public to buy into the image of the industry as good guys after you have spent awhile in purgatory.”

Here’s some “reformed sinner” performance, punctuated with blame-framing and blame-shifting.  It’s rather remarkable that right after Senator Wyden says, “And the company always says the same thing after one of these accidents: ‘We’re gonna toughen up our standards; we’re going to improve management; we’re going to deal with risks,’ and then another such accident takes place,” BP executive Lamar McKay responds with the exact same formula just outlined: “We are changing this company.  We’ve put in management systems that are covering the world in a consistent and rigorous way.”

But why depart from the template that has worked so well and so consistently for so long?

If you find such behavior and responses (both by oil executives and the “legal personhood” of a corporation) to be best described as pathological behavior, then you might find useful the documentary The Corporation, which uses some of the key symptoms of psychopathy as outlined by the DSM-IV as an analytical lens for understanding corporate behavior:

• callous disregard for the feelings of other people
• the incapacity to maintain human relationships
• reckless disregard for the safety of others
• deceitfulness (continual lying to deceive for profit)
• the incapacity to experience guilt
• failure to conform to social norms and respect for the law

Oil has brought us some nice things and (to borrow another phrase from Derrick Jensen) all other things being equal, I’d like to have some of the things that are the result of oil.

“But all other things aren’t equal, and I’d rather have a living planet.”

Leading me on?

Before I condemn the BBC for severe lack of tact, I thought it best to run it past you all first to see if I’m way off base.  Check out the picture chosen to accompany an article on the US military changing it policy on “don’t ask don’t tell.”

Are we being lead to believe that these two military men are holding hands? My guess is that their arms simply appear aligned from the perspective of camera; cropping out the hands at the bottom helps cement this view.

So why this picture?  Why are we being lead to associate this policy change with open-hand holding amongst military personnel?  How does this picture help frame the article’s message and how we interpret the policy itself?

Right now I’m more than a bit disgusted with such a maneuver, which seems beneath such a respectable organization like the BBC.  This is something we might expect from FOX, but c’mon–the BBC?!

Get it.

I find this dog food commercial by Pedigree strangely alluring.

I can’t seem to look away from it. Apparently, I’m a sucker for cute dogs jumping in slow motion after a tasty treat. Does it make me so engaged that I need to run out and get Pedigree dog food? No, not really, but it does keep my attention longer than some Super Bowl ads, so it gets a thumb up for creativity.