On Thanksgiving Eve: The TV Ad Conundrum

This might come off as more of a gripe than anything else, but I believe it needs to be said, so advertisers out there, listen up. Making television commercials louder than the program’s volume level is not a good strategy. Yes, my attention is temporarily drawn to said commercial, sure, but only long enough for me to hit mute. So, while Mr. or Ms. Advertiser thinks that we’re going to be paying so much more attention to their ad because the volume is louder, what ends up happening is that we (yes, I’m including you all in this too) mute the commercial or semi-frantically hit the volume down button ten thousand times–blocking out its attempts to ensnare us with its attempts at persuasion. Advertisers not only fail their primary task (to get me to watch their advertisement), but they tick off their audience at the same time. Again, not a good strategy.

If you’re interested, here’s a video about why commercials sound like that:

Visual Rhetoric Crush-of-the-Month

The website FlowingData has quite a bit in common with Harlot. Translating complex data of all varieties (money spent, reps at the gym, time you waste) into compelling graphic form, “Data visualization lets non-experts make sense of it all.“  At Harlot, our goal is to reveal all the various and subtle ways rhetoric penetrates our everyday through a language and location that invites everyone to explore and understand persuasion.  FlowingData, meet Harlot; Harlot, meet FlowingData.

The graphic that’s posted at the very bottom has captured my attention for a number of reasons, mostly related to Derrick Jensen (no direct relation–only in the larger Danish sense), who is perhaps my favorite author (and certainly the most sane person I have ever had the pleasure of meeting).  As a radical environmentalist, Jensen is constantly searching for new ways to communicate just how severe the situation is we are currently, collectively facing.  That’s at the macro level.  At the micro level, he’s challenged with taking statistical data that most logically reveals how the earth is being murdered and transforming it rhetorically into something that sticks.

Some data for you:

Facts, though, have a tendency to roll right off of us.  We’re more inclined to be persuaded by stories that connect with us personally, in ways that we can readily link to everyday experience.  Here’s a stellar example of the rhetorical task he encounters when trying to persuade people that our way of life, our sense of self, and relation to what allows us to live is not just unsustainable, it’s immoral and insane.*    And stupid.

“Within our current system, the life span of any particular artifact as waste is usually far longer than its life span as a useful tool.  Let’s say I go to a food court at a mall and eat a meal with a disposable fork.  Let’s say I use the fork for five minutes before one of those tines breaks (as always seems to happen) and I throw it out.  The fork goes in the garbage and is buried in the landfill.  Let’s say this particular type of plastic takes five thousand years to break down … For every minute I used the fork it spends a thousand years as waste: a ratio of one to 526 million, a number so large it’s hardly meaningful to human minds.  On a scale that’s easier to fathom, if we compressed a fork’s five thousand year existence to one year, the fork would have spent only six one-hundreths of a second as an object useful to me.”

Although he presents it rather modestly, Jensen’s shift from a ratio to a story-of-sorts is a crucial rhetorical move–one that all environmentalists and activists of all walks should take note of.  We need to keep pressing for the most effective forms for communicating the gravitas of the situation (but without falling prey to the idea that that’s all that needs to be done).

I think the artists of GOOD and Fogelson-Lubliner that collaborated to produce the brilliant illustration below have a solid grasp of what it takes to translate facts in a way that sticks.  I strongly suggest that you click the image to view it in its full glory . . .

And when you’re done there, don’t forget to check out the archive of amazing at FlowingData.

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* I use the term “insane” quite literally, in its strictest definition(s): senseless; an unsoundness of mind that affects one’s capacity for proper responsibility; one whose way of life and/or mental state is such that they are unable to make a sustained commitment to their own health and the relationships that constitute it.  Perhaps “madness” is more accurate, though, since there is a particular violence to our collective insanity.

Ralph’s Rants & Rhetoric

I’m still not used to seeing Ralph Nader’s name in my inbox.  Sure, I signed up for his listserv, but that has yet to stop me from thinking that Ralph has searched me out personally because he knows how much I enjoy a rant, especially those that mercilessly attack greed and corruption.  Of course, Ralph and I don’t agree on everything, but his essays are eminently reasonable and meticulously researched.

Last week, however, I almost wrote Ralph back, letting him know how much one of his emails hurt my head and heart.  He succumbed to cliché and alliteration (a poisonous combo, for sure) by titling an essay, “Between the Rhetoric and the Reality.”  He didn’t explicitly extrapolate on the shaky binary, thankfully, but such a juxtaposition is sure to raise hairs on most rhetoricians.  Wayne Booth started collecting headlines like this years ago (perhaps to mollify his irritation) and shares a few in the preface to The Rhetoric of Rhetoric:

“Impoverished students deserve solutions, not rhetoric.”

“[What I've just said] is not rhetoric or metaphor.  It’s only truth.”

“President Bush’s speech was long on rhetoric and short on substance.”

We’ve all seen the likes of these lines, so I’ll not needlessly deride them with a long response on how rhetoric is most productively viewed as epistemic (it simultaneously describes, discovers, and creates knowledge) or how language fundamentally shapes our perceptions of reality.  Instead, I’m here to let you know that Ralph redeemed himself yesterday (for the most part*) with an email titled, “Words Matter.”

He begins by ridiculing the journalists who uncritically adopt words that are finely calibrated to affect the way we think about an issue or concept.  His examples are rather thought-provoking, so I thought I would share:

Day in and day out we read about “detainees” imprisoned for months or years by the federal government in the U.S., Guantanamo Bay, Iraq and Afghanistan. Doesn’t the media know that the correct word is “prisoners,” regardless of what Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld disseminated?

The raging debate and controversy over health insurance and the $2.5 trillion spent this year on health care involves consumers and “providers.” I always thought “providers” were persons taking care of their families or engaging in charitable service. Somehow, the dictionary definition does not fit the frequently avaricious profiles of Aetna, United Healthcare, Pfizer and Merck.

“Privatization” and the “private sector” are widespread euphemisms that the press falls for daily. Moving government owned assets or functions into corporate hands, as with Blackwater, Halliburton, and the conglomerates now controlling public highways, prisons, and drinking water systems is “corporatization,” not the soft imagery of going “private” or into the “private sector.” It is the corporate sector!

“Free trade” is a widely used euphemism. It is corporate managed trade as evidenced in hundreds of pages of rules favoring corporations in NAFTA and the World Trade Organization. “Free trade” lowers barriers between countries so that cartels, unjustified patent monopolies, counterfeiting, contraband, and other harmful practices and products can move around the world unhindered.

* This redemption is only partial, I’m afraid.  Despite the correct articulation that “words matter,” Ralph’s proposed solution is to use “words that are accurate and [can be taken at] face value.”  He calls for “straight talk” and “semantic discipline.”  Such an appeal reflects his earlier rhetoric/reality split by suggesting that we “cut the rhetoric” and get down to the “real” stuff.  His framing suggests that there are right words and wrong words, with the right words being more ideologically or politically neutral.  Demanding that we return to the dictionary as a source of authority and clarity is about as persuasive as Dukakis in a tank.  So here’s the deal, Ralph: I promise to vote for you when you run in 2012 (or 2016, since you’ll probably be there, too) if you read the following works and give this troubled binary some serious reconsideration:

-) The Rhetoric of Rhetoric

-) Image Politics

-) “Rhetorical Perspectivism” in Contemporary Rhetorical Theory

Minimal Sites

Wow, I’m surprised I haven’t passed on this site before. If you’re in the market for some inspiration for minimalist website design, then check out minimalsites.com. For sure, a fantastic resource for that particular style. Mmm, clean, simple, and effective. Tasty.

Words have Power

There’s an article up at CNN.com called “The coming out stories of anonymous bloggers.” It’s a relatively quick, interesting read that I’m still trying to digest. It maps out some instances where anonymous bloggers were forced or found out and had to reveal their identities. In some cases, it resulted in a trip to the unemployment office.

I suppose I have mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, it seems that people commonly forget that they are writing in a public space and if you’re concerned with your public persona at all, then this should be a consideration. On the other hand, wouldn’t this constitute free speech? It seems a bit harsh for someone to lose their job (that had nothing to do with what they were posting about) when they genuinely tried not to have what they say reflect back onto where they work by obscuring their name.

Hmm, I’m still mulling it over. Thoughts, anyone?

Rhetoric and Food for Thought

For a skinny kid, I think a lot about food.  Not so much the tastes and textures, but the politics, value-systems, and rhetorics that surround its place in culture.  There is a developing food movement in this country; it’s comprised of many sub-movements based around the concepts and practices of “organic,” “sustainable agriculture,” and “slow food,” with “local” similarly occupying a prominent position.

We’ve not only seen the items on our supermarket shelves change over the past few years, we’ve witnessed the surrounding rhetoric shift in places and intensify in others.  With the introduction of genetically modified foods in the early 1990s, the expansion and entrenchment of industrial farming and monocrop culture, and the consolidation of powers that control the entire system, the message that accompanies food has increased in significance, adopting narratives of progress in some sectors, while remaining obstinately old-fashion in others.  For example, listen to Michael Pollan kick off the powerful documentary, FOOD, Inc., with a quick, but incisive rhetorical analysis on some of the persuasive techniques used to sell food:

(Perhaps y’all could chime in with some of your favorite rhetorical approaches and we can keep this conversation going . . .)

Of course, our movement is mirroring those elsewhere throughout the world.  It’s distinct, however, given our consumer-centric society and place in the hierarchy of consumption (we comprise about 5% of the world’s population and consume roughly 1/3 of its meat).  Food Sovereignty Movements are in nascent stages across Africa, Europe, and South America.  Soon enough we will also be in a position where one must declare (as ludicrous as it sounds) the right to grow food and have a say in where the rest comes from.

Currently, however, the word “organic” is the dominant term in our food conversations.  The term carries vast and various associations and values that go far beyond a simple label indicating how the food was raised.  Here’s some fodder for you rhetoric junkies: The Daily Show’s look at the White House’s organic garden reveals a struggle over which values will get associated with organic.  Enjoy watching while I go hunt down some articles on the rhetoric of “organic” for a future blog post . . .

Typefaces Give Us Signals

Typefaces give us signals from erik spiekermann on Vimeo.

via Presentation Zen

jezebelles

Have you heard of Jezebel? I look at this publication kinda as a sarcastic Vanity Fair. Although they talk about celebrity, fashion, and stereotypically girlie things, they’re quite critical of it all. For instance, they have articles ranging from the ever-evolving drama of Jon & Kate Plus 8 to animal rights advertising to an excellent run-down and critique of Huckabee on The Daily Show. The site’s description:

Jezebel is celebrity, fashion, and sex without the airbrushing. The witty, informative tone draws a readership that is intelligent and sophisticated, but still willing to get down and dirty. Jezebel does what those women’s monthlies only wish they could.

Sorta reminds me of Harlot–exchange all of that celebrity and fashion stuff for rhetoric and we ain’t far off. Certainly, I think some of their articles fit nicely into the realm of rhetorical critiques of pop culture with a dash of wit. Given the site’s high readership, perhaps there’s something that Harlot could learn from its (maybe not-so) distant cousin. Of course, they’ve been at it a bit longer, have major sponsors, and their editors even get paid! Ah, to earn a wage at this. Harlot is a bit too indie for that major sponsorship though, eh? And we encourage our audience to be more participatory as well. It’s a thought. One still in development.

Old Yeller . . . The Dog Food

I wouldn’t believe unless I saw it with my own eyes:

In conjunction with Disney, Kroger has begun selling Old Yeller Dog Food based off the movie depicting a young boy’s emotional journey with his dog, set in the 1860s.  Old Yeller (named for his color, yellow/yella) and the boy become very close and engage in numerous frontier adventures.  Then the dog gets into a fight with wolf, gets bit, becomes rabid, and the boy shoots him in the head with a rifle.

The movie sometimes goes by its alternative title: SADDEST MOVIE EVER.

Or, in the words of the geniuses over at Kroger and Disney: “The movie is a timeless classic that transcends generations, and we believe this brand will appeal not only to original fans, but to the millions of Americans who share the same kind of special bond with their beloved dogs,” says Barry Vance, Kroger senior corporate category manager.

“Bringing Disney’s Old Yeller brand to a trusted retailer like Kroger was a natural fit,” says Christopher King, category director, Disney Consumer Products FMCG. “Disney’s Old Yeller dog food is for those dogs that are part of the family.”

Did these people watch the same movie?  What are they trying to convey with this branding?  What’s next, Titanic bottled water?

Remarkable.

Tiananmen & Twitter

Tomorrow, June 4th, marks the 20th anniversary of the bloody affair in Tiananmen Square, when the Chinese army opened machine gun fire on unarmed protesters. In an attempt to obviate any risk of renewing the spirit of dissent, China is taking measures to prevent communication:

Not that we exactly needed more evidence that communication technologies are instrumental in 21st-century activism, but this certainly helps confirm it. And since China is credited with having the largest online community, the impact goes deep.

This maneuver to counter dissent has interesting connections to the massacre, since one of the key demands of students gathering in Tiananmen was for free media. Such issues should concern any rhetorician who is interested in who has the power to speak, who is denied such power, and the influence of digital technologies on expression.

One may wonder how protesters will react to this sadly predictable move on the part of the Chinese government. How will citizens communicate when the channels for doing so are blocked? Who will lead when leaders have been placed on house arrest or “strongly encouraged” to vacation away from the capital for the 20th anniversary? Furthermore, since none of these tactics are surprising, how might activists elsewhere learn from them? The digital networks that support much of the transnational activism that is highly touted these days could easily disappear. What then? How can those that identify with certain social movements account for “cutting the head off,” where leaders are minimized, or worse, executed? And what might this mean in our networked age, where movements could be seen as acephalous?