Consider this a dual author post. Vera posted this comic called “How A Web Design Goes Straight to Hell” on my facebook page. Hilarious and a must-read. Coincidentally, Smashing Magazine’s article posted yesterday was “How To Explain To Clients That They Are Wrong,” which, as Vera put it, “is all about rhetoric.” And, yes, it is. So, per request, I post these things for your enjoyment. (I certainly do enjoy them.)
Hillshire Farms recent television adds make me uncomfortable.
Their recent cheer leading chants of “Go Meat” makes my stomach turn. I’m not a vegetarian or a vegan, so it’s not like I’m naive to people eating meat, but this type of advertising just seems too distasteful to me. In this particular instance, Hillshire Farms isn’t marketing how tasty or high quality their meat is, but that we should just eat meat. Any meat. Because. . . we’re meaty? I mean, sure, they throw in a “Hillshire Farms” at the end, but there’s no “Hey, you should eat Hillshire Farms, because it’s good.” I’m just supposed to eat Hillshire Farms, because it’s meat?
Plus, I can’t enjoy a salad without Hillshire telling me that there must be meat on it:
Come on! It’s a salad. If there is meat, then it plays a very minor role. Plus, marketing “Go Meat” to people who are trying to eat salad probably is not the right message for that audience. Salad eating audiences probably value vegetables and would not appreciate the uniform preaching of “Go Meat.”
It’s also interesting to me that they try to wrap your attention up through this cheer leading motif. Hey, it did work for Toni Basil:
So, is the point of the cheers simply to catch your attention or to get you so peppy that you ignore the message? And is it effective?
There’s a fascinating piece in the NY Times today — “Point, Shoot, Retouch and Label?” by Steven Erlanger –about French politician Valerie Boyer’s draft of a law requiring advertisements to carry a label if they contain images that have been digitally retouched. This is not a new discussion; publishing associations in the UK and elsewhere have talked about voluntary reform. Check out the consistently smart coverage in Jezebel. But it may be the first to push a law.
The article focuses on the issue of women’s body images and the dangers of falsified ideals, documenting various approaches to this debate, from hopes that “such a label might sensitize people to the fakery involved in most of the advertising images with which they’re bludgeoned” to the threat that “such a law would destroy photographic art.”
In this vein, a fashion photographer is quoted pointing out that all photography is a representation of reality through a lens that excludes as well as captures. Very smart and valid… but is this the generally accepted view that fashion magazine readers share? Based on a sample of my self, friends, students, sister, cousins…. No. However naively, most women still “buy” these false images.
An editor at Marie Claire declares the labels unnecessary because “Our readers are not idiots … Of course they’re all retouched.” You’ve got to almost admire her bravado, and the move to convince her readers with a magazine that so clearly respects their intelligence… I guess I’m an idiot, then, since despite my rhetorical training, I’d still love to be informed.
Check out Marie Claire’s edited editors:
Photoshop Disasters: Marie Claire
At least, in the meantime, we have such wonderful sources as Jezebel and Photoshop Disasters and Photoshop of Horrors, and of course fun on YouTube:
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:
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.
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:
-) “Rhetorical Perspectivism” in Contemporary Rhetorical Theory
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.
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?
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 . . .
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Little Crop of Horrors | ||||
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Typefaces give us signals from erik spiekermann on Vimeo.
via Presentation Zen