Transcript Slides for Lecture 5

Public Rhetoric and Practical
Communication
Composing with a Purpose
Lecture 5: CAT 125
Elizabeth Losh
http://losh.ucsd.edu
Composing with a Purpose
Choosing an Approach
http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=BYKVS_PHZvA#!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?f&v=h-8PBx7isoM
Is Changing Someone’s Mind
Always a Reasonable Goal?
Peter Coleman
Sam Gregory
Basic Questions
What is the message?
Who is behind the message?
Who is the audience for the
message?
What is the message intended
to accomplish?
What is the message?
The Macy Conferences 1946-1953
Interdisciplinary discussions of new areas of research
Systems theory, cybernetics, cognitive science, and
Gestalt psychology
What is the message?
Signal and Noise in a Communication Channel
Claude Shannon
What is the message?
How do we define information?
The relationship between information and entropy
The relationship between information and
uncertainty
C-H-O-_
C-H-O-C-O-L-A-T-_
What is the message?
I cnduo't bvleiee taht I culod aulaclty uesdtannrd
waht I was rdnaieg. Unisg the icndeblire pweor of the
hmuan mnid, aocdcrnig to rseecrah at Cmabrigde
Uinervtisy, it dseno't mttaer in waht oderr the lterets
in a wrod are, the olny irpoamtnt tihng is taht the frsit
and lsat ltteer be in the rhgit pclae. The rset can be a
taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whoutit a pboerlm.
Tihs is bucseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey
ltteer by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Aaznmig,
huh? Yaeh and I awlyas tghhuot slelinpg was
ipmorantt! See if yuor fdreins can raed tihs too.
What is the message?
Roman Jakobson
Phatic Communication
Bronisław Malinowski
"The problem of meaning in primitive languages" (1923)
Communication without significance that only creates
or maintains social ties
Who is behind the message?
(Lecture 3)
Who is behind the message?
Who is Dylan Avery?
Who is behind the message?
Who are you?
Who is the audience for the
message? (Lecture 4)
What is the message intended to
accomplish? (Lecture 5)
Edward Bernays
Crystallizing Public Opinion (1923),
Propaganda (1928), Public Relations (1945),
The Engineering of Consent (1955)
Walter Lippman
Public Opinion (1922)
Clem Whitaker and Leone Baxter
Strategy 1: Social Media
Public Diplomacy
Social Marketing
Institutional Branding
Risk Communication
Why was change needed?
Persuasion is different from deliberation
There is a conflict of interest when the government
is both a regulator and a content-creator
The public deserves more transparency not less
The era of mass communication was changing
Strategy 2: Print & Broadcast Media
How can messages accomplish things?
J.L. Austin – Speech Act Theory
Performative utterances don’t just describe the world or
comment on the world . . . They change the world
Locutionary Acts with Consequences
beyond the verbal, syntactic, and semantic aspects of a meaningful utterance
“Don’t go into the water.”
A warning intended to scare
“Would you like to borrow my bootleg Clash
tapes?”
An offer intended to impress
John Searle
Illocutionary Acts
assertives = speech acts that commit a speaker to the truth of the
expressed proposition, e.g. reciting a creed
directives = speech acts that are to cause the hearer to take a particular
action, e.g. requests, commands and advice
commissives = speech acts that commit a speaker to some future action,
e.g. promises and oaths
expressives = speech acts that express the speaker's attitudes and
emotions towards the proposition, e.g. congratulations, excuses and
thanks
declarations = speech acts that change the reality in accord with the
proposition of the declaration, e.g. baptisms, pronouncing someone guilty
or pronouncing someone husband and wife
J. L. Austin
Perlocutionary Acts
Individual or group psychology rather than social or legal
validation
“Saying something will often, or even normally, produce
certain consequential effects upon the feelings, thoughts,
or actions of the audience, or of the speaker, or of other
persons: and it may be done with the design, intention, or
purpose of producing them.”
Writing with Purpose
The Parking Scenario
A. Write a letter to the editor
B. Write an e-mail to the
chancellor
C. Create a Facebook page
D. Write a press release
announcing a protest event
E. Create a poster
presentation with data from a
research study
The True Function of TVs at UCSD
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFZb8i5VqFw
More Evidence, Less Testimony
Diebold Voting Machine Flips Votes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNYA5ggwG84
More Testimony, Less Evidence
United Breaks Guitars
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo
Writing with Purpose
Northwestern Journalism Students
What if you are highlighting
experimental artwork?
What if you aren’t?
What if you don’t have a lot of experience
composing with a purpose?