Rhetorical criticism sonja foss pdf

Fifth Edition

RHETORICAL CRITICISM

Exploration and Practice

Sonja K. Foss University of Colorado at Denver

WAVELAND

PRESS, INC. Long Grove, Illinois

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For information about this book, contact: Waveland Press, Inc. 4180 IL Route 83, Suite 101 Long Grove, IL 60047-9580 (847) 634-0081 info@waveland.com www.waveland.com

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Contents

Preface ix

PART 1 Introduction

1 The Nature of Rhetorical Criticism 3 Rhetoric 3

Humans as the Creators of Rhetoric 4 Symbols as the Medium for Rhetoric 4 Communication as the Purpose of Rhetoric 5

Rhetorical Criticism 6 Systematic Analysis as the Act of Criticism 6 Acts and Artifacts as the Objects of Criticism 6 Understanding Rhetorical Processes as the Purpose of Criticism 7

2 Doing Rhetorical Criticism 9 Selecting an Artifact 9 Analyzing the Artifact 10 Formulating a Research Question 11 Reviewing Relevant Literature 13

Identifying the Literature to Review 13 Coding the Literature 15 Creating a Conceptual Schema 16 Writing the Literature Review 17

Writing the Essay 18 Introduction 18 Description of the Artifact 19 Description of the Method 20 Report of the Findings of the Analysis 20 Contribution to Rhetorical Theory 21

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Applying the Analysis in Activism 22 Assessing the Essay 24

Justification 25 Reasonable Inference 25 Coherence 26

What Comes Next 26

3 Neo-Aristotelian Criticism: Genesis of Rhetorical Criticism 29 Procedures 32

Selecting an Artifact 32 Analyzing the Artifact 32 Formulating a Research Question 36 Writing the Essay 36

Sample Essays 36 Conventional Wisdom—Traditional Form—

The President’s Message of November 3, 1969 38 Forbes Hill

Laying the Foundations of Power: A Neo-Aristotelian Analysis of Jiang Zemin’s Address at the Handover of Hong Kong 50

Andrew Gilmore

PART 2 Critical Approaches

4 Cluster Criticism 61 Procedures 63

Selecting an Artifact 64 Analyzing the Artifact 64 Formulating a Research Question 68 Writing the Essay 68

Sample Essays 68 Crisis Leadership and Hurricane Katrina: The Portrayal of Authority

by the Media in Natural Disasters 70 Robert S. Littlefield and Andrea M. Quenette

An Invitation to Reopen Debate: Jimmy Carter’s Speech at Brandeis University 89

Mary E. Domenico

Artifact: Speech by Jimmy Carter 95

A Rhetoric of Reassurance: A Cluster Analysis of Jiang Zemin’s Address at the Handover of Hong Kong 99

Andrew Gilmore

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5 Fantasy-Theme Criticism 105 Procedures 109

Selecting an Artifact 109 Analyzing the Artifact 110 Formulating a Research Question 115 Writing the Essay 115

Sample Essays 115 Rhetorical Visions of Health: A Fantasy-Theme Analysis

of Celebrity Articles 117 Amanda Hinnant and Elizabeth Hendrickson

Coping with Loss: U2’s “One Tree Hill” 132 Kelly Mendoza

Reassurance Through Normalization: A Fantasy-Theme Analysis of Jiang Zemin’s Address at the Handover of Hong Kong 135

Andrew Gilmore

6 Feminist Criticism 141 Procedures 146

Selecting an Artifact 146 Analyzing the Artifact 147 Formulating a Research Question 154 Writing the Essay 154

Sample Essays 155 “The Man for His Time”: The Big Lebowski as

Carnivalesque Social Critique 158 Paul “Pablo” Martin and Valerie Renegar

Americanizing Gay Parents: A Feminist Analysis of Daddy’s Roommate 170

Dara R. Krause, See Vang, and Shonagh L. Brent

The Enactment of Advanced Style: Strategies Fashioned to Disrupt the Ideology of Aging 174

Karen A. Foss, Sonja K. Foss, and Yufang Zhang

7 Generic Criticism 179 Procedures 183

Selecting an Artifact 183 Analyzing the Artifact 184 Formulating a Research Question 190 Writing the Essay 190

Sample Essays 190 Dismantling the Guitar Hero?

A Case of Prodused Parody and Disarmed Subversion 194 Jörgen Skågeby

The Transference of Power: A Generic Description of Handover Rhetoric 207

Andrew Gilmore

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Artifact: Speech by Jiang Zemin 215

Artifact: Speech by Barack Obama 216

Artifact: Speech by Pope Francis 219

Beauty in Conflict: Discussion on Art 222 Danielle Montoya

Artifact: Photograph by Ansel Adams 222

Banksy at Disneyland: Generic Participation in Culture Jamming 229 Joshua Carlisle Harzman

8 Ideological Criticism 237 Procedures 242

Selecting an Artifact 242 Analyzing the Artifact 243 Formulating a Research Question 248 Writing the Critical Essay 248

Sample Essays 248 Memory and Myth at the Buffalo Bill Museum 253 Greg Dickinson, Brian L. Ott, and Eric Aoki

Artifacts: Photographs of Buffalo Bill Museum

Cyber Ideology: An Ideological Criticism of the UNICEF, UNAIDS, and UNFPA Websites 273

Khadidiatou Ndiaye

Legitimation of an Unwanted Transition: Jiang Zemin’s Ideology to Legitimize the Handover of Hong Kong 280

Andrew Gilmore

9 Metaphoric Criticism 285 Procedures 289

Selecting an Artifact 289 Analyzing the Artifact 290 Formulating a Research Question 294 Writing the Essay 294

Sample Essays 294 Hugo Chávez and the Building of

His Self-Image Through Metaphor 297 Isabel Negro Alousque

Architectural Metaphor as Subversion: The Portland Building 310 Marla Kanengieter-Wildeson

Artifact: Building by Michael Graves 311

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Reframing an Unwanted Transition: A Metaphoric Analysis of Jiang Zemin’s Address at the Handover of Hong Kong 314

Andrew Gilmore

10 Narrative Criticism 319 Procedures 323

Selecting an Artifact 323 Analyzing the Artifact 325 Formulating a Research Question 337 Writing the Essay 338

Sample Essays 338 “You Don’t Play, You Volunteer”: Narrative Public

Memory Construction in Medal of Honor: Rising Sun 342 Aaron Hess

Facilitating Openness to Difference: A Narrative Analysis of Leslie Marmon Silko’s Yellow Woman and a Beauty of the Spirit 357

Laura S. More, Randi Boyd, Julie Bradley, and Erin Harris

To Ensure a Smooth and Successful Transition: A Narrative Analysis of Jiang Zemin’s Address at the Handover of Hong Kong 361

Andrew Gilmore

11 Pentadic Criticism 367 Procedures 369

Selecting an Artifact 369 Analyzing the Artifact 369 Formulating a Research Question 379 Writing the Essay 380

Sample Essays 380 Fahrenheit 9/11’s Purpose-Driven Agents:

A Multipentadic Approach to Political Entertainment 382 Samantha Senda-Cook

The Construction of Agency as a Cause for Recall: A Pentadic Analysis of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s Victory Speech 403

Rachael Shaff

Artifact: Speech by Scott Walker 405

Circumvention of Power: A Pentadic Analysis of Jiang Zemin’s Address at the Handover of Hong Kong 407

Andrew Gilmore

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12 Generative Criticism 411 Encountering a Curious Artifact 411 Coding the Artifact 413 Searching for an Explanation 420 Creating an Explanatory Schema 422

Talking with Someone 424 Introducing Random Stimulation 425 Shifting Focus 426 Reversing 427 Questioning 427 Applying Aristotle’s Topics 428 Applying Metaphors 428

Assessing the Explanatory Schema 430 Formulating a Research Question 431 Coding the Artifact in Detail 432 Searching the Literature 433 Writing the Essay 433 Sample Essays 435

Toward a Theory of Agentic Orientation: Rhetoric and Agency in Run Lola Run 438

Sonja K. Foss, William J. C. Waters, and Bernard J. Armada

Coding for Coping with Fatal Illness 459

Coping with Fatal Illness: Avery’s Bucket List as Reality Television 467 Rachael L. Thompson Kuroiwa

Romancing the Chinese Identity: Rhetorical Strategies Used to Facilitate Identification in the Handover of Hong Kong 476

Andrew Gilmore

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Preface

Rhetorical criticism is not a process confined to a few assignments in a rhe- torical or media criticism course. It is an everyday activity we can use to understand our responses to symbols of all kinds and to create symbols of our own that generate the kinds of responses we intend. I hope this book not only provides guidelines for understanding and practicing critical analysis but also conveys the excitement and fun that characterize the process.

I am grateful to a number of people who assisted me in various ways with earlier editions of this book: Bernard J. Armada, Ernest G. Bormann, Kim- berly C. Elliott, Richard Enos, Karen A. Foss, Cindy L. Griffin, Sara E. Hayden, Richard L. Johannesen, Laura K. Hahn, D. Lynn O’Brien Hallstein, Kellie Hay, Michelle A. Holling, Gordana Lazić, Xing Lu, Debian L. Marty, Clarke Rountree, Diana Brown Sheridan, Robert Trapp, and William Waters. Their gifts of time, energy, and support have contributed immeasurably to making this book what it is today. This book is also a product of the questions, insights, and essays of criticism of the students in my rhetorical criticism courses at the University of Denver, the University of Oregon, Ohio State Uni- versity, and the University of Colorado Denver.

This edition of the book has benefited from sage advice from four scholars and colleagues. Karen A. Foss read all of the chapters and provided her usual valuable substantive and stylistic advice. Two of my colleagues at the Univer- sity of Colorado Denver, Lisa Keränen, and Amy A. Hasinoff, read the chapter on narrative criticism and helped me move into the digital world of storytell- ing. Barry Brummett helped me sort through the method of homology, which is part of the discussion in the chapter on generic criticism.

I also appreciate the scholars whose essays I have included as samples of the methods for their willingness to share their critical essays; their excellent models of criticism both enrich and clarify the approaches they illustrate. Andrew Gilmore deserves a special note of thanks for his contributions to this edition of the book. He is the author of nine sample essays in the book, in which he applied different methods to the same artifact to help demonstrate what each method reveals and conceals. Little did he know, when he wrote his

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first essay of criticism in my rhetorical criticism class in 2014, that he would be recruited to be involved in this project. He tackled each essay with enthusi- asm, sophisticated critical skills, and unwavering dedication. Neil Rowe and Carol Rowe, my amazing publishers, provided their usual enthusiastic sup- port, freedom, and just the right amount of prodding to produce this revision. My husband, Anthony J. Radich, himself a superb rhetorical critic, contrib- uted to this project constant good humor, support, and love.

PART 1 Introduction

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1

The Nature of Rhetorical Criticism

We live our lives enveloped in symbols. How we perceive, what we know, what we experience, and how we act are the result of the symbols we create and the symbols we encounter in the world. We watch movies, television series, and YouTube videos; listen to speeches by political candidates; notice ads on billboards and buses; choose furniture and works of art for our apart- ments and houses; and talk with friends and family. As we do, we engage in a process of thinking about symbols, discovering how they work, and trying to figure out why they affect us. We choose to communicate in particular ways based on what we have discovered. This process is called rhetorical criticism, and this book provides an opportunity for you to develop skills in the process and to explore the theory behind it.

Rhetoric A useful place to start in the study of rhetorical criticism is with an under-

standing of what rhetoric is. Many of the common uses of the word rhetoric have negative connotations. The term often is used to mean empty, bombastic language that has no substance. Political candidates and governmental offi- cials often call for “action not rhetoric” from their opponents or from the leaders of other nations. The term is also used to mean “spin” or deception of the kind we associate with the selling of used cars. In other instances, rhetoric is used to mean flowery, ornamental speech laden with metaphors and other figures of speech. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s speech “I Have a Dream” might be considered to be an example of this kind of rhetoric. None of these concep- tions is how the term rhetoric is used in rhetorical criticism, and none of these definitions is how the term has been defined throughout its long history as a discipline dating back to the fifth century BC. In these contexts, rhetoric is defined as the human use of symbols to communicate. This definition includes three primary dimensions: (1) humans as the creators of rhetoric; (2) symbols as the medium for rhetoric; and (3) communication as the purpose for rhetoric.

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Humans as the Creators of Rhetoric Rhetoric involves symbols created and used by humans. Some people

debate whether or not symbol use is a characteristic that distinguishes humans from all other species of animals, pointing to research with chimpan- zees and gorillas in which these animals have been taught to communicate using signs. As far as we know, humans are the only animals who create a sub- stantial part of their reality through the use of symbols. Every symbolic choice we make results in seeing the world one way rather than another. When we change the symbols we use to frame an event, our experience of the event is altered. Thus, rhetoric is traditionally limited to the human rhetor as the orig- inator or creator of messages. Rhetor is a term you will be encountering fre- quently in this book. A rhetor is the creator of a message—the speaker, musician, painter, website designer, blogger, filmmaker, or writer, for exam- ple—who generates symbols for audiences.

Symbols as the Medium for Rhetoric A second primary concept in the definition of rhetoric is that rhetoric

involves symbols rather than signs. A symbol is something that stands for or represents something else by virtue of relationship, association, or conven- tion. Symbols are distinguished from signs by the degree of direct connection to the object represented. Smoke is a sign that fire is present, which means that there is a direct relationship between the fire and the smoke. Similarly, the changing color of the leaves in autumn is a sign that winter is coming; the color is a direct indicator of a drop in temperature. A symbol, by contrast, is a human construction connected only indirectly to its referent. The word cup, for example, has no natural relationship to an open container for beverages. It is a symbol invented by someone who wanted to refer to this kind of object; it could have been called a fish, for example. The selection of the word cup to refer to a particular kind of container is arbitrary.

The following example illustrates the distinction between a symbol and a sign. Imagine someone who does not exercise regularly agreeing to play ten- nis for the first time in many years. Following the match, he tells his partner that he is out of shape and doesn’t have much stamina. The man is using sym- bols to explain to his partner how he is feeling, to suggest the source of his dis- comfort, and perhaps to rationalize his poor performance. The man also experiences an increased heart rate, a red face, and shortness of breath, but these changes in his bodily condition are not conscious choices. They commu- nicate to his partner, just as his words do, but they are signs directly con- nected to his physical condition. Thus, they are not rhetorical. Only his conscious use of symbols to communicate a particular condition is rhetorical.

The intertwining of signs and symbols is typical of human communication. For instance, a tree standing in a forest is not a symbol. It does not stand for something else; it simply is a tree. The tree could become a symbol, however, if someone chooses it to communicate an idea. It could be used in environmen- tal advocacy efforts as a symbol of the destruction of redwood forests, for example, or as a symbol of Jesus’s birth when it is used as a Christmas tree.

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Humans use all sorts of nonrhetorical objects in rhetorical ways, turning them into symbols in the process.

Although rhetoric often involves the deliberate and conscious choice of symbols to communicate with others, actions not deliberately constructed by rhetors also can be interpreted symbolically. Humans often choose to interpret something rhetorically that the rhetor did not intend to be symbolic. Someone can choose to give an action or an object symbolic value, even though it was not intended as part of the message. In such cases, the meaning received is often quite different from what the creator of the message intends. When the United States deliberately deploys an aircraft carrier off the coast of North Korea, it has performed a rhetorical action to warn Pyongyang not to continue with its testing of nuclear weapons. Both sides read the message symbolically, and there is no doubt about the meaning. If a U.S. reconnaissance plane acci- dentally strays over North Korea without the purpose of communicating any- thing to North Korea, however, the pilot is not engaged in rhetorical action. In this case, however, the North Koreans can choose to interpret the event sym- bolically and take retaliatory action against the United States. Any action, whether intended to communicate or not, can be interpreted rhetorically by those who experience or encounter it.

The variety of forms that symbols can assume is broad. Rhetoric is not limited to written and spoken discourse; in fact, speaking and writing make up only a small part of our rhetorical environment. Rhetoric, then, includes nondiscursive or nonverbal symbols as well as discursive or verbal ones. Speeches, essays, conversations, poetry, novels, stories, comic books, graphic novels, websites, blogs, fanzines, television programs, films and videos, video games, art, architecture, plays, music, dance, advertisements, furniture, auto- mobiles, and dress are all forms of rhetoric.

Communication as the Purpose of Rhetoric A third component of the definition of rhetoric is that its purpose is com-

munication. Symbols are used for communicating with others or oneself. For many people, the term rhetoric is synonymous with communication. The choice of whether to use the term rhetoric or the term communication to describe the process of exchanging meaning is largely a personal one, often stemming from the tradition of inquiry in which a scholar is grounded. Indi- viduals trained in social scientific perspectives on symbol use often prefer the term communication, while those who study symbol use from more humanis- tic perspectives tend to use the term rhetoric.

Rhetoric functions in a variety of ways to allow humans to communicate with one another. In some cases, we use rhetoric in an effort to persuade oth- ers—to encourage others to change in some way. In other instances, rhetoric is an invitation to understanding—we offer our perspectives and invite others to enter our worlds so they can understand us and our perspectives better.1

Sometimes, we use rhetoric simply as a means of self-discovery or to come to self-knowledge. We may articulate thoughts or feelings out loud to ourselves or in a journal and, in doing so, come to know ourselves better and perhaps make different choices in our lives.

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Another communicative function that rhetoric performs is that it con- structs reality. Reality is not fixed but changes according to the symbols we use to talk about it. What we count as real or as knowledge about the world depends on how we choose to label and talk about things. This does not mean that things do not really exist—that this book, for example, is simply a figment of your imagination. Rather, the symbols through which our realities are fil- tered affect our view of the book and how we are motivated to act toward it. The frameworks and labels we choose to apply to what we encounter influ- ence our perceptions and interpretations of what we experience and thus the kinds of worlds in which we live. Is someone an alcoholic or morally depraved? Is a child misbehaved or suffering from ADD? Is an unexpected situ- ation a struggle or an adventure? Is a coworker’s behavior irritating or eccen- tric? The choices we make in terms of how to approach these situations are critical in determining the nature and outcome of the experiences we have regarding them.

Rhetorical Criticism The process you will be using for engaging in the study of rhetoric is rhe-

torical criticism. It is a qualitative research method that is designed for the systematic investigation and explanation of symbolic acts and artifacts for the purpose of understanding rhetorical processes. This definition includes three primary dimensions: (1) systematic analysis as the act of criticism; (2) acts and artifacts as the objects of analysis in criticism; and (3) understanding rhe- torical processes as the purpose of criticism.

Systematic Analysis as the Act of Criticism We are responding to symbols continually, and as we encounter symbols,

we try to figure out how they are working and why they affect us as they do. We tend to respond to these symbols—like movies or songs—by saying “I like it” or “I don’t like it.” The process of rhetorical criticism involves engaging in this natural process in a more conscious, systematic, and focused way. Through the study and practice of rhetorical criticism, we can understand and explain why we like or don’t like something by investigating the symbols them- selves—we can begin to make statements about messages rather than state- ments about our feelings. We engage in more disciplined and mindful interpretations of the symbols around us. Rhetorical criticism, then, enables us to become more sophisticated and discriminating in explaining, investigat- ing, and understanding symbols and our responses to them.

Acts and Artifacts as the Objects of Criticism The objects of study in rhetorical criticism are symbolic acts and artifacts.

An act is executed in the presence of a rhetor’s intended audience—a speech or a musical performance presented to a live audience, for example. Because an act tends to be fleeting and ephemeral, analysis of it is difficult, so many rhetorical critics prefer to study the artifact of an act—the text, trace, or tangi- ble evidence of the act. When a rhetorical act is transcribed and printed,

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posted on a website, recorded on video, or preserved on canvas, it becomes a rhetorical artifact that is accessible to a wider audience than the one that wit- nessed the rhetorical act. Both acts and artifacts are objects of rhetorical criti- cism. But because most critics use the tangible product as the basis for criticism—a speech text, a building, a Facebook page, a blog, a sculpture, or a recorded song, for example—the term artifact will be used in this book to refer to the object of study. The use of the term is not meant to exclude acts from your investigation but to provide a consistent and convenient way to talk about the object of criticism.2

Understanding Rhetorical Processes as the Purpose of Criticism The process of rhetorical criticism often begins with an interest in under-

standing particular symbols and how they operate. A critic may be interested in a particular kind of symbol use or a particular rhetorical artifact—the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC or Adele’s music, for example—and engages in criticism to deepen appreciation and understanding of that arti- fact. Critics of popular culture such as restaurant, television, theatre, film, and music critics are these kinds of critics—they tend to be most interested in understanding the particular experience of the restaurant or film they are reviewing. But criticism undertaken primarily to comment on a particular artifact tends not to be “enduring; its importance and its functions are imme- diate and ephemeral.”3 Once the historical situation has been forgotten or the rhetor or artifact is no longer the center of the public’s attention, such criti- cism no longer serves a useful purpose if it has been devoted exclusively to an understanding of a particular artifact.

In contrast to critics of popular culture, rhetorical critics do not study an artifact for its qualities and features alone. Rhetorical critics are interested in discovering what an artifact teaches about the nature of rhetoric—in other words, critics engage in rhetorical criticism to make a contribution to rhetori- cal theory.4 Theory is a tentative answer to a question we pose as we seek to understand the world. It is a set of general clues, generalizations, or principles that explains a process or phenomenon and thus helps to answer the question we asked. We are all theorists in our everyday lives, developing explanations for what is happening in our worlds based on our experiences and observa- tions. If a friend never returns your calls, emails, or texts, for example, you might come to the conclusion—or develop the theory—that the friendship is over. You have asked yourself a question about the state of the friendship, col- lected some evidence (made calls and sent emails and texts and observed that they were not returned), and reached a tentative conclusion or claim (that the other person no longer wishes to be your friend).

In rhetorical criticism, the theorizing that critics do deals with explana- tions about how rhetoric works. A critic asks a question about a rhetorical process or phenomenon and how it works and provides a tentative answer to the question. This answer does not have to be fancy, formal, or complicated. It simply involves identifying some of the basic concepts involved in a rhetorical phenomenon or process and explaining how they work. Admittedly, the theory that results is based on limited evidence—in many cases, one artifact. But

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even the study of one artifact allows you to step back from the details of a par- ticular artifact to take a broader view of it and to draw some conclusions about what it suggests concerning some process of rhetoric.

The process of rhetorical criticism does not end with a contribution to the- ory. Theories about rhetorical criticism enable us to develop a cumulative body of research and thus to improve our practice of communication. The final outcome of rhetorical criticism is an improvement of our abilities as communicators. As a rhetorical critic, you implicitly suggest how more effec- tive symbol use may be accomplished. In suggesting some theoretical princi- ples about how rhetoric operates, you provide principles or guidelines for those of us who want to communicate in more self-reflective ways and to con- struct messages that best accomplish our goals.5 As a result of our study of these principles, we should be more skilled, discriminating, and sophisticated in our efforts to communicate in our talk with our friends and families, in the decoration of our homes and offices, in our online behavior, in the choices we make about the clothing we wear, and in our efforts to present our ideas at school or at work.

Knowing how rhetoric operates also can help make us more sophisticated audience members for messages. When we understand the various options available to rhetors in the construction of messages and how they create the effects they do, we are able to question the choices others make in their use of symbols. We are less inclined to accept existing rhetorical practices and to respond uncritically to the messages we encounter. As a result, we become more engaged and active participants in shaping the nature of the worlds in which we live.

Notes 1 This function for rhetoric was suggested by Sonja K. Foss and Cindy L. Griffin in their theory of

invitational rhetoric: Sonja K. Foss and Cindy L. Griffin, “Beyond Persuasion: A Proposal for an Invitational Rhetoric,” Communication Monographs 62 (March 1995): 2–18. Also see Sonja K. Foss and Karen A. Foss, Inviting Transformation: Presentational Speaking for a Changing World, 3rd ed. (Long Grove, IL: Waveland, 2012).

2 This distinction is suggested by Kathleen G. Campbell, “Enactment as a Rhetorical Strategy/ Form in Rhetorical Acts and Artifacts,” Diss. University of Denver 1988, 25–29.

3 Karlyn Kohrs Campbell, “Criticism: Ephemeral and Enduring,” Speech Teacher 23 (January 1974): 11.

4 More elaborate discussions of rhetorical criticism as theory building can be found in: Roderick P. Hart, “Forum: Theory-Building and Rhetorical Criticism: An Informal Statement of Opin- ion,” Central States Speech Journal 27 (Spring 1976): 70–77; Richard B. Gregg, “The Criticism of Symbolic Inducement: A Critical-Theoretical Connection,” in Speech Communication in the 20th Century, ed. Thomas W. Benson (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1985), 42–43; and Campbell, “Criticism,” 11–14.

5 Discussions of rhetorical criticism to increase the effectiveness of communication can be found in: Robert Cathcart, Post Communication: Criticism and Evaluation (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Mer- rill, 1966), 3, 6–7, 12; and Edwin Black, Rhetorical Criticism: A Study in Method (Madison: Uni- versity of Wisconsin Press, 1978), 9.

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2

Doing Rhetorical Criticism

The definitions of the terms rhetoric and rhetorical criticism in chapter 1 have provided a starting place for understanding rhetorical criticism. Knowledge about what rhetorical criticism is does not automatically translate into the ability to do criticism, however. This chapter is designed to provide you with an overview of the actual process of producing an essay of criticism.

Because this textbook is a first experience with rhetorical criticism for many of you, you probably will feel more comfortable initially practicing rhe- torical criticism using specific methods. Using these methods enables you to begin to develop your critical skills and to learn the language and basic proce- dures of criticism. This chapter, then, provides you with information about how to do criticism when your starting point is a formal method of criticism. A variety of these methods are presented in chapters 3 through 11. Chapter 12 offers a different way of doing criticism—generative criticism—an approach you probably will want to try as your skills as a critic grow. Using this approach, you will create a method or framework for analyzing an artifact from the data of the artifact itself.

Your starting place, however, in most of the chapters is with a method of criticism—either one you have chosen or one selected for you by your profes- sor. When you begin with a particular method, the process of rhetorical criti- cism involves four steps and possibly five or six, depending on your preferences or your professor’s assignment: (1) selecting an artifact; (2) ana- lyzing the artifact; (3) formulating a research question; (4) reviewing relevant literature (optional); (5) writing the essay; and (6) applying the analysis in activism (optional).

Selecting an Artifact Your first step is to find an artifact to analyze that is appropriate for the

method you will be applying. The artifact is the data for the study—the rhetor- ical act or artifact you are going to analyze. It may be any instance of symbol use that is of interest to you and seems capable of generating insights about

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rhetorical processes—a song, a poem, a speech, a YouTube video, a webcam drama, a video game, a series of Tweets, a podcast, a work of art, or a build- ing, for example.

An artifact is appropriate for a method if it meets two criteria. It first must contain the kinds of data that are the focus of the units of analysis of the method. Units of analysis focus attention on certain dimensions of an artifact and not others. A critic cannot possibly examine all of the features of an arti- fact, so units of analysis serve as a vehicle or lens for you to use to examine the artifact. They are scanning devices for picking up particular kinds of informa- tion about an artifact, directing and narrowing the analysis in particular ways, revealing some things and concealing others. Units of analysis are things like strategies, types of evidence, values, fantasy themes, and metaphors. If you are using the narrative method, for example, you will need an artifact that is a narrative or that includes a story within it. If you are using metaphoric criti- cism, you will need an artifact that contains some obvious metaphors.

The artifact you choose also should be something you really like or really dislike, something that puzzles or baffles you, or something that you cannot explain. We have such responses to the artifacts around us all the time—we love a particular song, we cannot understand why a political candidate has the appeal that he does, we marvel at the artistry involved in a quilt, or we cannot figure out what the message of a building is supposed to be. Let your daily encounters with the symbols around you guide you in your selection of an artifact. Your interest in, passion for, and curiosity about an artifact are important initial ingredients for writing an essay of criticism.

Analyzing the Artifact The second step in the process of criticism is to code or analyze your arti-

fact using the procedures of the method. Each method of criticism has its own procedures for analyzing an artifact, and at this step, you apply the units of analysis provided by the method. If you are applying metaphoric analysis, for example, you will be involved in coding your artifact for metaphors and their tenors and vehicles, the two parts of metaphors. If you are applying the cluster method, you will be identifying key terms in the artifact and finding the terms that cluster around them. This is the step at which you engage in a close and systematic analysis of the artifact and become thoroughly familiar with the dimensions highlighted by your method.

An easy way to do the coding of your artifact is to write or type your notes about the artifact in a list, leaving some space between each “code.” Physically cut the observations you have made apart so that each idea or observation is on a separate strip of paper. Then group the strips that are about the same thing and put them in one pile. Group the strips that are about something else and put them in another pile. What is in these piles will depend on the method of criticism you are using—perhaps different fantasy themes, different meta- phors, or different elements of narratives. Play around with different ways to organize your piles. The strips of paper allow you to group and regroup your codes into different categories and encourage you to experiment with multiple ways of conceptualizing the data of your artifact.

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Formulating a Research Question The research question is what you want to find out about rhetoric by

studying an artifact. It suggests what your study contributes to our under- standing of how rhetorical processes work—your contribution, in other words, to rhetorical theory. In contrast to much qualitative research, the research question in rhetorical criticism is typically generated after you do your analysis because the analysis shows you what you have learned that can constitute a contribution to our understanding of rhetoric. This contribution is captured in your research question. Although you may choose to state your research question as a thesis statement instead of an actual question in your essay, you want to be able to articulate what your research question is in your mind because it encourages you to be very clear about your objective in your analysis. Research questions are questions such as: “How does an ambiguous artifact persuade?,” “What strategies can help people regain credibility after they have been discredited?,” “What strategies do marginalized groups use to challenge a dominant perspective?,” or “How does a political leader construct a nation as an enemy?”

To create a research question, use the principle behind Jeopardy and cre- ate a question for which the analysis you have just completed is the answer. Use your findings to discover what is most significant, useful, or insightful about your artifact and make that focus into a research question. If your anal- ysis reveals, for example, that an artifact is making a highly controversial topic seem normal, your research question might be something like, “What rhetori- cal strategies facilitate the normalization of a controversial perspective?”

Research questions tend to be about four basic components of the commu- nication process—the rhetor, the audience, the situation, and the message. If you are having trouble developing a research question, identifying the arena in which your study belongs might help you formulate your question.

• Rhetor. Some research questions deal with the relationship between rhetors and their rhetoric. Questions that focus on the rhetor might be concerned with the motive of the rhetor, the worldview of the rhetor, or how the rhetoric functions for the rhetor. “What is the meaning of the term compassion in the homilies of religious leaders?” is a research question that has the rhetor as a focus.

• Audience. Some research questions are concerned with the relationship between an artifact and an audience. Although rhetorical criticism does not allow you to answer questions about the actual effects of rhetoric on an audience, you can ask questions about the kind of audience an arti- fact constructs as its preferred audience or how an artifact functions to facilitate the development of certain values or beliefs in an audience. A sample research question centered on an audience is: “What is the ideal audience constructed by reality television?”

• Situation. Other research questions deal with the relationship between an artifact and the situation or context in which the artifact is embed- ded. Such questions might deal with the impact of a situation on an arti- fact, the rhetor’s definition of a situation in an artifact, or whether the

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artifact adequately addresses an exigency in a particular situation. Research questions in which a situation is central are: “How do political leaders define exigencies following a national crisis?” and “What is the impact of those definitions on perceptions of the crisis?”

• Message. Most research questions in rhetorical criticism deal with the message. The focus is on the specific features of the artifact that enable it to function in particular ways. Such questions might deal with the kinds of arguments constructed, the types of metaphors used, the key terms used, or a combination of rhetorical strategies and characteristics that create a particular kind of artifact. Research questions that focus on a message are questions such as: “What are the features of effective apologies?,” “How does rhetoric generate support for propositions that are contrary to cultural norms?,” or “What rhetorical strategies do indi- viduals subjected to involuntary confinement use to create families?”

When you formulate your research question, try to avoid three mistakes that beginning critics sometimes make as they create research questions. One is to make the question too broad and generic. A question such as “How does politi- cal rhetoric about war function?” is too broad and unfocused to answer through the rhetorical analysis of one or even several artifacts. Try to narrow the scope of the question by paying attention to the specific features of the artifact that are most interesting to you. You might narrow the question to one such as “What rhetorical strategies do political leaders use to justify unpopular wars?”

A second problem that can occur with research questions is that the word- ing of the questions does not allow for the exploration and explanation of any- thing interesting. Yes-or-no questions, which typically begin with do, are one example. “Do political leaders justify unpopular wars?” is this kind of ques- tion. Not only do these kinds of questions require simple yes-or-no answers, but the answers to them are usually obvious—of course political leaders try to justify unpopular wars. To make sure your research question is one that takes advantage of the interesting and useful insights your analysis has produced, you might want to use the following questions as models. These are templates for typical research questions in essays of rhetorical criticism:

• What rhetorical strategies are used to . . . ? • How do . . . function in the rhetoric of . . . ? • What are the rhetorical processes that characterize the rhetoric of . . . ? • What are the mechanisms by which . . . ? • How do rhetors construct . . . ? • How is the rhetoric of . . . constructed? • What rhetorical strategies are available to . . . ? • What is the nature and function of rhetoric designed to . . . ? • What is the nature of the worldview constructed to . . . ? • What are the features of . . . ? • What are the characteristics of . . . ? • What strategies are used to construct worldviews that function to . . . ? • What perceptions result from the rhetorical construction of . . . ?

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There is one more thing to avoid as you develop your research question. Do not include your specific artifact or data in your research question. Although there are exceptions with some methods of criticism (such as the ideological approach), the question usually should be larger than the artifact you are analyzing. You should be able to use any number of artifacts to answer the question rather than being limited to the one you chose to study. Turn the question that fits the analysis of your artifact into a more general one by mak- ing the elements of the question more abstract. Instead of a question such as, “How did George W. Bush reassure citizens after the terrorist attacks of Sep- tember 11?,” your question could be, “What rhetorical strategies do political leaders use to reassure citizens after catastrophic events?” You have made the name of the rhetor of the artifact you are studying into the more abstract term of political leaders and the terrorist attacks of September 11 into catastrophic events. Instead of a question such as, “How does the National Rifle Association make its ideology palatable to resistant audiences?,” your question could be, “How do organizations with strong ideologies construct messages that appeal to normally resistant audiences?”

Reviewing Relevant Literature The next step in the process of rhetorical criticism is an optional one. You

will want to engage in this step if your professor requires that your essays of criticism include a literature review or if you are preparing an essay for con- vention presentation or possible publication in a journal. In this case, the liter- ature review is designed to familiarize the readers of your essay with key findings from previous studies. It is designed to provide contextual knowledge the reader will need in order to understand your findings and their signifi- cance. The literature review allows you to enter the conversation about a topic in your field by acquainting yourself with what others are saying so you can extend the conversation they have begun.

Identifying the Literature to Review How do you figure out what literature to review? Let’s take a research

question and develop the categories of literature that you would include in your literature review. Assume that you did a metaphoric analysis for your essay and that the research question you came up with, as a result of your analysis, is, “What are the metaphors used by state legislators in argumenta- tion about children’s issues?” You are interested in seeing how the metaphors create particular realities around children’s issues and encourage legislators to perceive and deal with such issues in particular ways. As you search for lit- erature on the topic, you might be tempted to search for all studies that have to do with state legislators, children’s issues, argumentation, and metaphors. But these topics are too large—you can’t possibly include in your literature review all of the studies on even one of these topics, nor would you want to. Such a literature review would be unfocused and would get your readers off track from the narrative you want to tell about the current state of the litera- ture and how it relates to the findings of your analysis.

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Working out the categories of literature to cover in your literature review is not hard to do because the relevant studies come directly from your research question. Begin by searching for studies that answer your exact research question. For example, with the research question about legislators’ use of metaphors in their arguments related to children’s issues, you first would search for studies about the metaphors used by state legislators in argu- mentation about children’s issues. Type into your search box “metaphors + state legislators + argumentation + children’s issues.” Let’s assume there are no studies that directly answer your research question. Then you want to select one of the key terms in the question and move up one level of abstrac- tion and search again, using that more abstract term in your question. As S. I. Hayakawa explained in Language in Thought and Action, the same concept can be labeled with terms that are more or less concrete, and you can move up and down the ladder of abstraction to talk about the concept in more specific or more general terms.

We can see how the ladder of abstraction works by borrowing an example from Hayakawa about a cow named Bessie. When you talk about this animal as Bessie, she is the only thing in the category of Bessie. Moving up the ladder of abstraction, you could refer to her as a cow. Notice that, as you talk about Bessie in more general, abstract terms, the category has been expanded, and there are now more items in it—all cows fit into the category, whereas only one particular cow did when the category was Bessie. To move up another level, you could label Bessie a farm animal, which now includes not only cows but chickens, goats, pigs, and horses. You can continue up the ladder of abstraction and call her a possession, and now you are including not only farm animals but houses, tractors, cars, and clothing, for example. Again, this greater abstraction increases the number of objects that fit into the category.

Notice that, when you make similar moves in your literature search, each time you move up the ladder of abstraction, there are more possibilities for studies that fit into the category. By moving up levels of abstraction with the key terms of your research question, you open up the numbers of studies avail- able to you. For example, in the research question about legislators and meta- phors, state legislators could become politicians, which means you can now look for studies that deal with how mayors, lieutenant governors, governors, congressional representatives, senators, and presidents argue about children’s issues. So now you would be searching for literature that answers the ques- tion, “What are the metaphors used by politicians in argumentation about children’s issues?,” and you would type into your search box “metaphors + politicians + argumentation + children’s issues.” If there are no studies rele- vant to this topic, you could move to a higher level of abstraction and turn pol- iticians into policy makers, which could include people who work in nonprofit organizations, corporations, education, and so on. If you don’t find studies that deal with this question, you would want to repeat the process, selecting another term in your original research question and replacing it with a term that is more abstract than the original. So, for example, you could take the key term children’s issues and make it into family issues, a more abstract term.

There’s one other source for developing bodies of literature to include in a literature review—your artifact. In addition to looking to your research ques-

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tion for clues about what your literature review should contain, also look to your artifact, particularly if it is an artifact that is well known, produced by a prominent person, or significant for other reasons. You want to see if studies of your artifact have been done, how they might inform your own analysis, and whether they shed any light on the research question you are asking. If, for example, you are going to use as your data a work of art by feminist artist Judy Chicago, see if studies have been done on her art in the past and include them in your literature review. If your data are Walt Disney cartoons, see what studies have been done of them and what kinds of findings about what kinds of questions those studies produced. In the case of legislators’ discussions about children’s issues, you probably aren’t going to find many studies that are all that useful to include in your literature review—”argumentation about chil- dren’s issues” isn’t a particularly well-known kind of artifact, and it is not associated with anyone of prominence. In this case, your artifact—a set of speeches by legislators—would not be a source of literature for you.

Coding the Literature You now have gathered the literature you want to include in your litera-

ture review, and you are likely to find yourself facing two common problems when you survey the literature. One is how to keep track of and deal with all the literature. You might remember when you wrote papers in the past and highlighted passages or had Post-it notes stuck on virtually every page of every book and article you collected. A second problem is how to organize and pres- ent the literature. Even if you could process all of the material you have effi- ciently, how do you organize it so that it makes sense to your readers? The following system of coding the literature addresses these problems and enables you to engage the literature in an efficient and manageable fashion.

Coding the literature means gleaning the ideas that are relevant and useful for your project from the literature. Do this coding the first time you read a book or an article instead of reading it first and then going back through it to code. When your literature is gathered and is stacked before you, sit at your computer and take a book from the top of the pile. Review it for ideas that have a direct bearing on your research question and artifact. Use all the clues the book provides to discover what is relevant for the rhetorical process you are investigating—the table of contents, chapter titles, headings, and the index. For each chapter that seems relevant to your research question, ask: “Is this chapter relevant for my study?” If it isn’t, do not read it, and do not code it. When you come upon a relevant chapter, review it heading by heading and subheading by subheading. Ask at each heading, “Is this section relevant for me?” If it isn’t, skip it. When you find a relevant idea, take notes about it on the computer. Using single spacing, type either a direct quote, a paraphrase, or a summary of the idea you find useful, and include the source and page number for each note you take. Insert a double or triple space between the notes.

Use the same process to code your articles that you use to code the books. Look through each article to see which sections seem relevant to your research question and artifact. When you see a section that might be useful, skim it, seeing if there are excerpts you want to pick up. Be careful when you

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are coding articles that you don’t get lost in the details of a study. Highlight only the findings of the study. Because you are looking for claims and conclu- sions that are relevant to your research question, you usually do not need to know anything about how the findings that you are including in the literature review came to be generated—the participants, data, or methods used in the study that produced those findings, for example. You are interested in the find- ings of the study because the findings are what are contributing to a theoreti- cal discussion about your topic. After you have coded all of the literature, print out a copy of the notes you took during your coding and physically cut the notes apart.

If you are not a fast keyboarder, there is another way to code literature that may work better for you. As you read a book or an article, make a line in the margin beside each passage that is relevant to your analysis (be sure to use a pencil if the book doesn’t belong to you so you can erase these lines later). When you have finished reading a book or an article, take it to a copy machine and make a copy of each page where you marked a passage or passages. On the copies of the pages, write the source and page number in the margin by each passage you have marked. Then cut out the passages from each copied page. At the end of this process, then, each note or marked passage is on a sep- arate slip of paper, along with a shorthand reference to the source and page number from which the note or passage came.

The next step of the process is to sort the slips into piles according to sub- ject, putting everything that is about the same topic in the same pile. For exam- ple, all the slips of paper in one pile might have to do with power, those in another pile with gender, those in another pile with agency, and those in another pile with the role that material conditions play in rhetoric. Put the piles into envelopes and label the envelopes. Storing the slips in envelopes pre- vents you from losing track of the piles or having them messed up by unwitting animal or human companions. You now have before you many different enve- lopes with labels on them containing many excerpts or typed notes from your literature. What you really have is a filing system for the major ideas of your literature review. In the case of literature about metaphors used in argumenta- tion about children’s issues, you might find that the literature sorts into piles such as types of arguments used about children’s issues, major topics covered in such arguments, the legislative outcomes linked to certain kinds of argu- ments, and metaphors about children used in advocacy for children in general.

Creating a Conceptual Schema Your next task is to turn the ideas represented by the envelopes into a con-

ceptual schema or creative synthesis for your literature review. A conceptual schema is a way of organizing your literature review that creates connections among the pieces of your literature and shows how they relate to one another. Another way to think of a conceptual schema is as an explanation for what you are seeing across your piles of slips. It is a framework for presenting your findings that allows you to tell a story about the content of your literature review and features the themes that you want to highlight in the theoretical conversation to which your essay of criticism will contribute.

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A conceptual schema is not a chronological description of literature in which you take each study and talk about it in the order in which it was done. These kinds of literature reviews are tedious because they do not make an argument or connect the studies in any way. Your literature review, in con- trast, is going to be organized by major topics and not by individual studies. In fact, you may find that the same study appears in more than one of the subar- eas of your literature review.

You have the mechanism for creating a conceptual schema for your litera- ture right in front of you. Go to your computer and make a list of the labels that are on your envelopes. Leave a couple of spaces between each of the labels as you type the list. Make the font for the list large—perhaps 26 point— and then print it out. Grab your scissors again, and cut the labels apart. Take the labels to your desk, a table, a bed, or the floor, and lay them out in any order in front of you. Begin to play around with the relationships you see among the topics represented in the labels. Maybe you have three different topics that are the major variables that have been studied. Lay out those three labels across the top of your space. Are there other labels or topics that belong under them? If so, position them in that order. Do you have some topics that disagree with a position? Some that agree? If so, group them together. Per- haps you discover that the literature can be organized by influences, compo- nents, functions, outcomes, models, different ways of doing something, steps in a process, perspectives on a phenomenon, or comparison and contrast. You can try out different ways of organizing the literature just by moving the labels into different patterns. Keep trying alternatives until you come up with a con- ceptual schema that encompasses all or most of the major labels and that seems to you to be the most effective way to tell the story of your literature.

There is no right or wrong conceptual schema for a body of literature. Someone else could review, code, and sort the same literature you did and come up with a very different conceptual schema from what you did. That is not a problem. You want to organize the literature in a way that makes sense to you, connects the major subjects covered in the literature, and helps you engage the theoretical conversation related to your research question in a coherent way. Developing your conceptual schema from the labels enables you to accomplish all of these objectives in a way that is grounded in your unique interpretation of the literature.

Writing the Literature Review Let’s assume that you now have your conceptual schema for your litera-

ture review. In other words, you have in front of you the labels that represent your envelopes arranged in this schema on the desk or floor in front of you. This layout is a visual representation of your conceptual schema. Take a pic- ture of it with your phone so you won’t forget it.

Choose a section of the literature review that you want to write. You can begin with any section because you know exactly what your sections are, how they relate to each other, and the order in which you want to discuss them. Find the envelope with the slips related to that topic, take them out of that envelope, and lay them out in front of you. Move them around and play with

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different ways of arranging them to create a miniconceptual schema that pres- ents the literature about that subarea. In other words, do the same thing you did with the whole literature review on a smaller scale, and arrange the excerpts or typed notes about that topic so that they make the argument you want to make about what the literature says in that subarea. As you review the slips, you undoubtedly will discover that some slips say the same thing. Group them together and then choose the one that says the idea best or the one that comes from the most credible source. If several sources make the same point, you can cite them in one parenthetical citation or a footnote following your discussion of that idea, alleviating the need to repeat the same idea multiple times. You’ll also discover that some excerpts are not as relevant as you thought they would be to the topic and that you can leave them out.

What is left is a layout in front of you of the literature on a particular sub- area you want to talk about in the order in which you want to talk about the ideas of that subarea. The excerpt or note you want to talk about first is at the top of your workspace, the second one next, and on down through all of the excerpts that remain from the envelope. Now comes the magical part because the literature review almost writes itself. Start with the first slip and type its content into your computer. Then type in what is on the second slip, the third slip, the fourth slip, and all the way through your layout. You are literally writ- ing your way through your slips. Of course, you have to add introductions, overviews, your argument about the ideas on the slips, and transitions between them, but those are easy to write because you see your argument and know exactly where you are going. As a result, you are easily able to create the context necessary so that your essay of criticism can contribute to a theoreti- cal conversation in the communication discipline.1

Writing the Essay After you have analyzed your artifact, you are ready to write your essay of

criticism. Think of doing the analysis and writing the essay as two separate processes. All of the thinking you have done and the steps you have gone through to conduct your analysis are not included in your essay. What you want to put on paper is the end result of your analysis so that you produce a coherent, well-argued essay that reports your insights. An essay of criticism includes five major components: (1) an introduction, in which you discuss the research question, its contribution to rhetorical theory, and its significance (this also includes your literature review if you are including one in your essay); (2) a description of your artifact and its context; (3) a description of your method of analysis; (4) a report of the findings of the analysis; and (5) a discussion of the contribution your analysis makes to rhetorical theory. These components do not need to be discussed in separate sections or identified with headings, but you want to include these topics in your essay in some way.

Introduction Your task in the introduction to the essay is the task of the introduction of

any paper. You want to orient the reader to the topic and present a clear state-

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ment of purpose that organizes the essay. In the introduction, identify the research question the analysis answers. You don’t have to state the question as an actual question in your essay—it often is stated as the purpose or thesis statement in your essay, using words such as “I will argue,” “I will suggest,” or “I will explore.” If the research question you have formulated, for example, is “What are the functions of reality television for audiences?,” you may want to state it in this way: “In this essay, I will explore how reality-television shows function for audiences to try to discover the appeal of such programs.”

A major purpose of the introduction is to generate interest so that your readers will want to read your essay, even if they have no initial curiosity about your artifact. One way to invite them into the essay is by suggesting that they will learn something of importance to them. If possible, think of some real life examples of rhetorical processes with which your readers have had experience that relate to your analysis. If you are analyzing a speech by a member of the National Rifle Association to gun-control supporters, you might provide exam- ples of individuals who have attempted to persuade those who hold views that are hostile to theirs. If you are analyzing a speech in which a rhetor attempts to synthesize two polarized positions, you might argue that this artifact is a model of how rhetors can create identification between opposing positions. Knowledge about how to do this, you can suggest, is important for managing conflict effectively between other opposing factions.

Another way to generate interest is by providing information about other studies that have been done on the artifact you are analyzing that are incom- plete, inadequate, or do not provide a satisfactory explanation for it. If you are including a literature review in your essay, this is a logical way for you to gen- erate interest. You can suggest that your study is important because it extends, elaborates on, builds on, challenges, or in some way adds to knowledge that already exists concerning a particular rhetorical process. When you discuss why the knowledge about the rhetorical process to which you are contributing is important, you are addressing the “so what?” question in research. This question asks you to consider why the reader should care about the topic and continue to read the essay.

Description of the Artifact If the readers of your essay are to understand your analysis of an artifact,

they must be somewhat familiar with the artifact itself. To acquaint readers with the artifact, provide a brief overview or summary of the artifact near the begin- ning of the essay. Give readers whatever information they need to understand the artifact and to be able to follow your analysis. If you are analyzing a film, for example, tell when the film was released and who directed it and provide an overview of the film’s plot, major characters, and significant technical features. If you are analyzing a speech, include in the description of the artifact who gave the speech, on what occasion, and the date and place of the speech. You also want to provide the context for the artifact, locating it within the social, politi- cal, and economic arrangements of which it is a part. If, for example, you are analyzing a Harry Potter book or movie, give a brief explanation of the Harry Potter phenomenon—tell who the author of the books is, the number of books in

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the series, the number of books sold, the amount of money generated at the box office by the films, and the controversies the phenomenon generated.

Your description of the artifact is, to some extent, an interpretation of the artifact. You cannot tell the reader everything about the artifact, so you must make decisions about what to feature in the description. In this process, you want to describe and thus to highlight aspects of the artifact that are most important for and relevant to the analysis that will follow. Do not describe the artifact in too much detail here. You will reveal a great deal about the artifact as you present the findings of your analysis, so details that will emerge later in your analysis do not need to be included in your overview. This is the place to provide a broad overview of the artifact, knowing that readers will become much more familiar with the details of your artifact later.

In the description of the artifact, also provide a justification for why that artifact is a particularly appropriate or useful one to analyze in order to answer your research question. Many different artifacts can be used for answering the same research question, so provide an explanation as to why analyzing your artifact is a good choice for explaining the specific rhetorical process your research question addresses. Many kinds of reasons can be used to justify your artifact. You might explain that the artifact is historically impor- tant or represents a larger set of similar texts that are culturally significant. Perhaps the artifact you are analyzing has won many prestigious awards or has been highly successful in generating money. Maybe the artifact has reached large numbers of people or created an unusual response. Perhaps the rhetorical techniques used in the artifact are highly unusual and warrant exploration to explain their results.

Description of the Method You need to cover one more topic to complete readers’ understanding of

what will happen in the essay—a description of the method you used to ana- lyze the artifact. Identify the method you are using, explain who created the method (if one person is identifiable with the method), define its key concepts, and briefly lay out its basic procedures. If you are using the fantasy-theme method of criticism, for example, your description might include mention of its creator, Ernest Bormann; a definition of its basic terms, fantasy theme and rhetorical vision; and a brief explanation of the major critical processes involved in the method.

Report of the Findings of the Analysis The report of the findings of your analysis constitutes the bulk of the essay.

In this section, lay out for readers the results of your analysis of the artifact. Tell what you discovered from an application of the method of criticism to the artifact and provide support for your discoveries using the data of the artifact. If you used pentadic analysis as your method, for example, you would identify the terms of act, purpose, agent, agency, and scene for your artifact. If you ana- lyzed the artifact using the fantasy-theme method, this section would be orga- nized around the fantasy themes of settings, characters, and actions evident in your artifact and the rhetorical vision they create.

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Bring in relevant literature as you explain your findings to elaborate on or extend your ideas. Be sure that you feature your ideas in your analysis section, though, and make the topic statements of your paragraphs about your ideas and not echoes of the ideas of others. Any theories or concepts you believe are relevant to your analysis should be used to support, elaborate on, and extend your ideas. Don’t let the ideas of others subsume yours.

If you used the technique of cutting apart your observations on individual strips of paper in the coding step, you have available to you a very easy way to write up your analysis. Organize the piles in the order in which you want to talk about the components of your findings. When you are ready to write a section of your analysis, take the pile relevant to the topic of the section and sort the strips of paper within it, laying out the pieces in the order in which you want to discuss ideas and examples and eliminating those you decide not to include in your essay. As you write, connect the topics of the strips with transitions, previews, summaries, and interpretations.

The approach of cutting apart and organizing your observations makes writing up your essay easy. You have the freedom to write the sections of the analysis in any order—you do not have to begin with the first component of the schema. Each pile contains all of your ideas relevant to a section; you do not need to see what happens in one section to be able to write the next. Another advantage of this system is that you cannot lose track of where you are because the ideas of your schema are clearly organized, and all the con- tent you want to discuss is identified and waiting in the piles.2

Contribution to Rhetorical Theory Your essay ends with a discussion of the contribution your analysis makes

to rhetorical theory. This contribution is your answer to your research ques- tion. At this point in the essay, move away from your specific artifact and answer your research question more generally and abstractly. Transcend the specific data of your artifact to focus on the rhetorical processes with which you are concerned. Suggest to your readers how your analysis of your artifact contributes to an understanding of the larger rhetorical process with which your essay is concerned, discussing the implications or significance of the contribution you mentioned in the introduction.

Your contribution to rhetorical theory is likely to be made in one of two ways: identifying new concepts or identifying new relationships among con- cepts. Concepts and relationships are the two basic elements of theories. Con- cepts are the components, elements, or variables the theory is about. The concepts tell what you are looking at and what you consider important. State- ments of relationship are explanations about how the concepts are related to one another. They identify patterns in the relationships among variables or concepts, and they tell how concepts are connected. One rhetorical theory concerning the process of credibility, for example, suggests that, to be credi- ble, a rhetor must demonstrate intelligence, moral character, and good will toward the audience. The concepts of the theory are intelligence, moral char- acter, and good will, and the theory posits that all three of these concepts, interacting together and displayed in an artifact itself, contribute to an audi-

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ence’s perception that the rhetor is credible; this is a statement of relation- ships. Your analysis can contribute to rhetorical theory, then, by identifying important concepts in a rhetorical process, by suggesting how concepts relate to one another, or by doing both.

Although you cannot generalize your findings to other artifacts like yours or to artifacts characterized by similar rhetorical processes on the basis of your one essay of criticism, you still can make a contribution to rhetorical the- ory. David Zarefsky calls this kind of contribution a “theory of the particular case” and suggests that “studying individual cases can yield generalizable insights. The resulting generalizations will have but modest explanatory and predictive power because they abstract out only the common elements of com- plex individual situations and because the situations to which one might pre- dict are likewise complex and individual.”3 But your analysis allows you to suggest a theory that “more fully encompasses the case than do the alterna- tives.” You are able to provide an initial general understanding of some aspect of rhetoric on the basis of the necessarily limited evidence available in the artifact.4 Your analysis can provide you with hunches or presumptions about new cases. If you discover that a rhetor who is trying to reassure a group of people uses particular kinds of metaphors to do so, you might guess that other rhetors trying to do the same thing might do so as well. Should you discover, in a follow-up essay of criticism, a different case of reassurance—the rhetor does not use the same kinds of metaphors you identified earlier—you now have something more to figure out in terms of how reassurance works.

The idea that you can and should make a contribution to rhetorical theory in an essay of criticism makes many beginning rhetorical critics uncomfort- able. You may feel as though you are not expert enough to develop a theory or to contribute to an understanding of how rhetoric works. Perhaps you feel that you have not yet earned the right to make such contributions because you are still a student. You are an expert, however, in your way of seeing—in the appli- cation of your perspective on the world. You have applied a method of criti- cism and coded your artifact from your unique perspective. This is a perspective that belongs to no one else. You will see things in an artifact that no one else sees, and making a contribution to rhetorical theory is the way by which you can share that unique perspective and offer a new understanding of an artifact. Also remember that the perspective you share with others is not coming out of thin air—you will have the backing of the careful and system- atic analysis you have completed as the basis on which to make your contribu- tion to rhetorical theory.

Applying the Analysis in Activism For some rhetorical critics, there is a final step of criticism that goes

beyond writing an essay of criticism that makes a contribution to an under- standing of a rhetorical process. They see critics as change agents whose role is to use the criticism they produce to engage in activism. They want critics to use their criticism to transform society in some way. For these critics, the “larger, general public” is an audience for criticism5 just as much as scholars in the

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communication discipline because the critic should not simply try to “under- stand or explain society but to critique and change it.”6 For critics who choose to be activists, the objective is to challenge the “norms, practices, relations, and structures that underwrite inequality and injustice.”7 They want their criti- cism to “make a difference in the world” by addressing the questions, “How do we live, and how might we live differently?”8 Karlyn Kohrs Campbell summa- rizes this position by explaining that “criticism plays a crucial role in the pro- cesses of testing, questioning, and analyzing by which discourses advocating truth and justice may, in fact, become more powerful than their opposites.”9

Critics who adopt an activist stance justify this step in the process of criti- cism by pointing out that “research is never a politically neutral act. The deci- sion to study this group rather than some other, to frame the research question this way rather than another, and to report the findings to this group or in that journal rather than in some other forum privilege certain values, institutions, and practices.”10 As a result, whether the authors claim to be doing so or not, they are producing criticism that is either contributing to the transformation of society into a more equitable and humane culture, or they are reinforcing and reifying the status quo. As Samuel L. Becker explains, “The major question most of us face in our lives as scholars is not whether our research should be useful; it is, rather, what it should be useful for and for whom it should be useful.”11 Others justify the activist stance for rhetorical critics by pointing to the fact that communication inherently is a practical dis- cipline that yields useful knowledge. They note that the historical roots of the discipline of communication “were grounded in producing useful knowledge, such as teaching people to become better speakers in their everyday interac- tions and in the public sphere.”12

There are a number of ways in which your essay of criticism may function as an instrument of change. Your findings, for example, may help explain and demystify the rhetorical practices that sustain inequality and oppression. By identifying and pointing to these rhetorical practices, you can help others see how inequality is constructed and encourage individuals to create alternative rhetorical practices that create different conditions. If you have analyzed pro- test rhetoric of some kind, your essay might point to the practices that are effective and ineffective in efforts to create change, and your findings may be used to create more effective campaigns for social change or to elect certain political candidates. If you are analyzing the rhetoric of groups who voices are not often heard, you can help bring those “forgotten or silenced voices”13 into the dialogue to provide a more comprehensive perspective on an issue and more innovative and workable solutions to it. As Raymie E. McKerrow sug- gests, you can use what you have learned to “identify the possibilities of future action available.”14

If you choose to be an activist critic, you have a number of possibilities for disseminating the results of a rhetorical analysis. You can begin by enacting what you have learned from your critical analyses in your own life. If you have learned about strategies for creating a more equitable and humane world from your analysis of certain kinds of rhetoric, you can enact those strategies in your own life. You also have the option of interacting with friends, family, and colleagues about the results of your analyses, encouraging those around you to

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consider how the symbolic practices they encounter and their own use of sym- bols affect their everyday lives. You can share your findings in more formal ways with others—on a website or blog, for example, or by writing an op-ed piece for a newspaper.15 If you are a teacher, you can make use of your find- ings in educational settings, teaching best practices about the nature and func- tion of rhetoric and the ways in which rhetoric creates worlds. You may choose to work on a political campaign or on behalf of a movement for some kind of social change. Your knowledge of rhetorical criticism can help you analyze the messages from those who oppose your perspective, analyze those that the cam- paign is producing, and design more effective messaging for the public audi- ence. If your focus is on an analysis of silenced voices, you can share your findings about the rhetoric of these individuals with policy makers and stake- holders involved in an issue, and you also can share your findings with those who are silenced, encouraging them to understand their own rhetorical choices and to develop their own responses and interventions into discourse that silences them. In various ways, then, as an activist rhetorical critic, you “furnish inspiration and directions toward more promising ways of life.”16

Assessing the Essay What makes one essay of criticism better than another? By what stan-

dards is an essay of criticism judged? Rhetorical criticism is a different kind of research from quantitative research, so it is not judged by the standards that are used for such research. In quantitative research, the basic standards of evaluation are validity and reliability. Validity is concerned with whether researchers are measuring what they claim they are measuring, and reliability has to do with the replicability of results if the same set of objects is measured repeatedly with the same or comparable measuring instruments. In contrast, the standards of evaluation in rhetorical criticism are justification, reasonable inference, and coherence.

The standards used in rhetorical criticism to judge analyses of artifacts are rooted in two primary assumptions. One assumption is that objective reality does not exist. As discussed in chapter 1, those of us who study rhetoric believe that reality is constituted through the rhetoric we use to talk about it; reality is a symbolic creation. Thus, the artifact you are analyzing does not constitute a reality that can be known and proved. You cannot know what the artifact “really” means or how it “really” works because there are as many realities about the artifact as there are critics and vocabularies from which to conduct inquiry about it.

A second assumption on which the standards of rhetorical criticism are built is very much related to the first: A critic can know an artifact only through a personal interpretation of it. You cannot be objective, impartial, and removed from the data because you bring to the critical task particular values and experiences that are reflected in how you see and write about that artifact. As a result of these assumptions, your task as a critic is to offer one perspective on an artifact—one possible way of viewing it. You are not concerned with finding the true, correct, or right interpretation of an artifact. Consequently,

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two critics may analyze the same artifact, ask the same research question, and come up with different conclusions. One might interpret an artifact as the reframing of an issue, another as a visual metaphor of juxtaposition, and another as the creation of a compelling rhetorical vision. As David Zarefsky notes, “These interpretations are different but compatible. Each of them may offer valuable insight on the case, enabling criticism to proceed additively rather than only by substituting one explanation for another.”17 The essays of criticism the two critics write, then, both can be excellent essays of criticism.

Justification The primary standard used in judging an essay of criticism is justifica-

tion—the argument made by a critic.18 You must be able to justify what you say or offer reasons in support of the claims you make in your report of your findings. All of the ways in which we judge arguments, then, apply to judg- ments about the quality of a critical essay. You must have a claim—the conclu- sion of the argument you are seeking to justify. The claim is the answer to the question, “Where are we going?” You must provide evidence to support the claim you are making and have sufficient evidence from the artifact to back up your claim. This evidence constitutes the grounds of your argument—the data from the artifact on which the argument is based. Grounds provide the answer to the question, “What do we have to go on?”