Don't touch!...

The ever cogent William Powers considers the modern-postmodern split in current campaign coverage:

There's nothing wrong with either brand of coverage. Each offers something of value, and they actually complement each other. In fact, they tend to appear side by side in the same media outlets, often in the same stories.

But neither gets at the place where the really decisive part of a campaign happens. Nobody wins the White House at the retail handshaking level, or through the machinations of strategists and consultants. A presidential election is ultimately decided between these two poles, in that very public space where candidates go to connect with the mass of voters.

That space is the media, of course, so it's strange that news people are not very good at helping us understand who's connecting and why. But it's a huge, complex piece of turf. Like the retail beat, it's old-fashioned, in that it's all about individual voters and their choices. And like the insider beat, it's very sophisticated, in that it's about a media-age transaction so elaborate that Marshall McLuhan would have trouble explaining it.

It is not so strange that journalists are not very good at helping us understand who's connecting and why because this would require expertise in media theory that most journalists do not have. And it's not like I'm about to promote an academic way of knowing here because we eggheads are still trying to sort it all out. The sad fact of the matter is that we introduced a medium into politics before we really understood all that it means: television.

In the conclusion of his column, Powers highlights something that I think should seem strange us. He quotes a "major supporter" of Howard Dean:

"Howard never built a relationship with the voters on a fundamental, gut level...When Howard needed to make the sale, I believe that required him to be more human, more self-revelatory, more personal with people, and Howard is a very private person."

Is that why Americans elected Abraham Lincoln, Calvin Coolidge, or Woodrow Wilson--because they were more human, more self-revelatory, and more personal with people? Such a desire on the part of the electorate wasn't even possible before television. It is television that taught us to want and expect such things (re: Postman and Hart). And the news media, specifically newspapers, could, as Powers suggests (although he does mean it quite this way) do our democracy a tremendous amount of good by openly examining the mediating effects of television.

But that would require journalists to dirty their hands with something they are loathe to touch: theory.

Style is important, too...

I spend a lot of time analyzing texts. That means that I read them "closely" and try to come to some understanding of such things as: structure of argument, style, authorial intention (aka. illocutionary acts), and potential effects (aka. perlocutionary acts).

Coming to some understanding of style can be tricky because it exists in multiple facets of a complex text. By "complex" I mean that the text is more than just the words printed on a page. Texts include all messages assumed by the five canons of rhetoric and all of the elements of the rhetorical situation. For any analysis to aid in understanding, it must account for, among other things, style as it is experienced through the media of the situation.

Okay, that's a fancy-pants way to say something that I've been talking about for two weeks: Those who attend political rallies have much different experiences of the text (and the person) than those who watch on television.

I claim that it is the television audience that counts because the small number of rally attendees are used as political props. I mean no disrespect to the candidate or the props by this statement. Instead, I mean to highlight an important point about the political experience of most Americans: It is fashioned to a great extent by the style of television, i.e. the type of experience of the text and the person that television invites you to have.

Television invites you to have an emotional experience with politics (re: Seducing America by Roderick Hart), but it holds that experience at arms length by delivering a truncated picture. The screen stops you from feeling the heat of the assembled bodies, hearing the comments of those standing next to you, and witnessing without (as much) mediation the entire performance of the speaker--right down to his or her personal ticks and unguarded moments.

While I am trained to evaluate texts, I find myself moved by live performances in a decidedly non-academic way. It is in the live audience that the style and substance of a political speech begin to meld as they should into a complex message that is politically useful. The ancient Greeks understood this. While it seems naive to us, for them it was nearly inconceivable that a skilled public speaker, one who practiced excellent style, was anything but a virtuous citizen.

But you know what--I think, deep down, we really do still believe this. And I think this is part of the key to understanding the differences between live and TV-mediated experiences of stump speeches. I can read the same old stump address over and over again. But to hear it and see it and feel it live is to re-write that text anew and have a far different experience of it.

Is Howard Dean crazy? Is John Kerry haughty and aloof. Is Wesley Clark befuddled? Is Dennis Kucinich a goofy little twerp? Is John Edwards the best campaigner since Bill Clinton?

You're not going to discover answers to these questions staring at a television or huddled monk-like over a written text. Most of what comes to you as answers from television comes from a selective showing of the event and commentary that purports to be expert. What they don't tell you is that most of the experts (reporters and pundits) are watching it on television, too. You must get involved corporally in politics; you must go see and hear the candidates for yourself. Short of that, and in any case, you must read a newspaper because, at least, you'll get propositional content.

This brings us to an interesting paradox: The props are getting the real experience, but it is the viewer at home who counts.

I love it...

Sometimes the truth hurts. But, at other times, it's just plain funny!

Stuck in a dead-end job?

Searching for a career in which you can work less, make more, and maximize your limited potential?

Perhaps it is time you considered the glamorous world of political punditry.

If you like the sound of your own voice.

If you are one of those people who doesn't let knowing absolutely nothing about a subject interfere with having a strong opinion.

And if you are looking for a field that is large enough to accommodate your exaggerated sense of self-importance.

Then you owe it to yourself to pick up the phone and call 1-800-Gas-bags.

Go read the whole thing.

UPDATE (12:10 p.m.): Richard Leiby reports on the current level of civic discourse.

UPDATE (12:30 p.m.): This would be a troubling development for our civic discourse if the National Review had a larger or more diverse circulation. As it is, it's merely humorous--as is Ted's contest. Enter today! He's offering a $10 gift certificate to amazon.com. (Yes...liberal political rags can be guilty of such nonsense, too.)

A nation divided (maybe)...

Valdis Krebs has updated his network map of political books. His contention is that the "network [reveals] a divided populace...at least amongst book readers. (Also see the white paper on book networks.)

I would edit his concluding clause to read: "at least among readers of political books published by popular presses." This is an important edit for two reasons: 1) It more accurately describes the human subjects implied by the study, and 2) There's a big difference between political books published by popular presses and those published by academic presses (that sell far fewer copies).

Buyers and readers of popular political books constitute a minority of the American electorate. A simple look at the sales figures of any of the mentioned books demonstrates this. We would expect there to be, in any population of political subjects in a democratic republic, two or more distinct factions with a literature and network all its own.

Popular presses are in the business of making money, which means offering a popular product. In our culture, part of what that means is offering drama and controversy. What would a middle-of-the-road political book look like? How would it sell? What would hook readers? Books by Ann Coulter and Michael Moore sell because they offer readers ready access to opinion that reinforces their own ideologies. In other words, reading such books is easy. Reading something comprehensive and less dramatic is a bit more difficult, and, further, offers the unsettling possibility of changing one's mind.

Krebs wonders about the political use of his network map:

So, if you are working a 2004 political campaign what do you do with this information? Obviously you will not be successful in removing a reader from deep in one cluster and transplanting them into the other cluster. All you can do is focus on the edge nodes and the bridges. See someone reading Sleeping with the Devil? That is someone you can talk to about your candidate. If they are reading Bushwacked or Dereliction of Duty -- the most central books in each cluster--then either give them a high-five or a sneer, you won't change their views.

While I think Krebs information is interesting and instructive, I doubt it has much immediate use to campaign managers once we enter the general election cycle. For the most part the bases will be secure; that's why they are "bases." The election will be won in the independent, political center. And I wonder how many in that voter pool read books such as those written by Moore and Coulter.

The map does, however, show routes from the center of ideology to the fringes or borders where, simplistically, right and left meet. In this sense, the map offers us an interesting look at the political center as described by books--"nodes," as Krebs calls them--that seems less polarizing as Coulter's and Moore's. It is in this area of the map that campaign managers may find useful information, as Krebs suggests.

I think any claim that this map is (more) proof of a "divided nation" is over-stated. (via Political Wire)

What my vote means...

I voted for John Kerry today. What does that mean?

My act of citizenship, and my sharing of that act with you, is a rhetorical maneuver open to interpretation. And I would argue that there is no one right way to interpret it. I certainly have my thoughts on the matter, among them:

1- It means, simply, that I engaged in the specified act. 2- It means that I made a choice. 3- It means that, on some level, that choice had a higher level of value than other choices.

Beyond that, we might suppose a number of things that may or may not be true, i.e. I might or might not agree with the interpretation. For example: I voted for Kerry because I agree with all of his stands on the issues. Hmmmm...nope. I'd challenge that. I can truthfully say that I do not know all of his stands on all of the issues. I know most of them, and I agree with a number somewhat less than that.

Or, how about this: I voted for Kerry because I think he has the best chance of beating George Bush in the general election. Maybe. That remains to be seen. And I certainly think there are others in the field who might, under the right circumstances, be able to beat Bush.

So why didn't I vote for Dean? I've been harping on that Mayer model so much that you'd think I'd want to see Dean win the nomination just so the model might work this time. I do not use my vote as a way to effect political outcomes other than my assessment of the best candidate for the job (unless, of course, I'm making a heresthetical maneuver). I'd like to see the Mayer model work this time, not because I want Dean to win the nomination but because journalists, who understand so little about such models in the first place, will dismiss it completely. And I believe they need to face its implications for the good of our democracy. I am not, however, willing to waste a vote to try to affect the model's success.

Do I think Kerry is the only Democrat for the job? No. But neither do I believe that any of the Democratic candidates would be better. I would vote for Bush over Sharpton or Kucinich.

Am I able to do a good and fair job of rhetorical analysis after having voiced a preference? Of course. How would this be any different had I not shared this information with you? Further, in the hyper-sensitive world of cyberspace, there will always be those who believe that one's politics dictate all that one does. These folks have no clue that many of us exist for whom political choices are not the most freaking important thing in the world. It just so happens that I value my identity as an academic more highly than my identity as a Democrat.

So, at about 8:50 a.m. CST, I took my daughter to the polls and let her fill out the ballot. She also fed it into the optical reader. But before doing so, I took the picture below: Kid Rhetorica with ballot freshly marked and citizenship renewed.

Airwaves do vibrate...

Today on Radio Rhetorica I'll be discussing the Missouri primary. And I may have a few choice words for Kid Rock and, to a lesser extent, Janet Jackson. You can listen live on the web. Just click the "on air" button to the left and follow the links. You can send e-mail during the show to radio -at- rhetorica.net. Or spend a dime and call 816-584-6326; I'll put you on the air.

I'll be busy today until late this afternoon. Check back then for primary coverage.

Ever ready with a controversial stand, The Kansas City Star endorses Sen. John Kerry.

: There once was a man from Kent...

"I predict today, like father like son, one term only, Bush is going to be done." --John Kerry

Not bad. Audiences enjoy a little word play. It would have become weird, however, had he kept this up.

: My duty as citizen...

Missouri is looking more and more important to the nominating campaign. And the polls appear to show that John Kerry will win with as much a 50 percent of the vote.

There's not much need to hit the streets to report this primary. It ain't New Hampshire. I'll be voting early and then sitting back and watching the drama unfold on TV just like the rest of you. But I'll make some effort to offer something unique--if only just a picture from my local polling place.

By the way, I have made it a habit and tradition to take my daughter to the polls with me. She has met Kansas City Mayor Kay Barnes a few times there (her elementary school). So she gets to see all the TV coverage and hoopla. Politics is an intellectual experience, but it also an emotional experience. The hoopla is important to feeling connected to a civic tradition.

A profession gone mad...

David Shaw takes a hard look at news pundits and their role in political campaigns. He says:

But journalists aren't--shouldn't be--astrologists. When political journalists predict the future, their predictions often seem to eclipse--and at times substitute for--the reporting they're supposed to be based on. Worse, those predictions can become self-fulfilling prophesies. Look at the coverage of Howard Dean's post-caucus speech in Iowa.

My problem with such prognostication--besides its being mostly foolish and wrong--is that the purpose of it is to entertain and not, what it should be, to understand the system. (I believe some journalists sincerely believe such nonsense is politically useful for the voters and thus counts as informing them.) If understanding were the point, journalists would have paid more attention to the Mayer predictive model and its implications.

The point of the Mayer model isn't to be right; the point is to understand how the system works. And because it is very likely the model will "fail" in 2004, journalists are likely to dismiss it as "wrong." To the academic point of view, journalistic prognostication seems almost madness, based as it is on little but ego, whim, and anecdotes.

One of Shaw's major points in this column is that press predictions often become self-fulfilling prophesies. And that is exactly the implication that I draw from the Mayer model. It demonstrates the power of the press to choose the candidates, whether they seek this power or not.

American journalism must face this reality. It is not an objective observer of events. It is a player.

The lady doth protest...

Geneva Overholser, a journalism professor for the University of Missouri and former ombudsman of The Washington Post, quit the board of the National Press Foundation because it will honor Fox News anchor Brit Hume with its Sol Taishoff Award. Past recipients include: ADM sell-out David Brinkley and light-weights Jane Pauley and Barbara Walters.

I can understand Overholser's reasons:

"Fox wants to do news from a certain viewpoint, but it wants to claim that it is 'fair and balanced'...That is inaccurate and unfair to other media who engage in a quest, perhaps an imperfect quest, for objectivity."

I'm not sure such gestures do much good. Wouldn't she be more effective fighting from within the National Press Foundation? Then again, perhaps this provides her a convenient out.

That's entertainment?...

I believe my nine-year-old daughter should be able to watch the Super Bowl with me without being exposed to Janet Jackson's boob or Kid Rock's desecration of the American Flag. CBS apologized for the boob. They should also apologize for Kid Rock. (Geez, they showed the boob but not the streaker!)

I believe in free speech. I support, as part of that right, your right to desecrate the flag. But don't ever do it in front of me! I'll exercise my right to defend it.

The game was boring until the end. The commercials? Geez, this was perhaps the worst year in recent memory for the commercials. The one interesting thing, from a sociological point of view, was the difference Budweiser perceives in the drinkers of Bud Light versus Budweiser. According to their commercials last night, the former are, apparently, frat boys who enjoy potty humor and the latter are, well, fairly normal boomers like me (the ref getting yelled at by his wife was a scream).

The funniest line of the entire evening wasn't meant to be funny. In the list of side effects for the erectile dysfunction drug Cialis was this dire warning (paraphrased): If an erection lasts more than four hours, seek immediate medical attention. No kidding.

UPDATE (1:50 p.m.): Slate reviews the commercials.

UPDATE (4 Feb. 11:35 a.m.): A reader sent e-mail wondering how it is I justify my defense of free speech with my apparent willingness to assault someone exercising the very free speech I purport to uphold. Good question. I wish the writer had left a public comment. First, I am guilty of over-writing in the heat of the moment--a ubiquitous transgression among bloggers (although that is no excuse). Second, while the writer's interpretation is certainly valid, I would say that "defending" a flag from, for example, being burned in public would not necessarily require an assault. But it might. And I left myself open to exactly the charge he makes. I make no defense except to say that I would, within the limits of my abilities, try to prevent a flag from being burned. Until I am put in that situation, I cannot say what that defense might include. I would hope that my ability to speak in the flag's defense would be enough.

Toward a field theory of journalism, part 6...

The next question to consider in my brief exploration into a field theory of journalism is: What is the relationship among the journalist, the facts, the source, and the audience?

As I discussed earlier, we may observe that journalism operates with an objectivist epistemology: What is real is located in the material world and human actions within that world. What can be known are empirically verifiable phenomena. We are connected to the material world by our senses and certain faculties of the mind, which are capable of perceiving the world through sense impressions and then thinking about, and acting upon, these impressions. Journalism's challenge in this epistemology is to perceive the world correctly and then represent perceptions correctly through language.

We may begin to describe these relationships this way:

1- The journalist, as objectivist observer, is capable of discovering facts in the world or capable of accurately recording the fact-observations of sources. 2- The journalist is able to discern meaning in the observations of the source as the source understands that meaning. 3- The journalist is able to put these facts and observations into language that avoids distortion of the original observations and may even reproduce the original observations as a mental-emotional experience for the audience. 4- The facts exist independently of the journalist, the source, and the audience. 5- The source is an authority capable of discovering facts and accurately reproducing them in language for the journalist. 6- The audience is capable of unpacking the journalist's language and finding meaning that corresponds to the facts.

Changes in the culture's noetic field happen slowly. I think a change began to occur in the 1970s as indicated, by one measure, in the popularity of the New Journalism, which took a decidedly personal and subjective approach to reporting and writing. The reporter as observer morphed into writer as experiencer. I believe this change on the fringes of the profession helped make the slow movement toward civic journalism possible by opening minds to the idea that reporters are connected to events in far more intimate and complex ways. The old role of impartial observer is falling away as journalism both drives and responds to changes in the noetic field.

(Hypothesis: The shift in the noetic field fits a generational cycle (re: Strauss and Howe). I note that the initial shift (New Journalism), which also corresponds to the so-called "paradigm shift" of composition studies in academia (expressivism, and process-over-product pedagogy), happened as the current idealist generation--Baby Boomers--moved through the "spiritual awakening" of the 1970s. Will this shift then be complete by the time we reach the "secular crisis" of 2020--also known as the Boomer Apocalypse? I note that the beginning of the movement from the last noetic field to the current one appears similarly to correspond with the "Missionary Awakening" of the 1880s--the earliest movement in journalism to an objective model of reporting (re: The New York Times) and the movement in academia to the German model of the research university.)

These changes challenge much that we see in the old objectivist relationships. In the next installment of this series, I'll discuss the last of the four questions about how journalism fits the current noetic field: How does journalistic language create these relationships and deliver the news?

I'll conclude this series by examining the rhetorical changes I see in journalism and the prime, non-academic indicator of what I believe to be the leading edge of change in the culture's noetic field: civic journalism.

Prior entries in this series:
Toward a field theory of journalism
Why a "field" metaphor
Parts of the noetic field
The epistemology of journalism
Who is the knower?

: Kerry in KC...

I attended the John Kerry rally in Kansas City this morning. It's a good thing for a person who spends so much time analyzing texts to actually go see and hear a live performance from time to time.

I'm always fascinated by how well a good advance crew can set up an effective rally on short notice. I arrived about 30 minutes before the start. At that time a (presumed) member of the communications staff was carefully arranging the people on the bleachers who would provide the background. She had them raise their signs and then carefully considered the placement of each. She edited the message as surely as any text-jockey working on a computer.

The speech was pure stump. Every sound bite we've heard before. But the point isn't just the words. The point is also the pathos of the event--getting the troops fired up. This feels far different as a participant than as a passive watcher of television.

And there's the irony and the tragedy of Howard Dean--and of all politicians, really. They feed the crowd their crafted promises and intentions, and the crowd responds creating emotional images for television. It's the passive television watchers who count because there are so many more of them, but the pundits and spinmeisters get the last word.

UPDATE (7:05 p.m.): Here's an account of Kerry's developing stump speech by The New York Times. It carries a Kansas City dateline, but doesn't really involve his rally here.

Why are you a loser?...

In my previous entry I take a snarky shot at journalists by asking: Do they even study the rhetorical uses of fallacy in j-school?

Well, it appears they learn it somewhere (but not in the way I meant). Among the interesting points in Jay Rosen's latest column, he demonstrates how CNN's Wolf Blitzer used the fallacy of many questions to torture Dennis Kucinich. Such a fallacy asks a question that cannot be answered without accepting the premises of the questioner. For example: "Have you stopped beating your wife"? You cannot answer this yes-or-no question without admitting to being a wife beater.

Blitzer asked Kucinich why he was a loser. As Rosen explains:

It is not for voters' ears...Blitzer asks it for reasons wholly internal to his profession, and the only interest served, I think, is the journalist's. Everyone else loses, especially Kucinich, whose minute of public humiliation may not be Wolf Blitzer's aim, but is the certain effect.

...

It is a question ignorant of its own psychology and effect, and thus it advertises the journalist as someone capable of a certain cruelty, which is not a moral category you want to be in. But the most striking thing about "why do you think your campaign has been a total failure so far?" is the impossibility of Kucinich answering it without appearing to prove the premise.

Fallacies are rhetorical tools. They are only false in the logic branch of the discipline of philosophy which concerns itself with, among other things, trying to nail down some correspondence between language use and reality that can be described as "true."

To my way of thinking, all human utterances are rhetorical: a speaker trying to persuade someone about something (no matter how important or trivial). It is for this reason (and some others) that rhetoric scholar James A. Berlin claimed that "language is never innocent." Journalists act as if it were. They act as if their use of language is connected to no intention other than some vaguely articulated desire to inform the public.

Surely that's not what Rosen has illustrated here. He says Blitzer's question has zero "public service validity." I often use another overblown academic term to mean the same thing: low political utility. But, really, they identify the same thing: ________.

: Have worries, will travel...

As much as I'd like to think otherwise, the fact of the matter is that I would make a poor campaign communications manager. The reason: I'd spend too much time trying to determine the rhetorical effects of a message rather than just communicating it. Maybe I could get a job doing only that--a worrier for hire.

For example, I'd be very nervous about this quote from Howard Dean:

"If Senator Kerry had accomplished anything in health care, he ought to be able to explain to the people of South Carolina how come there are so many uninsured kids here and there aren't any in my state."

Now there are a few good reasons to like this line. The best reason, in my opinion, is that it is a skillful use of fallacy (yes, despite Aristotle's protests to the contrary, the fallacies are tools of rhetoric). This fallacy is obvious and for two reasons: 1) Dean could say this about any politician in Washington, and 2) Dean is criticizing a Senator for not doing what he claims to have done as a Governor, i.e. a comparison of political apples and oranges.

We could eliminate the fallacy easily enough by having Dean direct the comment at "Washington insiders" in general, thus tarring Kerry by implication. But aren't we all getting a little tired of the "insider" schtick from all quarters?

If we don't worry too much about this fallacy, it probably won't be noticed. Plus, what reporter is going to point this out? Do they even study the rhetorical uses of fallacy in j-school?

Wait, I know what job I could do: counter-spinner. Look at the opportunity Kerry spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter missed:

"If Howard Dean wants to talk about records of accomplishment, then he has some explaining to do about balancing the Vermont budget on the backs of the poor, not taking action to better secure a nuclear power plant in the wake of Sept. 11 and throwing 400 family farms out of business."

This is a fine example of a pathos bomb--heavy on emotion, light on political substance. And, yes, it's quite quotable. Does she even see that fallacy? Can she not devise an equally pathetic sound bite that's both stinging and politically useful? Hmmmmm...I bet I could. [Ed. Note: One must assume certain things when engaging in this type of critical analysis based on AP copy, such as: The reporter chose the best quotes and reported them in context.]