Requested Excerpt 2: Metaphor Criticism- A Method for exploring Argument as Issue Campaigns

The campaigns that emerged in Wisconsin, as well as the metaphor Argument as Issue Campaigns, invites us to examine how arguments and campaigns are not static nodes, totalizing, or fixed structures, but are fluid, and interconnected webs. With a particular interest on the ads for how they perform argumentation, each ad and its rhetorical components were closely scrutinized for how they constructed their arguments, what went in to each argument, and what particular rhetorical practices were used. Also, since the metaphor Argument as Issue Campaign was a motivating force for this study, close attention is paid in the texts for how metaphor is used to construct and participate in argumentation. Metaphors shed light on dominant frames of information and arguments but also function within collections of texts to frame and shape messages and symbols in an effort to influence how we understand and talk about issues. Lakoff and Johnson state that, metaphors are “pervasive in everyday life, not just in language, but in thought and action” (Lakoff & Johnson, p. 287).

Issue campaigns and their practices of argumentation highlight complexities within each as well as their combined metaphorical forms and functions. According to Richards (1936) the two central elements to metaphor are vehicle & tenor. “The tenor is the topic or subject that is being explained, [and] the vehicle is the mechanism or lens through which the topic is viewed” (Foss, 2009, p. 267). The purposes of this paper are to is to explore argument as the tenor and issue campaigns as the vehicle and its metaphorical construction(s) as an alternative way to explore argument and issue campaigning.

According to Black (1981) “the reader is forced to “connect” the two ideas. In this “connection” resides the secret and the mystery of metaphor”  (p. 73) Exploring the  connections and interactions of the metaphor Argument as Issue Campaigns allows for the exploration into the systems of argument and issue campaigns, as well as the implications from the metaphors application of issue campaigns to argument (Black, 1981). Additionally, change can be generated by metaphors because they play a key role in framing perceptions, as well as action and argumentation (Foss, 2009).  

        As such, this metaphor invites us to think of argument as not only a verbal speech act, but also as something nonverbal, and even visual. Argument could then be thought of outside of a binary construction of a claim for or against and issue, and could have more than two sides. It could be marked on bodies, it could be a body, it could be symbolic, metaphorical, a lie or misinformation, it could be a rhetorical act, a combination of texts and performances, a compilation of messages from different sources, and/or it could be without an explicit solvency or call to action. Although this list is not exhaustive, it is suggestive of the importance of thinking of arguments potentials, what it can do, instead of confining argument and frames of information to static, misleading, and limiting conceptions. 

Black, M. (1981). Metaphor. In M Johnson (E.d.), Philosophical perspectives on metaphor (pp.

63-81). Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

Foss, S. K. Rhetorical Criticism: Exploration and Practice. 

Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1981). Conceptual metaphor in everyday language. In M Johnson

(Eds.), Philosophical perspectives on metaphor (pp. 286-325). Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

Richards, I. A. (1936). The Philosophy of Rhetoric. NY: Oxford University Press.

Requested Excerpt 1: Rhetorical Methods in Practice (draft)

Video issue ads, such as the ones produced during the debate over the Walker proposal, exemplify how rhetorics and arguments, can be limited to reducible tag line arguments, but also shows how arguments and rhetorics are multi-layered, intertextual, and interconnected textual performances that stretch and challenge the notion of the argument as a binary. This study rhetorically analyzed seven issue ads that came out during the Walker Proposal Debate up until the passage of a modified version of his policy that effectively stripped unions of their collective bargaining rights. Additional texts that were analyzed were linked to the issue ads by their reference or symbolism within the ads, or they were included in the ads themselves, such as: an interview Walker gave with a reporter/blogger whom he thought to be David Koch, a video recording of the passage of the anti-collective bargaining legislation, an interview with a protester in reference to a flag seen in one of the ads, as well as the collections and combinations of sounds, videos, photos, and other texts and symbols found within the ads.  

          

            Each campaign advertisement was analyzed in an effort to understand its rhetorical components and constructs, such as: the ads sponsor(s), speaker(s), audience(s), message(s), and its context. When conducting a rhetorical criticism with visual and audio rhetorical texts it is important to expand analysis beyond the spoken word and the idea of a single rhetor. Rhetorical analysis of advertisements generally is the analysis of multiple layers of rhetoric. These rhetorical constructs and texts, bleed into one another. Analyzing layered   visual and audio rhetorics showed how each ad presented and framed its arguments, how it used multi-layered video and textual performances to construct their video messages and to produce arguments with depth and complexity, while concurrently keeping the messages within the ads simple and the symbols familiar.