A highly visual social media platform such as Instagram is incorporated by many companies in their marketing communications strategies to advertise their products and services employing digital visual rhetoric. The purpose of this study is to extend the current understanding of visual framing strategies, sentiment, and product presentation modality in the multicultural context by examining social media practices of influencers belonging to two cultural backgrounds, namely the United Kingdom of Great Britain and the United Arab Emirates. Using content analysis, this study reveals visual rhetorical strategies practiced by Instagram influencers that can equip digital marketing practitioners with effective devices of persuasion. The study provides a useful contribution to the theory of digital visual rhetoric.

The paper examines man’s involvement in the communication process. While elucidating communication one needs to take into account the subjective factors which condition its existence. The article particularly highlights the personal dimension of human existence and an integrated action of his powers thanks to which man constitutes the subject and motive for all forms of communication activity. The basic types of communication are affected by virtue of a relation to human powers: intellective-cognitive and volitive-emotive. Yet, it is persuasive communication that, methodologically ordered within the framework of rhetoric, seems to fully recognize the communication determinants characteristic of man’s nature. The progressing technicization of the media also needs to be perceived through an integrated personalistic perspective accepting the subjective determinants of man participating in the communication process.

This paper offers a review and analysis of speeches delivered by President George W. Bush in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001. Bush’s motivations, goals, and persuasive strategies are discussed in detail in the following study, with consideration for the cultural and political contexts of American oratory and the idiosyncratic features of the Republican as a public speaker. The characteristics of Bush's 9/11 communication acts are then compared with Franklin D. Roosevelt's Pearl Harbor speech in order to analyze the differences between the two politicians' rhetorical modi operandi as well as the changing political environment of the U.S.

On the example of the ethically controversial photographs made by Zbigniew Zielonacki from the public trial and execution of Arthur Greiser, the Nazi deputy in the Wartheland, the author demonstrates the visuality of local memory at the intersection of the narrative and non-narrative, private and public, individual and collective sphere. The photographs have become an inherent element of Poznań inhabitants’ memory of World War II and its outcomes, although they did not fit any of the emerging main war narratives.

Looking into the definition of rhetoric in the digital space, one often encounters the view that rhetoric is too remote or too “ancient” to be used as a conceptual, theoretical or practical framework for researching digital media. However, a substantial body of contemporary media research applies the theory of rhetoric, using a modern conceptual apparatus (e.g. cognitive theories of metaphor). Based on Kenneth Burke’s model of the pentad, the article aims to show that media messages in the digital environment are based on the notion of the rhetorical situation and demonstrate that the rhetorical apparatus has a crucial role in discerning the ways to modify the discourse space in human-computer-human communication. The source of modification in the traditional model of a rhetorical situation is the interactive nature of communication in digital media and the fact that the recipient [agent a] is bestowed with the role of an active participant who can influence the content of the message. Thanks to the use of the rhetorical model of pentad, the argument goes that in contrast to traditional media, modifications in the model act 1 → agent → agency → act 2 are possible and they result from the inclusion of external participants [agent b] and changes in the ontological status of the digital medium from the role of an intermediary to an active participant in the communication process [agent c].

This article explores how rhetorically ambiguous speech acts can work as preventive negotiations of potential confl ict within a political party and how such acts can affect the ethos of the leader. I show how rhetorically ambiguous speech can be a way of performing rhetorical leadership and communicating a democratic ethos while motivating participation in a common action for ends understood differently by different audiences.

Because the goals leaders and organizations seek typically require persistent engagement over time, rhetorical leadership has as a central concern the long-term consequences of the leader’s rhetorical choices. Although traditional rhetorical theory downplayed this long-term perspective in favor of the singular rhetorical engagement (such as a speech), rhetorical theorists have begun considering the rhetorical implications of persuasion wrought over the long-run. This essay applies rhetorical consequentialism, a theoretical perspective developed by the author, to explain the orientation and strategies the rhetorical leader must consider in longterm persuasion. Leaders must be concerned about consistency over time to avoid charges of waffl ing, delusion, lying, hypocrisy, and the like if they are to maintain their ethos and that of their organizations. They also should take positive steps to create the symbolic and material conditions for rhetorical success over the long run. The essay describes „constraint avoidance” strategies that limit inconsistencies over time, as well as „stage-setting” strategies that prepare the symbolic and material ground for future rhetorical success. The essay draws examples from American political rhetoric, especially that of Donald Trump, to illuminate these strategies. The essay concludes by considering the challenges and prospects of such strategies.

This article analyzes the rhetorical strategies involved in the spread of texts created in a digital context. The Internet has initiated a new communicative environment which seeks to shape the contents and circumstances of dissemination of online news and electronic literature. The digital medium affects journalism and literature with a series of rhetorical strategies aimed at persuading the audience to double click (automated interactions, clickbait, trending). These rhetorical strategies are not accepted as valid in conventional media and publishing, however they promote rapid dissemination of digital news, as well as reconfi gure the existing relationships between authors and readers in literary works. Our aim is to explain how the dissemination of these texts can be understood from a rhetorical viewpoint, no matter how much the spread of fake news or the radical change in the electronic literary works can be criticized. We point to the consequences of a communicative context that prioritizes immediacy, anonymity and content democratization. Analyzing selected examples from the Spanish (social) media context will demonstrate how double-click rhetoric relates to fictionalization and backgrounding of ethos.

A statistic can be a powerful rhetorical tool in political discourse, but it can also be quickly dismissed by a resistant audience. This article argues that the statistic’s association with Aristotelian inartistic proof (in Greek: pisteis atechnoi, Lat. probationes inartificiales) can, counterintuitively, encourage resistant audiences to be dismissive, to think that statistics “lie.” By drawing from the concept of framing in media studies, I explore how the language used around a calculation can better serve readers when it is more explicit about the statistic’s creation from a social process—that it is invented rather than used in argument. If statistics rely on interpretation, rhetors should invite their audience to interpret rather than insist on an interpretation. I use examples from news articles covering immigration in the United States to explore a frame that does such insisting and a frame that invites.

Web 2.0’s progressive use of personalizing algorithms has dangerously situated users into filter bubbles, or digital habitus. This insulated nature leaves users with an inability to engage civilly with others during online dialogues. This work examines how users on the sites Facebook and Countable frame and address online audiences, paying attention to the correlation between civility and action beyond the online dialogue. Through careful analyses on the respective comment threads, this work finds that the coupling of fewer personalizing algorithms and the inclusion of an established action beyond the dialogue can better ensure civility online.

This article explores the rhetorical dimensions of the structure and selected contents of Amnesty International’s official website. The study is empirical in nature and considers current patterns of textual resources and visual affordances together with color applications and compositional design. It analyzes a sample of news reports, AI mission statement, vision and values together with topical icons, infographics, photographic and video materials. It illustrates the salient multimodal solutions in persuasive communication and evaluates the organization’s online rhetoric with respect to the persuasive potential to mobilize support and remediate its appeals in social media. It also applies the notion of newsworthiness to demonstrate how reports, visuals and posts are represented to arouse emotions (pathos), engender authenticity and appropriateness of actions (logos) and boost credibility (ethos).

Discussions about the appropriateness of American children’s books on ethnic and racial issues have recently become headlines in American daily newspapers. Journalists and opinion writers are questioning the themes and the perspectives of the authors. While some believe there must be limitations on what is published for young readers, others claim any kind of censorship is a violation of the freedom of speech. The paper will provide examples of media debates concerning recently published books for children. Among others it will discuss the controversy about Ramin Ganeshram’s picture book A Birthday Cake for George Washington published in 2016 and no longer distributed because of its “sanitized” vision of slavery.

This paper examines a rhetorical case - Mother Teresa's narrative - for evidence of prophetic qualities, including social calls to action. Mother Teresa's story is considered through established methods of investigating prophecy, such as themes of announcements of judgment and reason and the Messenger formula. Her rhetoric is also examined through the theoretical lens of Walter Fisher's narrative coherence for evidence of biblical ideals and body language. Her lived experiences are also considered evidence of her prophetic nature. Mother Teresa's narrative is read and better valued as part of a wider context of social action consistent with prophecy.

Paul writes to the Galatians in the New Testament to bridge the two realms of cultural Judaism and Roman Imperialism. In this analysis of the letter written to the church of Galatia, we see both Hebraic prophecy and Greek, or Gentile, parrhesia. As the context shows, Paul attempts to persuade a hybrid audience on the edge between the two ancient cultures. Paul diagnoses the church’s problems through a prognostic teaching that fulfills a larger Pauline gospel agenda. Future scholars will need to attend to the work of both parrhesia and prophetic rhetoric in Christian texts over the two millennia since Paul’s initial fusion.

The future of democratic societies has been widely debated among futurologists, including the possible ways medicine could advance, changing the lives of individuals and communities. Yet, what seems a reasonable question to ask is – how the unequal access to healthcare might perpetuate social and economic divisions and turn democracy into tyranny. This paper advances a rhetorical analysis of the reciprocal relations between healthcare and the classed capitalist system as portrayed in two dystopian pictures: Mark Romanek’s Never Let Me Go (2010) and Neill Blomkamp’s Elysium (2013). The realities depicted in these movies, as well as their narratives, vary considerably; however, they both present medical advancements as means of and reasons for maintaining or perpetuating social inequality. The two dystopias also warn us of some possible dangers posed by the incompatibility of the capitalist mindset with morality and ethics, presenting corruption in healthcare systems as a result of the class conflict.

If the aim of argumentation is that of increasing acceptance of the orator’s thesis (Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca 1969, 49), then the ultimate goal of counsel, a widespread argumentative practice within the genres of discourse as well as literature, is indeed persuasion. The subject of this essay—that is, the rhetoric of counsel—allows us to observe the interpretative richness of this element of the “new rhetoric” through examples offered by Dante, Giovanni Boccaccio, Lucrezia Borgia and Niccolò Machiavelli, straddling the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance, bridging the fi elds of literature and history.

The Church of Scientology is currently experiencing a rash of negative publicity regarding its belief system, organizational structure, and practices. Amidst this controversy, Ecclesiastical Leader David Miscavige has continued to make speeches celebrating the church. But he has remained notably silent regarding the challenges facing his church. This short essay aims to: (a) provide an introduction to the church, (b) examine the rhetoric of Miscavige in light of the church’s practices, and (c) offer up some initial suggestions regarding how the two can, and do, relate to each other. The tentative conclusions drawnsuggest that, at best, Miscavige is providing his followers with a positive vision of the church; at worst, his rhetoric threatens to engender more criticism and further isolate the church.

This essay examines three arguments made by anti-Trump evangelical Christians in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. By explicating the arguments from character, policy, and evangelical witness, I show how this group of minority rhetors – a minority both within American evangelicalism and within the American electorate at large – used their minority status to project a prophetic warning against the Trump candidacy and in so doing developed a rhetoric that was politically potent while remaining faithful to evangelical theology and history. Paradoxically, it was by losing the election that these anti-Trump rhetors won the opportunity to articulate clearly and forcefully an evangelical political rhetoric and an implicit policy agenda.

Since Thomas Kuhn’s revolutionary look at the social construction of science, research into the rhetorics of science has shown how science is a persuasive form of discourse, rarely as transparent and self-evident as is often understood. Rhetorical studies have taken this cue to examine how science is constructed through available means beyond mere logic. Arguably, the resurgence of creationist beliefs in political discourse has brought on a new impetus in science to persuade the “hearts and minds” of the American population, inspiring Neil deGrasse Tyson’s remaking of Carl Sagan’s 1980 documentary Cosmos. Using Rudolph Otto’s, The Idea of the Holy, this article will define religion as an ineffable experience that creates “creature-consciousness,” or a sense of awe and insufficiency towards something outside the self, while also producing a sense of identification or “oneness.” The ineffable experience is core to the public making of science, just as the ineffable experience plays a defining role in religions. Though science and religion are often seen as mutually exclusively (sometimes in opposition), identifying the ineffable experience as a shared ground can provide opportunities for science and religion to dialogue in new ways.

Every year selected leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) speak to large audiences for regular devotional meetings at Brigham Young University, a private religious college in Provo, Utah. This study investigates the possibility that a rhetorical analysis of devotional speakers could be an effective way to observe typical language features in English public speaking that would be especially helpful for advanced English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) students in improving their comprehension and expression skills. Using published transcripts and cassette tape recordings of these Latter-day Saint discourses, the analysis includes lexical, figurative, syntactic, schematic, tonal, and semantic aspects of each devotional speech. The results suggest that such religious discourses contain language details and rhetorical patterns in English that ESL students could learn to recognize, understand, and use persuasively.

This essay offers an early assessment, after the first 100 days, of Donald Trump’s bewildering ascendency to the US presidency. It examines his apocalyptic rhetoric as a spectacle of salvation by demolition and deal making, a polarizing and demonizing politics that trades in deception and distraction. The spectacle, whether it is a means to an end or an end in itself, functions to distort democratic politics and to displace public dissent over the negative impact of economic globalization. The question raised is whether and how dissent might be channeled more constructively through a narrative of fairness that balances interests equitably and deliberates policy options credibly.

The gospel songs of Ralph Stanley offer solace by means of identifi cation with the singer’s losses and struggles, but they also offer a metaphoric framework of journey and homecoming found in many folk and country songs. The framework gives shape and meaning to the troubled aspects of life that make up much of the content of bluegrass songs, sacred and secular. Referencing Kenneth Burke’s early theories of rhetorical identifi cation and symbolic appeal, this study reads the inclusion of gospel songs in stage and recorded performance as a secularized means of self-definition: singers and listeners are linked as people with common origins and destinations. While expected themes of repentance and faith run throughout these gospel songs, the progressive form of home that is lost and then recovered sets up a secular analogy to the story of sin and redemption so common in American Protestant Evangelicalism. By scattering these songs throughout a bluegrass performance, the journey toward home becomes the pathway by which all the troubles of betrayal, heartbreak, conflict, and hard times are borne and transformed. In place of creed or practices of piety, all are invited to find common purpose in the experiences of disappointment, regret, and loss in the knowledge that they are on the “Long Journey Home.”

Epideictic rhetoric has been traditionally stigmatized as fl attery or empty show without any practical goal. Where does such attitude towards epideictic come from? To answer this question, we explore the ancient debate about the nature and the function of the epideictic genre. In the second part of this paper, we discuss the recent reappraisal of the epideictic among classical scholars and fi nally focus the attention on a promising fi eld of research: epideictic speeches in honor of women.

This paper sustains that rhetoric can be a fruitful way of practicing philosophy of language. The startingpoint is a suggestion drawn from the work of the Italian philosopher Roberto Esposito. According toEsposito, one of the main characteristics of the Italian thought is the focus on the necessary connectionbetween language and extra-linguistic world. I argue that rhetoric (intended in an Aristotelian sense), thanks to its extra-linguistic aim (persuasion), pays particular attention to this connection. This has important consequences: 1. considering speakers and listeners as essential components of speech and assigning a key position to the listener; 2. including the sphere of emotion in the fi eld of refl ection on language; 3. considering truth as a social practice; 4. considering the agonistic dimension as a constitutive element of the speech.

After a brief historical-methodological overview, this study is meant to prove that the theory of rhetorical genres (deliberative, judicial and epideictic), connected to that of the literary genres, offers scholars more insightful critical opportunities. The nouvelle rhétorique, applied to the analysis of rhetorical and literary genres, permits to unveil the argumentative dimension in literature. We have evaluated some passages of the Decameron and I promessi sposi [The Betrothed], two of the great classics of Italian literature, differing by historical settings, genres and contents. The two books have been analyzed from the rhetorical perspective. I promessi sposi [The Betrothed] may be interpreted as an instance of judicial genre, while the Decameron as deliberative and epideictic genres.

The purpose of this work is to analyze the persuasion which characterizes therapeutic advice and its collaborative goal. It is observed that this type of advice seems to be more effective when it is not limited to a mere scientific demonstration, but it considers also all the interlocutor’s subjective aspects. The study is supported by examples from a little corpus of transcribed real doctor-patient dialogues, collected and analyzed in a previous research work of the author. The research examines the principal arguments, argumentative figures and silences.

This essay analyzes the argumentative basis of the maternity debate on the main social network sites, in relation to the debate on the draft of Cirinnà bill on gay and lesbian civil partnerships in the Italian Parliament, to evaluate its congruence. The study of suasion (Eco, 1986), defined as a technique of covert persuasion, i.e., concealed and hidden (Mortara Garavelli, 2001), in relation to new media, represents “a new area of rhetoric, which deals almost exclusively with words and the act of writing in largely predetermined contexts” (Marazzini, 2001).