I found myself enjoying and learning much from this week's posts. Aaron wrote about what Hauser actually wants of the teachers of rhetoric, what "we" are to give to the students, and I wonder if it doesn't have something to do with what we discussed last week. Hauser states, ". . .instruct our students in the arts of effective argument, adapting appeals to their audience, expressing ideas in language that engages others, and on occasion, even inspires, and the relationship between the discourse they craft and the world they inhabit" (Hauser 13). If you think about this, what is needed is to instruct our students in believing that a) they have valid opinions, b) their opinions can engage others, and c) that in time they can inspire. Maybe I'm wrong, or simply optimistic, but today I think it takes as much education about one's own rights to speak up as it does "how" to do it correctly.
Mark's explanation of the spiral of silence was intriguing. Is this a part of rhetorical studies? It makes sense, the silence could tell one as much as the reams of printed words, I would think.
I wonder if this could also be taught more effectively via the internet. Expressing opinions and ideas over a somewhat anonymous forum. In Gronbeck's piece he talks about what direction the home computing age will take us politically. With each new age of technology there have been changes in how we view politics and politicians.
The WWI had radio and silent film clips and citizens had a chance for the first time to see what actually went on. It was also a time when war lost a great deal of the romantic idealism that had gone with it before. We can express opinions instantly now, and search out more information than what is given in a news sound-bite or a newspaper story. Perhaps soon, we'll be voting for the president from our homes. To be able to understand the process on a more individual level, to rhetorically analyze the process would be fascinating. Gronbeck states: "Simalarly, we must find ways as rhetoricians to study the political search processes in which individuals engage" (Gronbeck 28). A new way to utilize rhetorical skills.
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To answer your question, I believe political scientists and mass communication theorists share joint custody of spiral of silence. Occasionally it gets a rhetorical focus though. For instance, a really good article by Kielwasser & Wolf (1992) critically analyzed television programming that featured gay characters in order to reveal how television portrays homosexuality as a joke at some times, and as a curse at others, to the detriment of gay and lesbian adolescents who often decide to keep their views and identities hidden as a result of social pressure. Similarly, I'm working on a paper that explains how political cartoons are particularly effective for quieting particular opinions.
If memory serves, the political cartoon was a focus of several English 1000 courses as well....although I'm unsure of the focus of those assignments, it seems to connect the idea that we CAN teach these ideas...which kind of moves toward answering my earlier questions on how these ideas fit into pedagogy....
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