I've been monitoring the coverage of the protests (uprising, revolution, unrest, etc) in the Middle East with a bit more skeptical eye since reading Tannen.
Look at the slide show on the front page of the New York Times website from today, and see if you can identify some themes that Tannen talked about in her chapters on the media:
http://www.nytimes.com/
Even though the events of the past few days have become decidedly more violent, there's certainly a pattern in these photos: violence, conflict, machismo. Where are the peace-keepers/makers? Where are the medical personnel? Where are the peaceful protesters? And, in the event that this latest wave of violence has made those things impossible, where was the 20 slide photo slideshow when the protests were non-violent, peaceful, and celebratory?
All the News that's Fit to Print (but only if it's violent and we can get some sweet action shots of people hurting each other).
Showing posts with label Tannen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tannen. Show all posts
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Monday, January 31, 2011
Religion, Politics, and Agonistic Dualism
As I read Deborah Tannen's book, I found myself wondering why I had not even heard of it before, let alone read it. During seminary days, I had read and found very helpful You Just Don't Understand, but somehow The Argument Culture had slipped past me. I found the book to be one of those rare gems that is simultaneously insightful and also recognizable as truth that you already know. It may be a "popular" take on argumentation, but it seems to me to be one that takes very seriously multiple problems in our current media, political, and academic cultures.
I found particularly insightful her distinction between agonistic, ritualize opposition ("fighting for the sake of fighting") and reasoned argumentation. Although I agree with Maxwell regarding her use of sources, I think the overall lines she traces through the media, the law, politics, and academia weave a strong fabric of support for her thesis. As someone who studies political communication and has long had a passionate interest in truth-telling, I thought her analysis of the way the "two sides" approach distorts understanding of crucial public issues was spot on. The truth is too often victim to the way we have come to believe that "both sides" must be aired - even when one of those sides does not have a leg to stand on (e.g. holocaust deniers), or there are, in reality, multiple perspectives to be considered.
As I mentioned in class, the main background I bring to my current life in academia is my experience in the church as a pastor. Allow me to make a connection, if you will. Each year during Holy Week I watch again the third part of Zeffirelli's Jesus of Nazareth, and I have also used this section of the film with confirmation and adult classes over the years. Zeffirelli is a master at showing the way others projected onto Jesus what they wanted him to be, and particularly the way that they tried to fit him into boxes of their own making. There is this wonderful moment in the film where he heals the centurian's son, and some zealots, watching the scene, remark to each other "so, he's a friend of the Romans." It is so clear at that moment that, in a world of dualistic opposition, he cannot be seen for who he really is, and his message cannot be heard. It is a realization that will lead to his death.
I wonder, with Tannen, to what extent our cultural insistence on dualistic thinking leads to an inability to see or hear the truth (or, to be post-modern about it, the multiple truths of peoples' lives), and what profound opportunities we miss in the process.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Tannen, in short, ...
... was enjoyable. Each chapter was clear and insightful, and the topics on which she focused her chapters were all things I find very interesting. I'll admit, I did skim some of the middle chapters, but her discussion of the press and politics convinced me of their centrality of creating the argument culture.
Some minor criticism:
For you Comp-Rhet people out there (and everyone who has taught writing to beginning writers): What did you think of Tannen's slight digression into the memory of her teaching in the FYC classroom? On page 95 she gives an example of how journalists could change their professional methods to mitigate the 'Argument Culture.' Tannen realized she had more to offer her students than simple copy-editing when '[she] figured out there was a lot [she] could still offer the students, but [she] had to step back and regard their papers from a more holistic perspective, thinking about what they were trying to do in the paper and how well they succeeded in doing it.' Journalism would improve because journalists would be 'freed of the task of looking for errors, not only readers but writers and commentators could step back and take a more holisitc view, which would, in the end, be a more accurate one' (94).
I played the believing game on this one, and since I approach my role as an instructor the same way, I think she's onto something here. Holistic thinking, analysis, and critique may well be the key to unlocking a non-argument culture.
Some minor criticism:
- The research in this book was mostly good, but at times I felt her sources didn't exactly support her claims or were shaky to begin with. This book straddles the popular/academic divide, so I'm not 100% sure I can hold this against her.
- She used her synonyms for the argument culture interchangeably. Do argument culture, culture of argument, culture of aggression, and the others all mean the same thing?
- the printing of my book got screwed up, and on three separate even-numbered pages, the text on the far right of each line got cut off. Talk about annoying (Note: I know this has nothing to do with Tannen, but I have half a mind to write those jokers over at Ballantine and give them a piece of my mind :)
For you Comp-Rhet people out there (and everyone who has taught writing to beginning writers): What did you think of Tannen's slight digression into the memory of her teaching in the FYC classroom? On page 95 she gives an example of how journalists could change their professional methods to mitigate the 'Argument Culture.' Tannen realized she had more to offer her students than simple copy-editing when '[she] figured out there was a lot [she] could still offer the students, but [she] had to step back and regard their papers from a more holistic perspective, thinking about what they were trying to do in the paper and how well they succeeded in doing it.' Journalism would improve because journalists would be 'freed of the task of looking for errors, not only readers but writers and commentators could step back and take a more holisitc view, which would, in the end, be a more accurate one' (94).
I played the believing game on this one, and since I approach my role as an instructor the same way, I think she's onto something here. Holistic thinking, analysis, and critique may well be the key to unlocking a non-argument culture.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Us vs Them
I wanted to hold off on commenting on the Tannen book until I had gotten all the way through it to make sure I understood her text as a whole. However, I'm seeing a lot of what she's talking about in my daily life, and I think that's worth noting.
First of all, there is a section in chapter 2 about sports announcers. The argument Tannen was making here is not only that sports are inherently (excessively so) violent, but that the way the announcers interpret the events helps create the argument culture by emphasizing violence and creating metaphors and images for the viewers that create undue tension. The idea of sport being mediated by one or more particular media is something that's made me stop and ponder (think about the people you see at the ballpark with radios; think about watching/listening to the radio broadcast of the game over the internet; think about how much more there is to baseball than can be shown in a tiny, electrical box), but the fact that announcers could make hockey more violent (50-51) was too much. With baseball season just around the corner, let me know if you ever want to listen to some mediated sports fun this Spring.
Another way Tannen's argument became crystal clear to me, was after watching the State of the Union Address on Tuesday (early apologies to those of you who have already heard all this, or maybe it will help you digest your ideas). In my Presidential Rhetoric seminar, we closely examined Obama's speech: how it conformed to the generic expectations, the tone of his policy recommendations, etc. We also examined the context surrounding the speech: the media spectacle, how the first lady's choice to wear or not wear sleeves factored into the whole show, and most germane to Arguing Differently, was the Republican Response to the President's speech. The minority party has only been responding for a few decades now (never mind the Bachmann response now), but the fact that this response sets up a dichotomous, Us vs. Them, two sides and only two sides, shows us Tannen's analysis embodied in a real-life rhetorical moment.
I like the way this book takes television to task. The last good bashing of TV I read was Niel Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death, and that was a year ago. Tannen is subtle though. She doesn't come right out and deplore TV, but I have a feeling that one of her major claims will ultimately revolve around media, the mediation of public discourse, and instead of thinking outside the box, exploding the box.
First of all, there is a section in chapter 2 about sports announcers. The argument Tannen was making here is not only that sports are inherently (excessively so) violent, but that the way the announcers interpret the events helps create the argument culture by emphasizing violence and creating metaphors and images for the viewers that create undue tension. The idea of sport being mediated by one or more particular media is something that's made me stop and ponder (think about the people you see at the ballpark with radios; think about watching/listening to the radio broadcast of the game over the internet; think about how much more there is to baseball than can be shown in a tiny, electrical box), but the fact that announcers could make hockey more violent (50-51) was too much. With baseball season just around the corner, let me know if you ever want to listen to some mediated sports fun this Spring.
Another way Tannen's argument became crystal clear to me, was after watching the State of the Union Address on Tuesday (early apologies to those of you who have already heard all this, or maybe it will help you digest your ideas). In my Presidential Rhetoric seminar, we closely examined Obama's speech: how it conformed to the generic expectations, the tone of his policy recommendations, etc. We also examined the context surrounding the speech: the media spectacle, how the first lady's choice to wear or not wear sleeves factored into the whole show, and most germane to Arguing Differently, was the Republican Response to the President's speech. The minority party has only been responding for a few decades now (never mind the Bachmann response now), but the fact that this response sets up a dichotomous, Us vs. Them, two sides and only two sides, shows us Tannen's analysis embodied in a real-life rhetorical moment.
I like the way this book takes television to task. The last good bashing of TV I read was Niel Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death, and that was a year ago. Tannen is subtle though. She doesn't come right out and deplore TV, but I have a feeling that one of her major claims will ultimately revolve around media, the mediation of public discourse, and instead of thinking outside the box, exploding the box.
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