This image, taken from the 2008 Presidential Debate shows how Mitt Romney is actively appealing to the audience. Mitt answers tot he audiences' questions in a manner to persuade them to vote for him.
Thursday, April 24, 2014
A5 Blog #2: Audience
The audience plays a very critical role in discussions. First of all, all sides of the rhetorical situation must focus their facts and arguments to suit the viewpoint of those in the audience. In public discussions or debates, one does not try to sway their opponents viewpoints to their side, but rather they want to convince the audience that they are right and to fall in line with their beliefs. For example, in the Presidential debates Obama was not convincing Romney to join the democratic party, but rather he was trying to convince those unsure of where they stand politically to vote for him. Both candidates did so by appealing to the audience on various subjects.
The audience determines the direction in which the discussion goes before it even starts because both sides have to attempt to say what the audience wants to hear. Also, the audience can shape the conversation by giving an advantage to one side, while forcing the other to fell as if they are losing the argument--which is when people tend to resort to bad faith argumentation of logical fallacies, lies, and personal attacks.
Another way the audience impacts the ethics within a rhetorical situation is by control. The audience ensures that no party steps out of line and completely bashes a party or does anything too crazy. Having an audience makes people be conscientious of their actions for fear of public out-lash, which would ultimately hurt their own image, as well as the viewpoints they represent.
If there was no audience, it would be interesting to see how discussions would change. I think they would completely lose structure and purpose where people instead resort to verbal fighting, while making no progress on the discussion of the debated subject. What do you think and how large of an impact do you think the audience has?
This image, taken from the 2008 Presidential Debate shows how Mitt Romney is actively appealing to the audience. Mitt answers tot he audiences' questions in a manner to persuade them to vote for him.
This image, taken from the 2008 Presidential Debate shows how Mitt Romney is actively appealing to the audience. Mitt answers tot he audiences' questions in a manner to persuade them to vote for him.
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Honestly, I think you are right stating that without an audience people wouldn't hold back and they would argue. Because of the audience people watch what they say because they want to conserve their image and popularity. However, if people were able to really say their beliefs in front of an audience it would open insight into what people are really thinking in society. By bringing down that social wall, however horrible the things people may think are, it would provide a basis for people to build off and discuss.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the audience really plays a very large part in having a proper discussion. A discussion really relies on the audience to keep the two sides from arguing without having a conclusion in mind. We can really see this with the discussions that we saw in class, where they would just stop discussions in the middle of a large argument without ever having reached a conclusion because there was no audience watching to make sure that both sides were having a proper discussion. One thing that could be interesting to think about is a situation in which the audience listened and began to have their own discussions about the things said. I guess this could really be a goal for any discussion, to have the audience listen to the intelligent things said and contemplate such things on their own.
ReplyDeleteI agree. I do think that the main issue with audiences in this case, however is that instead of having a quality discussion, both candidates are trying to win over the audience. I think that with political debates, there needs to be a way for a proper discussion to be held without unnecessary fighting, or holding back their truthful opinions to please the live audience. In this case, there are a lot of people watching from home, and a change in opinion to please one person in a live audience can negatively effect a candidates reputation.
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