Download Communications 300: Narrative, Dramatism, and Rhetorical Analysis - Prof. Star Muir and more Study notes Communication in PDF only on Docsity! Communications 300 – Final Exam Guide Narrative: - Narrative paradigm is anchored in Walter Fisher’s connection that the most basic human symbolic response to rhetoric exigencies is storytelling. - 8 Narrative Elements o Narrator o Characters (characters are motivated to act by others or the context) o Plot (a good story has recognizable patterns of causality) o Setting (context) – setting serves as indicator of prior events, circumstances, and conditions surrounding the characters o Temporal Relations o Causal Relations o Audience o Themes - Standards to evaluate Narrative Rationality: o Narrative probability (coherence) – Does the story hang together – events of the story follow one because of another? Is the plot free of contradictions? o Narrative Fidelity (correspondence) – concerns with truth qualities and logic of good reasons (relevance, consistency, etc) Daramatism: - Man is the symbol making, using, and misusing. o Inventor of the negative o Separated from nature by instruments of our own making o Humans are goaded by spirit of hierarchy (ranking of categories) o Humans are in a state of guilt because they are not perfect, they are not at the top of their hierarchy. o Humans are aware of their impending death - Identification – the essential nature of persuasion, identifying your ways with theirs. - Cycle of Terms o Order and disorder o Sin and guilt o Victimage – the demand for a sacrifice Mortification – sacrificing oneself Scapegoating – placing the blame on someone or something other than oneself o Redemption – reinforces the order - The Pentad – search model that provides a set of topics to get us thinking systematically about dramas embedded in all messages. o Act, Agent, Agency, Scene, Purpose o Ratios – explains a rationale for how a message works The first element controls the interpretation Fantasy Theme Analysis - Developed by Ernest Bormann as a means of accounting for how groups of people use stories to see the world in similar ways. - Fantasies – stories, recollections of events involving the group, or discussions of recurring topics that may seem at first irrelevant to the group’s task - Fantasy Themes – word, phrase, or story that accounts for group experience - Robert Bales dynamic process of group fantasizing: o Small groups eventually start dramatizing o Convergence starts as the group is creating a shared reality amongst them all. - Fantasy Type – example: “Cinderella team”, or “gate” is used as a scandal (Watergate) - Rhetorical Vision – description of how things should be; coherent picture of fantasy themes; rhetorical visions affect how people perceive and interpret their reality Feminist Criticism - Patriarchy – the domination of men and male thinking and speech in the political, social, and economic structure of a culture - Liberal Feminism o Dominant philosophy of the early women’s rights activists o Women are entitled to the same natural rights as men because they are essentially the same as men: reasoning and independent o Liberal feminists position accept the existing political and economic structure, but demands that women be assimilated equally into that structure - Cultural Feminism o Cultural feminists believe that the causes of inequality for women are rooted in ideologies about gender in our culture through religion and media. o They argue that feminine qualities are typically devalued in society. o A critic examines how gender is portrayed in the message, how women and men are portrayed differently. - Postmodern Feminism o Postmodern feminism insists that feminists hold different perspectives or standpoints because of their variations in age, race, class, etc, and it expresses doubt that the differences between men and women are permanent. o Focus on how women understand and represent their lives Generic Criticism
