Private to Public and...Morals?

As we discussed the Panama Papers in class on Wednesday, one particular question rose to the forefront: “What causes documents that aren’t meant to be public to go public?” I believe some of my own questions are related to this issue: How do private-made-public documents catch and maintain the attention of a public? How is it that some people take years to make others in a certain public even care or do something about a problem, and then something like the Panama Paper leak immediately grabs the notice of a public so large it engulfs nations?

I think there are many, many multi-faceted answers to these questions, so I’m going to propose just one idea. But first, consider these excerpts from various news articles and note any thematic trends:

• True, the papers may not provide evidence of corruption involving these families. But they will strengthen perceptions that the elite enjoy enormous wealth and privilege, despite Mr Xi’s massive anti-corruption drive… The revelations could therefore pose a dilemma for Mr Xi. Does he push his anti-corruption campaign harder against some of the most influential families in China, or does he go easy on them, and tone down the anti-corruption campaign, which he has said he will not do? ~ “The Panama papers embarrass China’s leaders” by The Economist
•  John and Tony Podesta aren’t fooling anyone with this ruse. They are lobbyists for Vladimir Putin’s personal bank of choice, an arm of his Kremlin and its intelligence services. Since the brothers Podesta are presumably destined for very high-level White House jobs next January if the Democrats triumph in November at the polls, their relationship with Sberbank is something they—and Hillary Clinton—need to explain to the public. ~ “Panama Papers RevealClinton’s Kremlin Connection” by John Schindler, opinion piece in the Observer
•  Richard Burgon, the shadow Treasury minister, said Cameron’s admission showed a “crisis of morals” at the heart of the Conservative government. ~ “David Cameron admitshe profited from father's Panama offshore trust fund” by The Guardian

Okay, granted, what I asked you to do was very much directed by my own interpretation; to get the full context, check out the hyperlinked articles. One trend I noticed involved an implied tension between a future action and a current moral/ethical dilemma. Though this might be one of those “no-brainer” statements, it seems to me that publics are as much guided by issues of morality as much by practicality.

Publics are comprised both of rhetors and audiences, are they not? And audiences esteem rhetors they perceive to have a high ethos. An aspect of ethos involves practical wisdom “through the use of common sense and sound reason” (Palczewski 153). According to Christopher Lyle Johnstone, “Practical wisdom is the power of good deliberation. It is the excellence of the practical intellect, and its aim is to discover through deliberation ‘truth’ about rightness of desired ends. The objective of practical wisdom, therefore, is the apprehension of moral truth, of truth in the probable and contingent realm of action” (3).

Think of it this way: public discourse inherently involves a series of choices, both in the texts written and selected as well as the actions taken in response to those texts. Those choices are usually accompanied by some sort of justification/reasoning; we justify choice by explaining the rightness of its action. We don’t know who leaked the Panama Papers, but we could imagine what was going through his or her mind: “Should I leak these papers?” Apparently this person decided yes; I would argue that moral reasons probably most prompted this action. Why? Well, we use the word should to express obligation or duty. And personally, I think obligations and duties would hold little weight if they didn’t have a solid foundation in some type of morality.

So individuals may have their own moral code, but how would morals play a role in the public sphere? To say that publics don’t act according to morals might be inaccurate. Then what are those morals, and who decides which morals govern a particular public? In his analysis of a different scholar’s work, Andrew Lister proposes the idea of “moral compromise.” I haven’t read the entire article yet, but what I have read provides a lot of food for thought. If you’re interested in reading it yourself, this is the reference:

Lister, Andrew. "Public Reason and Moral Compromise." Canadian Journal of Philosophy 37.1 (2007): 1-34. Print.

Sources referenced:

Johnstone, Christopher. “An Aristotelian Trilogy: Ethics, Rhetoric, Politics, and the Search for Moral Truth.” Philosophy & Rhetoric 13.1 (1980): 1-24. Print.

Palczewski, Catherine Helen., Richard Ice, and John Fritch. Rhetoric in Civic Life. State College, PA: Strata Pub., 2012. Print. 

Case of the Public Presentation and the "Real" Audience

When: April 4, 2016

Where: MSU Writing Center

Victims: 6 Peer Tutors & 1 WC boss & 1 straggler (English Dept. Head)

At 4:30 pm the rainclouds rolled into Bozeman, and as the first drops hit the pavement, I trundled into the building, pulling my windblown hair from my face. The blustery weather had dampened my plans; I wanted my targets primed and in a good mood, but even something as subtle as outdoor conditions could affect how they receive my spiel.

No matter; I came prepared. Earlier that weekend I had taken the time to bake 48 individual bribes cloaked in sugar and dark-chocolatey goodness. What exactly was I bribing people to do? To come to my presentation on style, of course. The email announcement—which included the mention of cookies—set the bait, and all I had to do was follow through and cinch the deal. My training taught me well: “In order to have goodwill…the rhetor has to understand the frame of mind of the audience. When the rhetor assesses the audience and incorporates the appropriate appeals, s/he appears to be motivated by the audience’s interests and needs” (Palczewski 154). This basic concept is regularly practiced by groups aiming to sucker college students into worthwhile activities; what better universal appeal could you use besides that which is directed towards the stomach?

Armed with cookies, I felt confident I could lure some otherwise-reluctant people to participate. Plus, I thought my cover was pretty decent: fellow tutor concerned about cracking the code of dense, unclear writing. I even straightened my hair and applied makeup that morning in the hopes of appearing semi-professional. And I had a secret plan.

Yup. The plan was so secret, it wasn’t even written out—it was just all in my head. Okay, so it wasn’t fully rehearsed either. This particular assignment presented a new challenge for me: interacting with the subjects rather than speaking from a memorized script. Those “cold” cases are certainly easier to work with—less potential for messiness.

Didn’t some famous guy say, “What can get messy, will get messy?” (Or you know—something along those lines). Well, he was right. The most rehearsed part of my plan got messy. Or rather, my subconscious decided to rebel and mess up my plan. See, I had scoped out the situation beforehand and resolved not to lay all my cards on the table. If I revealed one of my primary motives for the presentation—an assignment given me by one of my superiors—then that information might not sit well with the audience.

I spilled the beans; at least it was a good cop out from my original plan.

Interestingly, the audience didn’t seem miffed at my divulgence. I figured, Well, I honestly told them that though the assignment prompted me to action, I have been interested in the topic a long time prior and felt it has been overlooked in WC discussions. Maybe they concluded that genuine interest on the part of the rhetor, albeit with mixed motives, is better than no genuine interest. Yet not only was the audience unperturbed, they also weren’t distracted by the cookies. Huh. They weren’t such a tough sell as I had thought they’d be. They didn’t need to be persuaded to listen to me; they were already personally intrigued by a topic directly relevant to their line of work. Then again, because I know these people, this shouldn’t have surprised me…

You know how some people have “light-bulb moments”? I think I had a strobe light epiphany. I realized that I had underestimated/misunderstood my audience because I hadn’t thought about them specifically going into the assignment; instead, I resorted to my “public” writing mindset.

“[P]ublics are different from persons, that the address of public rhetoric is never going to be the same as address to actual persons,” writes Michael Warner (58). His statement makes sense to me. My go-to writing mindset assumes a public audience; thus, I use all the ammunition available to me to persuade even the most hardened (and unknown) audience member—although obviously those homework assignments are rarely seen by more than two people.

Instead of tailoring my presentation to specific people I knew would attend, I prepared to meet the imaginary public in my mind, one that was less gracious than the actual.

Once the smoke cleared (since at this point the strobe light was scorched), I was able to relax and allow the presentation take a more conversational turn. We discussed the suggestions listed on the handouts (see the Evidence below) as well as other techniques that individuals have used in sessions.

During the conversation, I mentally jotted down two observations: 

The exclusivity of the first observation notwithstanding, I thought these indicated signs of a good day's work. No crimes were committed or detected that day, but perhaps future (writing style) ones were averted.

Evidence 

The Power of Personae

“All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely rhetors.”

~ Shakespeare, misquoted

How do silenced or ignored people gain a voice? How does the subordinate party in an asymmetrical power relationship acquire agency? In his article, “‘White Guys Who Send My Uncle to Prison’: Going Public within Asymmetrical Power,” Ben Kuebrich discusses just these issues. One of his points involves the persona of the subordinate group. Within their hidden transcript, the subordinate group—in this case, Syracuse’s Westside residents—may often "critique, complain about, and blame" the neighborhood cops for prejudiced, ineffective policing. But during a community forum including both police and residents, “the large-group conversation revolved around loose terms like ‘dialogue,’ ‘communication,’ and ‘respect,’ and residents took much of the responsibility for problems” (Kuebrich 581). When the residents discussed power issues “off-stage,” they wore a different mask, or persona, than when they stood “onstage” before a police audience.

Why beat around the bush? Why didn’t the residents hit the cops head-on with specific issues rather than generalized problems? Consider this: “persona invites assent both to the request made and to the person making it” (Palczewski et al. 151, emphasis added). Do you feel like cooperating with someone who blasts you with both barrels? Probably not. Even though the residents’ pointed criticisms would have been accurate, they would not have been conducive to productive discussion (though one could argue the actual productivity of that community forum, I say any productivity is better than none). By emphasizing “dialogue,” “communication,” and “respect,” the Westside residents presented the goodwill facet of persona; they wanted to work with the police rather than against them—a perception that would have lowered the lawpersons’ defenses.

This persona aspect of goodwill along with the aspect of virtue appears even in the residents/university’s I Witness publication. One contributor named Bonaparte added an introductory paragraph to his chapter after reading the transcript of his conversation; he was worried about “police officers and people outside the neighborhood reading his chapter

and thinking that he ‘just hates the cops’” (Kuebrich 584). His revision reframed the chapter so people would know he wanted a platform to promote improved policing, not “an excuse to tell horror stories” (Kuebrich 584).

We might say the Westside residents presented a rather “non-threatening” persona to the police. I’d go even a step further and describe their persona as “gentle”—which is ironic as I define gentleness as “power under control.” But it’s true: the residents had some power to shatter whatever good image the police had with outside/other publics. Yet a certain “violence” is naturally done on the dominant public or power-holder’s discourse when a counterpublic or subordinate group gains more power. So where is the line between that gentleness and violence? And which kinds of personae effect the most comprehensive, productive results?

Presentation and Project Updates

In regards to the "Going Public" assignment...
I'm hoping to put together a workshop on style for my co-workers at the Writing Center. We've all come across writing that is "dense" and hard to read--but expressing why it's dense and how to clean it up becomes more challenging, especially if you perceive the writer as far more intelligent than yourself! This issue is addressed by Joseph Williams in his book, Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace. Using Williams's book as the foundation, I would set up a workshop that is part presentation, part group discussion and practical application through a series of practice exercises. Though much of the material would come directly from the book, the presentation would nonetheless be very much my own rhetorical creation as I have to decide which topics and "hints" take precedence over the others. The obstacles facing this workshop are 1) figuring out a date and 2) motivating people to actually come.

In regards to the "Montana Rhetoric Project"...
Erin, Danae, Anjeli, and I are planning to analyze the rhetoric underlying historic vigilante activity in Montana. What did both proponents and opponents say about it? What did vigilance reveal about the times? Have cultural views of justice changed over time? This is a sample of the questions guiding our inquiry. We still have yet to decide a specific location or context on which to focus; for example, we've mentioned the vigilantes associated with Bannock City, Virginia City, or Helena as well as events such as the hanging of Henry Plummer.

Spring-boarding a discussion on argument

Or for a quicker analysis, check out the transcript of this debate.

My ridiculously long video

Sources used:

Asen, Robert. "Imagining in the Public Sphere." Philosophy and Rhetoric 35.4 (2002): 345-67.

DNews. "What Solitary Confinement Does To The Brain." YouTube. YouTube, 14 June 2015. Web. 11 Feb. 2016. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KE71OCsjaW0>.

Edge, Dan. "FRONTLINE: Solitary Nation." PBS. PBS, 22 Apr. 2014. Web. 11 Feb. 2016. <http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/solitary-nation/>.

Eilperin, Juliet. "Obama Bans Solitary Confinement for Juveniles in Federal Prisons." Washington Post. The Washington Post, 26 Jan. 2016. Web. 11 Feb. 2016. <https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-bans-solitary-confinement-for-juveniles-in-federal-prisons/2016/01/25/056e14b2-c3a2-11e5-9693-933a4d31bcc8_story.html>.

Frank, Priscilla. "Prisoners In Solitary Confinement Requested Photos Of The Outside World -- And Here They Are." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 20 Sept. 2013. Web. 11 Feb. 2016. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/20/solitary-confinement-phot_n_3950622.html>.

Fraser, Nancy. "Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy." Social Text 25.26 (1990): 56-80.

HuffPost Live. "Actor Robert Knepper Discusses His Role in 'Prison Break'" YouTube. YouTube, 7 Feb. 2013. Web. 11 Feb. 2016. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhAE1WchvSQ>.

Keim, Brandon. "The Horrible Psychology of Solitary Confinement." Wired.com. Conde Nast Digital, 10 July 2013. Web. 11 Feb. 2016. <http://www.wired.com/2013/07/solitary-confinement-2/>.

Obama, Barack. "Barack Obama: Why We Must Rethink Solitary Confinement." Washington Post. The Washington Post, 25 Jan. 2016. Web. 11 Feb. 2016. <https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/barack-obama-why-we-must-rethink-solitary-confinement/2016/01/25/29a361f2-c384-11e5-8965-0607e0e265ce_story.html>.

Palczewski, Catherine Helen., Richard Ice, and John Fritch. Rhetoric in Civic Life. State College, PA: Strata Pub., 2012. Print.

The Paley Center for Media. "Prison Break - Knepper on Violence." YouTube. YouTube, 9 Apr. 2009. Web. 11 Feb. 2016. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPTkgFB4gTk>.

Schwirtz, Michael, and Michael Winerip. "Kalief Browder, Held at Rikers Island for 3 Years Without Trial, Commits Suicide." The New York Times. The New York Times, 08 June 2015. Web. 11 Feb. 2016. <http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/09/nyregion/kalief-browder-held-at-rikers-island-for-3-years-without-trial-commits-suicide.html?_r=0>.

Simpson, Brad. "Solitary Confinement Will Make You A Little Crazy. Period. - Prison Writers." Prison Writers. 2015. Web. 11 Feb. 2016. <http://www.prisonwriters.com/solitary-makes-anyone-crazy/>.

Villarreal, Jose. "Solitary Confinement: All That's Left To Do Is Go Crazy - Prison Writers." Prison Writers. 2015. Web. 11 Feb. 2016. <http://www.prisonwriters.com/solitary-confinement/>.

Rough draft for analysis project

***Please note: I'm hoping to present this project in video/audio format, so that may affect or inspire your insights and comments. Also, my apologies for not having specific examples for the rhetorical analysis (I spent too much time on the background), but I've included notes to show where I'm planning to go with a few particular ideas...

The WashingtonPost  reports, “President Obama on [January 25, 2016] announced a ban on solitary confinement for juvenile offenders in the federal prison system, saying the practice is overused and has the potential for devastating psychological consequences.”

Interestingly, Amy Fettig, senior staff counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union and director of the group’s Stop Solitary Campaign, stated, “We rarely have presidents take notice of prison conditions.” (Washington Post)

Okay, so why has Obama taken notice?

Well, my guess is that a discourse about solitary confinement in prisons has given rise to a public sphere—and one big enough to attract the President’s attention.

According to a PBS documentary, solitary confinement “began in America in the 1800s as a progressive experiment to see if isolation would reform criminals. It was soon largely abandoned because prisoners didn’t reform. They lost their minds. But in the 1980s, solitary reemerged as a way to stamp out prison violence” (17:15 min). Well, that and because of rehabilitation cuts and because the prisons were overcrowded (Wired).

Researchers have documented apparent symptoms of solitary confinement in prisoners, which include extreme anxiety, anger, hallucinations, mood swings and flatness, and loss of impulse control. In the absence of stimuli, prisoners may also become hypersensitive to any stimuli at all. Often they obsess uncontrollably, as if their minds didn’t belong to them, over tiny details or personal grievances. Panic attacks are routine, as is depression and loss of memory and cognitive function. (Wired)

The Post states, “An increasing number of studies show a connection between isolating prisoners and higher rates of recidivism.” Don’t gloss over the word connection. To put into scientific terms, this means correlation, and correlations, no matter how strong, can never prove a cause and effect relationship, even in the case of solitary confinement, where the evidence seems convincing. Some prison officers warn of inmates trying manipulation—faking mental illness—to get themselves out of solitary. Still other people argue that inmates who are already predisposed to mental illness wind up in solitary.

Despite the controversy, the overall public opinion towards inmates in solitary confinement seems to have shifted dramatically. The public awareness may have been caught by research findings, but its continued attention appears to be motivated through a changed representation of the inmates in public discourse, which evolved simultaneously with the publication of research.

Examples:

Prison Break television series (beginning in 2005)

The Shawshank Redemption movie, 1994

Prison Writers website, founded 2014, gives inmates a voice/opportunity to contribute to public discourse

***Explain Asen and role of representation/imagination. Also note how different language/terministic screening contributes to a particular representation

***Symbolic action displayed by inmates, as recorded in PBS documentary; along with Prison Writers, points toward a counterpublic. Or would they be actually in the dominant public, since that public seems to be in their favor?

“[T]o convince another person of an idea, purely rational and objective argument is not enough because communication occurs though language that has judgments embedded within it” (Palczewski et al. 54). Basically, language is pathetic by nature—not pitiful like wet-cat-in-the-rain pathetic, but pathetic in the rhetorical sense, relating to emotions. What’s underneath emotion is an expression of values, and we make judgments based on values.

***Explain ideographs referenced in the changing representations

Breaking into a Public

“Although inclusion is indispensable, exclusion is never total. Sometimes, people force their way into public forums and agendas.” Robert Asen, 346

So far I’ve been thinking about public discourse in terms of texts and the speeches, newscasts, and other texts surrounding those. But what about music—isn’t music involved in the discourse as well?

Music has historically been a means for people to communicate and/or make political and social statements—just check out Shostakovich’s protest against Stalin’s regime (such a huge statement even without the aid of lyrics!). If we move a little closer to home, however, we find past music publics that exemplified what Asen discusses regarding collective imagination and representation.

Consider the minstrel songs from the 1830s; when white musicians heard the work songs of plantation slaves, they returned north, painted their faces black with cork (a kind of shoe polish), and performed shows meant to mock African Americans. Asen states that “representation historically has meant both standing for something absent and making something present” (355); through a visual and lyrical discourse, the minstrels represented (inaccurately) a people physically absent from the shows.

 Now, Asen asserts that collective imagining entails “social dialogue [which] enables the formation of opinions that did not exist prior to discursive engagement” (349). The white popular collective imagining of African Americans was turned upside down when confronted with black social/musical “dialogue”:

Most folks in the north had never heard Black music performed by Black musicians. That would change and have dramatic effect when the Fisk University Jubilee Singers  performed in the northern United States in 1867 and then on formal tour with just nine singers in 1871. While people were at first angered that the music wasn’t “minstrel show” style but rather profoundly moving concert music, the impact of actual Black music performed by Black musicians would change everything. (Funk 34)

Not only did black musicians “force their way into public [music] forums,” but they did so with profound effect. White music publics realized that this “new” music was actually quite sophisticated and enjoyable. In fact, Scott Joplin’s ragtimepiano music was a hit in most households across the country, especially after the Stock Market Crash of 1908. Both sheet music and records of the rags were available for purchase. Musicians in military bands even transcribed Joplin’s music into band arrangements (Funk 35).

Interestingly enough, even within the developing jazz scene, the counterpublic of women musicians was still barred from “manly” instruments like trumpet and clarinet and encouraged only to pursue vocals or piano. Hmm—could there be counterpublics to counterpublics? At any rate, it wasn’t until WWII when all-female swing bands swept the country and wrestled with “seeking to advance self-fashioned interpretations of their interests and needs against interpretations imposed by others” (Asen 346). (Perhaps I’ll post more on this later).

The question at the forefront of my mind while reading Asen was, “How do you change people’s minds?” In response to that question, I think Asen would once again emphasize the importance of inclusiveness within publics—even if that inclusiveness was forced from the outside.

Sources:

Asen, Robert. "Imagining in the Public Sphere." Philosophy and Rhetoric 35.4 (2002): 345-67.

Funk, Eric. Sound Thinking: It's ALL Music--How Music Connects With Everything. Kendall Hunt Pub, 2015. Web.

A public rallied around the Sodders

Warning: Sad story ahead. One of my history-buff roommates told me about this strange occurrence.

To summarize, on the night before Christmas of 1945, a family’s home went up in flames. The Sodder parents managed to escape with four of their children, though five other children in the house never made it out. At first the parents thought those children must have died in the fire, but an investigation revealed no trace of the bodies. The family began to piece together any and all recollections of odd happenings prior to the tragedy; they concluded the children must still be alive and commenced on a nation-wide search for them. To date, no information has been found concerning the missing Sodder children. (Read here for the full account). 

One might say the Sodder’s story went public the moment they hung up a flyer, but this is inaccurate. According to Warner, it is not single texts that create publics but rather “the concatenation of texts through time” (62). I’m not sure when the newspapers really started to pick up the story, but the earliest “intertextual” newspaper clipping I found came from a 1968 article. Notice that this article references other news articles, the Sodder’s letters to the FBI, tips and leads from perhaps well-intentioned but misinformed people, and the billboard depicting the missing children (photo). Not only is the article itself intertextual/intergeneric, but it implies a pre-existing public discourse. I do want to acknowledge, however, that some of the referenced material in the article, such as the letters, were not public (unless they were published or printed in a different news article).

The knowability of the audience seems to also differentiate between “private” and “public” texts. If the scope and specific persons comprising the audience is known, then that discourse cannot be public, for “publics are different from persons, that the address of public rhetoric is never going to be the same as address to actual persons” (Warner 58). We might say that publics are made of an unbounded, half real and half imaginary-potential, audience. Habermas states, “[P]ublic opinion can by definition only come into existence when a reasoning public is presupposed” (50). Even he hints at the idea of the imaginary audience with the word, “presupposed.”

Fraser breaks down Habermas’s idea of “matters of general” into separate categories, one of which is “common concern.” She says that “what will count as a matter of common concern will be decided precisely through discursive contestation” (71). If you take another look at this Smithsonian article, scroll down to the comments section. You will find one of three recurring trends within those comments: 1) the desire to know what really happened 2) comments and advice for how to proceed with the (cold) case 3) personal recollections and stories regarding that event and/or subsequent search. I looked up multiple different websites and discussion forums about the Sodder case, and those trends remain pretty consistent throughout—and so I would call those trends “common concerns.” And though I don’t have earlier resources, I would guess these common concerns were present as well when the case first went public.

A struggle with conditions

In his article called “Publics and Counterpublics,” Michael Warner states that membership in a public “is constituted by mere attention” (60). My first reaction was to discount the claim; this membership criterion appears too broad, and it doesn’t seem to reflect the reality that we often assign names to particular publics. In other words, names indicate identity, and group identity usually revolves around a shared commonality, such as goals, interests, or values. So if publics are constituted through mere attention, does that mean I can be suckered into a public whether or not I agree with the majority of that public’s members? But really, how can a public have “majority consensus” if there’s no sort of filter for who becomes part of that public?

Warner anticipates my first question with this response: “Our willingness to process a passing appeal determines which publics we belong to and performs their extension” (Warner 62). Rather than being involuntarily “suckered” into a public, Warner argues that at some level, all members are “voluntary.”

Last week on the blog posts, Anjeli brought up the idea of voluntary and involuntary publics; she pointed to the public of this classroom as an example of an involuntary public. She added, “I mean, we *chose* to attend MSU for English, and that choice most likely (depending on where we're all at in our degree requirements) made taking WRIT 376 mandatory.” Warner would probably suggest that one’s choice to major in English suggests his or her willingness to be in the WRIT 376 public, at some level. If someone was absolutely not willing, they wouldn’t be in the class, right?

In that same thread of comments, Kristie said, “So, could belonging to certain kinds of counterpublics be considered involuntary? The Civil Rights Movement (or any racially formed publics) are an interesting example. We don't get to choose our ethnicity, so we are automatically assigned to racial groups.” I can just imagine Warner’s response: “Most social classes and groups are understood to encompass their members all the time, no matter what” (60). We don’t have a choice in which (racial) groups we were born to, but, as per Warner’s conception, “groups” and “publics” are different; publics are voluntary. Those people who participated in the Civil Rights Movement comprised a public because they demonstrated willingness through attention. People who refused to see or hear anything pertaining to the Civil Rights Movement discourse (which admittedly, would have been very difficult) were not part of that public, even if they belonged to the “group” which was the focus of the Civil Rights Movement. 

Now what about my second question posed at the beginning of this post? How can certain publics have identity markers if they are theoretically open to anyone (which seems to be a low threshold indeed)?

Warner observes that his theoretical definition does not always match the description of publics in practice. He says that a public “appears to be open to indefinite strangers, but in fact selects participants by criteria of shared social space (though not necessarily territorial space), habitus, topical concerns, intergeneric references, and circulating intelligible forms (including idiolects or speech genres)” (75).

In other words, a public is sort of pre-determined just based on the language of its discourse, area or medium of its circulation, etc. We have reached the chicken and egg conundrum Warner mentions earlier (check out Anjeli’s post on this). Perhaps when I presupposed publics guided by values, I was really misidentifying the chicken and egg concept; on a superficial level, the two appear the same.

“Public discourse circulates, but it does so in struggle with its own conditions” (Warner 76).

Definitions and Considerations

Prior to reading the texts for our Public Rhetoric & Writing class, I thought that “public” meant the people you’d interact with outside your familial arrangement and/or living space—that is, that location and relational familiarity dictated the bounds of public and private. However, I’ve come to realize that “public” is a much more complex concept.

In his “The Public Sphere: An Encyclopedia Article (1964),” Habermas outlines the/a public as

1. Reasoned and well-informed citizens (50)
2. Who freely gather together, without recrimination from state (49)
3. To discuss matters of general interest (49)
4. Which could potentially challenge the state and determine political policies and decisions (49-50)

The authors of Rhetoric in Civic Life note that essential to Habermas's definition of public sphere is communication; the public sphere isn't defined merely by "a particular group of people, a location, or a set of topics" (238). Because communication intrinsically involves rhetoric, I decided to think about the public sphere in terms of the rhetorical situation model.

*Note: I realize that my graphic violates the “don’t use the word in your definition of the word” taboo; under the “Rhetors/Audience” section I have strong and/or weak public. However, as Nancy Fraser makes clear, a “public” isn’t created in a vacuum; rather, we can observe in democratic societies a multiplicity of publics, many of which are in conversation with the others.

Usually we construct something from the inside to the outside, but think of this graphic as being constructed from the outward-in; the outer parts must be established before the inner parts could become fully realized. Rhetors come up in response to an exigence (Palczewski et al. 261), and at least in the case of publics, the constraints determine who gets to be a rhetor or not.

You’re probably wondering why the word “power” is slapped clear across the graphic. Palczewski et al. sum it up well: “As with all communication, power plays a role” (237). If all (or most of) the power in the government is relinquished to one source, as in a monarchy, then publics (as we think of them) cannot form because people don’t have the freedom to assemble—much less have the authority to do anything about what they discuss or to “make political decisions subject to appeal” (Habermas 55).

“What counts as a general issue can change over time” (Palczewski et al. 240), but who decides what counts as a general issue? Who determines the validity of counterpublics? A public is composed of “informed individuals”—but of course, to the dominant public, the counterpublic may seem unreasonable. The possible answer to these questions: the people with power. But how do these people come to power? I think by discourse; Fraser describes how finding new language gave the women’s rights movement recognition and acceptance in some public spheres (67).

So power plays a role in establishing discourse—but discourse may also play a role in who gains power. Though power is not explicitly mentioned as a factor in Habermas’s definition of the public sphere, I think it is an “invisible” aspect worth further investigation.