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Perelman’s Audience Revisted: Towards the Construction of a New Type of Audience

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Abstract

This article asks whether Perelman’s concepts of the audience can help us achieve a better understanding of the Internet Audience in the specific context of the recent French and American presidential elections. It concludes that Perelman’s notion of “argumentation before a single hearer” is most useful for that purpose. Applying it to Internet audience allows us to discern some of the communicative devices, such as appeal to participation and appeal to proximity, used by candidates in order to achieve a higher degree of involvement on the part of the surfers and potential voters, which in turn is translated to action by the surfers/voters on behalf of the candidate. The application of Perelman’s concept shows that on the Web the interaction between the candidate and the surfer shifts from an argumentative situation per se to a context in which what appears to be a dialogue or conversation invites connivance between rhetor and audience.

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Notes

  1. "The theory of communicative action intends to bring into the open the rational potential intrinsic in everyday communicative practices." (Habermas 1992, p. 442). It is about public argument and reasoning among equal citizens. Citizens in such an order share a commitment to the resolution of problems of collective choice through public reasoning, and regard their basic institutions as legitimate insofar as they establish a framework for free public deliberation (Habermas 1992, p. 446–447, quoting Jean Cohen. 1989. Deliberation and Democratic Legitimacy. In eds. A. Hamlin and P. Petit, The Good Polity, 12–24. Oxford: Oxford University Press 1989, pp. 12–24). Social issues liable to generate conflicts are open to rational regulation; engaging in public arguments and negotiations is the appropriate medium for this rational formation of will (ibid. 447). "[…] the expectation deriving from a discourse-centered theoretical approach, that rational results will obtain [sic.], is based on the interplay between a constitutionally instituted formation of the political will and the spontaneous flow of communication unsubverted by power, within a public sphere that is not geared toward decision making but toward discovery and problem resolution and that in this sense is nonorganized [sic.]" (ibid. 451).

  2. Web 2.0 participation 'lower than expected', http://www.e-consultancy.com/news-blog/363114/web-2-0-participation-lower-than-expected.html. Accessed January 2008.

  3. For example, in reply to the lady asking about polygamy, Sarkozy sets out in a mini-speech directed against this marital practice, pretending it coincides with the French Republic's values. In no way does he choose to address this question as a private matter, particular to the woman who posed it or to the social sector she represents.

  4. See also Danblon’s article in this issue.

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  1. French Department, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, 52900, Israel

    Galia Yanoshevsky

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  1. Galia Yanoshevsky
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Correspondence to Galia Yanoshevsky.

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Yanoshevsky, G. Perelman’s Audience Revisted: Towards the Construction of a New Type of Audience. Argumentation 23, 409–419 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10503-009-9156-9

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