Abstract
This article shows how epideictic rhetoric and argumentation may be interrelated in a general-interest newspaper framed as a single discourse produced by a collective author. In more specific terms, the view advanced here is that newspaper as whole has an epideictic dimension which, in terms of argumentation, is the fundamental or predominant one. The usefulness of this approach is twofold. In terms of rhetoric, to explore the applicability of epideictic rhetoric to journalistic discourse; and in the field of journalism studies, the goal is to draw on the theory of epideictic rhetoric so as to refine the conceptualization of the nature of argumentation in the newspaper as such. Given this twofold perspective, the account of newspaper discursive practices will be general, and the classical and contemporary epideictic theory will be briefly summarized. However, the outcome of this analysis is an example of a fruitful encounter between the two fields.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
For the definition of argumentation used in this paper, see the Sect. 3, where it is explained in the context of Perelman´s thought.
Epideictic characteristics may be combined with the features of other genres in other speeches, giving rise to rhetoric hybrids, for instance, the presidential inaugurals (Jamieson and Campbell 1982, pp. 154–155). Another hybrid is the official apology, a combination of the apologetic and epideictic (Villadsen 2008, p. 25).
Like Perlman and Olbrechts-Tyteca (1969), whose view is discussed in further detail below.
Perelman alone is cited as author of the book hereafter.
Later, in Sect. 3, we will define in more detail how argumentation is understood in the context of this article. There, we will explain briefly how Perelman´s speech techniques include reasoning and other verbal and expressive resources.
Hallin and Mancini (2004) traced three models, linked to particular geographical areas, in the context of Western journalism. The first is the Polarized Pluralist Model found in the Mediterranean region. The second is the Democratic Corporatist Model in North/Central Europe (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany, The Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland). Finally, the third is the Liberal Model, which they locate in the English-speaking West: the UK, Ireland and North America (the US and Canada).
In addition to these politically-conditioned newspaper models, there are two other models whose epideictic import is more closely bound up with entertainment: the popular press and “the special-interest journal”, mainly sports magazines, with special features on athletic heroes (Beale 1978, p. 241): texts that contain a colorful style, praise and blame, non-controversial and universal values. A more nuanced account of this point is clearly required; this discussion does not address the plurality of cultures.
The prestige press tends to be comprised of national newspapers, in which ideological concerns carry more weight for the audience than is the case for regional or local newspapers.
See Bourdieu in Sullivan (1991. pp. 234–235).
Since the focus of inquiry here is written text, the term “author” is used instead of “orator” or “speaker”.
Cognitive dissonance may arise on occasions, of course, and the audience’s expectations may not be met or satisfied (Agnew 2008).
The notion of argumentation followed in this paper includes logical argument in the sense in which Aristotle mentions it in his Rhetoric. That logical dimension is evident in how premises and conclusions are articulated in the narrative part of the newspaper, where news acts as a premise, and the reader contributes the other premise and draws the conclusion.
References
Agnew, Lois. 2008. ‘The day belongs to the students’: Expanding epideictic’s civic function. Rhetoric Review 27(2): 147–164.
Beale, Walter H. 1978. Rhetorical performative discourse: A new theory of epideictic. Philosophy & Rhetoric 11 (4) (Fall1978): 221–246.
Blair, J. 2012. Anthony. 2012. Argumentation as rational persuasion. Argumentation 26: 71–81.
Borrat, Héctor. 2003. Narradores en interacción. Revista Científica de Información y Comunicación 1: 60–83. http://ddd.uab.cat/pub/ruta/20130740n2a4.pdf. Accessed February 8, 2012.
Chase, J.R. 1961. The classical conception of epideictic. Quarterly Journal of Speech 47: 293–300.
Condit, Celeste Michelle. 1985. The functions of epideictic: The Boston massacre orations as exemplar. Communication Quarterly 33 (4) (Fall1985): 284–298.
Crable, Richard E., and Steven L. Vibbert. 1983. Mobil’s epideictic advocacy: ‘Observations’ of prometheus-bound. Communication Monographs 50 (4) (12): 380.
Daniel, Sharan L. 2002. Integrating rhetoric and journalism to realize publics. Rhetoric & Public Affairs 5 (3) (Fall2002): 507–24.
Danisch, Robert. 2006. Power and the celebration of the self: Michel Foucault’s epideictic rhetoric. Southern Communication Journal 71(3): 291–307.
Danisch, Robert. 2008. Alain Locke on race and reciprocity: The necessity of epideictic rhetoric for cultural pluralism. Howard Journal of Communications 19(4): 297–314.
Day, Anita, and Guy Golan. 2005. Source and content diversity in op-ed pages: Assessing editorial strategies in the New York Times and the Washington Post. Journalism Studies 6 (1) (02): 61–71.
Desbordes, F. 1996. La rhétorique antique: l´art de persuader. París: Hachette.
Doury, Marianne. 2012. Preaching to the converted. Why argue when everyone agrees? Argumentation 26: 99–114.
Enos, Theresa. 1990. An eternal golden braid’ rhetor as audience, audience as rhetor. In A sense of audience in written communication, vol. 5, ed. G. Kirsch, and D.H. Roen, 99–114. Newbury Park: Sage.
Fairclough, Norman. 1995. Media discourse. London: Arnold.
Fowler, Roger. 1991. Language in the News: Discourse and ideology in the press. London: Routledge.
Gerbner, George. 1964. Ideological perspectives and political tendencies in news reporting. Journalism Quarterly 41(Autumn): 495–508.
Graff, Richard, and Wendy Winn. 2006. Presencing “communion” in chaïm perelman’s new rhetoric. Philosophy & Rhetoric 39 (1) (02): 45–71.
Hallin, Daniel C. 2009. Not The End of Journalism. Journalism 10(3): 332–334.
Hallin, Daniel C., and Paolo Mancini. 2004. Comparing media system: Three models of media and politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hamilton, Peter M. 2005. The mission statement as epideictic rhetoric. Celebrating organizational identity. In Organization and Identity, ed. A. Pullen & S. Linstead, 148–165. Park Square, Millon Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN: Routledge.
Iglesias, Francisco, and María M. Blanco. 2004. Principios editoriales y principios configuradores en el pensamiento del profesor Alfonso Nieto Tamargo. Doxa 2: 9–26.
Jamieson, Kathleen Hall, and Karlyn Kohrs Campbell. 1982. Rhetorical hybrids: Fusions of generic elements. Quarterly Journal of Speech 68 (2) (05): 146-57.
Janack, James A. 2004. Soviet journalism as epideictic rhetoric. Review of Communication 4(3): 301–303.
Kress, Gunther. 1983. Linguistic processes and the mediation of ‘reality’: The politics of newspaper language. International Journal of the Sociology of Language (40) (03): 43-57.
Marques Ramires, M. 2009. Retórica y Periodismo: unas relaciones muy objetivas. RUTA, 2. http://ddd.uab.cat/pub/ruta/20130740n2a4.pdf. Accessed February 8, 2012.
Marraud, Humberto. 2013. ¿Es lógic@?: análisis y evaluación de los argumentos. Madrid: Cátedra.
McKenzie, Robert. 2000. Audience involvement in the epideictic discourse of television talk shows. Communication Quarterly 48(2): 190–203.
McQuail, Dennis. 2010. McQuail’s mass communication theory. London: Sage.
Micheli, Raphaël. 2012. Arguing without trying to persuade? Elements for a Non-Persuasive definition of argumentation. Argumentation 26: 115–126.
Miller, Carolyn R. 1984. Genre as social action. Quarterly Journal of Speech 70 (2) (05): 151–167.
Morreale, Joanne. 1991. The political campaign film: Epideictic rhetoric in a documentary frame. In Television and political advertising. Signs, codes, and images, ed. Frank Biocca, 187–201. Hillsdale, NJ England: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Núñez Ladevéze, Luis, and Tamara Váquez. 2008. La información, la opinión y la editorial periodística. Textual & Visual Media 1: 255–274.
Núñez Ladevéze, Luis. 1979. El lenguaje de los “media”: Introducción a una teoría de la actividad periodística. Madrid: Pirámide.
O’Keefe, Daniel J. 2012. Conviction, persuasion, and argumentation: Untangling the ends and means of influence. Argumentation 26: 19–32.
Oravec, C. 1976. « Observation » in aristotle’s theory of epideictic. Philosophy and Rhetoric 9: 162–173.
O’Rourke Boyle, Marjory. 1989. A likely story. The autobiographical as epideictic. Journal of the American Academy of Religion 57(1): 23–51.
Perelman, Chaïm, and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca. 1969. The new rhetoric a treatise on argumentation/translated by John Wilkinson and Purcell Weaver. Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press.
Pietila, Veikko. 1992. Beyond the news story: News as discursive composition. European Journal of Communication 7 (1) (03): 37–67.
Plantin, Christian. 1998. La argumentación. Barcelona: Ariel Precticum.
Plantin, Christian. 2012. Persuasion or alignment? Argumentation 26: 83–97.
Richardson, John E. 2007. Analyzing newspapers: an approach from critical discourse analysis. Palgrave Macmillan: Basingstoke; New York.
Rollins, Brooke. 2005. The ethics of epideictic rhetoric: Addressing the problem of presence through Derrida’s funeral orations. Rhetoric Society Quarterly 35(1): 5–23.
Rosenfield, L. 1980. The practical celebration of epidiectic. In Rhetoric in transition: Studies in the nature and uses of rhetoric, ed. E.E. White, 131–155. University Park and Londo: The Pennsylvania State University Press.
Sheard, Cynthia Miecznikowski. 1996. The public value of epideictic rhetoric. College English 58 (7) (11): 765–94.
Song, Y. 2003. Homogeneity and diversity in Op-Ed pages: A comparative analysis of Op-Ed pages of the Washington Post and the Washington Times. Paper presented to the annual meeting of the newspaper Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, Kansas City, MO (August).
Sullivan, Dale L. 1991. The epideictic rhetoric of science. Journal of Business & Technical Communication 5(3): 229–245.
Sullivan, Dale L. 1993a. A closer look at education as epideictic rhetoric. RSQ. Rhetoric Society Quarterly 23(3): 70–89.
Sullivan, Dale L. 1993b. The epideictic character of rhetorical criticism. Rhetoric Review 11(2): 339–349.
Sullivan, Dale L. 1993c. The ethos of epideictic encounter. Philosophy & Rhetoric 26(2): 113–133.
Van Dijk, Teun A. 1988. News as discourse, 1980. Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Van den Berg, Harri; H. Smit, Johannes and Van der Veer, Kees. 1992. Contextualization in newspaper articles: A sequential analysis of actors’ quotes on the PATCO affair. European Journal of Communication 7 (3) (09): 359–89.
Villadsen, Lisa Storm. 2008. Speaking on behalf of others: Rhetorical agency and epideictic functions in official apologies. RSQ: Rhetoric Society Quarterly 38(1): 25–45.
Walker, Jeffrey. 2000. Rhetoric and poetics in antiquity. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press.
Zelizer, Barbie. 2004. Taking journalism seriously. News and the academy. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage
Zeytinoglu, Cem. 2007. Advertising as epideictic rhetoric and its implications for ethical communication. http://digital.library.duq.edu/cdm-etd/document.php?CISOROOT=/etd&CISOPTR=88348&REC=1. Accessed February 8, 2012.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
López Pan, F. The Newspaper as an Epideictic Meeting Point . Argumentation 29, 285–303 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10503-014-9337-z
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10503-014-9337-z