Idea Transcript
RHETORICAL GENRE
Pugs of Instagram
“CLASSIC RHETORIC” VS “RHETORICAL GENRE THEORY” Classic Rhetoric: “Although informative, directive, or persuasive objectives can be realized in the stop-and-go, give and take form of the dialogue, rhetoric has traditionally been concerned with those instances of formal, premeditated, sustained monologue in which a person seeks to exert an effect on an audience” – (Edward Corbett)
Aristotle’s 5 Canons: • • • • •
Invention Arrangement Style Memory Delivery
“A means of so ordering discourse as to produce an effect on the listener or reader” (Marie Hochmuth Nichols’
“CLASSIC RHETORIC” VS “RHETORICAL GENRE THEORY” Rhetorical Genre Theory (RGT) “…how humans create, maintain, and participate in repeated discourse practices—from causal conversations to doctoral theses— and in what consequences those generic actions have.” (Anthony Pare)
Considerations of RGT:
• Genre definition • Rhetorical Situation • Genrefication of Situation • Audience/Communities • Agency
PUG LIFE AS A GENRE
In a discussion of RGT, it is important to hold a working definition of what ‘genre’ is. Here we can define it as a community collective’s recognized, repeated pattern of reality in which ideology is fulfilled and replicated to achieve certain goals. Enter Doug the Pug. @pugsofinstagram • Instagram photos and videos The posting of images of pugs to the social network site Instagram is an example of genre as it is a frame for social action. Here, a community joins in the rhetorical situation by posting their photos of their pugs to the Pugs of Instagram page. They fulfill the desires for representation and participation in the social commentary as well as influence the subculture of the pugs on social media by their participation and replication of the pattern. Images of pugs on the internet have morphed from cute little curly-tailed animals being walked on a leash, whose photos are snapped by an adoring and probably obsessive owner who assumedly bombards friends and family on Facbeook with these photos…to anthropomorphic images of pugs as human members of society—whether stereotypical or not—sporting a hoodie and rep-ing the “Pug Life”, enjoying a night of “Netflix and Chill”, or taking the place of Hilary and Donald. And this examples one of the considerations that Pare gives genres: that they are not inevitable realities but constantly molded by the participants even as the participants are responding to their position as part of the genre. It fulfills desires and creates them in reciprocal manner.
Exigence: the need that summons the rhetorical situation, to which the genre (social action) responds. An invitation to discourse.
I would propose that one of the very objectives of participants in this community, is to facilitate community
Possible exigence in Pug Life:
• • • •
connect with “pop culture” take ownership of media give voice to dog lovers imitate/reproduce favorite things
Taking into account Audience: Community
In this Pugs of Instagram photo, we get to meet Rocky. Or at least the Rocky Pugboa version. We see that not only is the pug personified, but also we guess that this pug is probably Rocky’s biggest fan. I would dress up as him too, if he was my favorite. Already in that informal description, it shows that the probably audience or “community” of Pugs of Instagram, those “typified participates” included in the typified situation are “younger”, people who use Instagram effectively, who would ‘get’ the Rocky reference, who have pugs or love them, who like taking photos.
I would argue the one of the very objectives of participants in this community, is to facilitate community
“Agency entails an ability to coordinate one’s action with others and against others, to form collective projects, to persuade, to coerce, and to monitor the simultaneous effects of one’s own and others’ activities. Moreover, the extent of the agency exercised by individual persons depends profoundly on their positions in collective organizations.” – W.H. Sewell, A Theory of Structure: Duality, Agency, and Transformation