Blog #8&9

#8


For my artifact I will be situating myself in the PLO movement. I feel like it only makes sense as I have spent the better part of the semester researching and attempting to understand the rhetoric of the movement.  The artifact I plan to make is going to be a website. The rhetorical goals of the website would be to change perception of social reality. This goal is important because this goal is the one that Palestinians are struggling most with in the world; they are attempting to change the perception that Palestine does not to deserve to be a country. One of the languaging strategies I might use is one that many parties of the movement attempt to use: framing. A website would be a good medium to attempt to frame the country Palestine in a new light because it allows visuals to be used. Pictures of maps, graphs, and shocking images could all be used to frame Palestine in a light of a legitimate country that has victimized rather than their current frame of being a group of people entirely consisting of aggressive terrorists. Framing complements the persuasive function of changing perception of social reality because re-framing the movement attempts to make the people of the country be seen in a new light. 

#9

In the textbook Persuasion and Social Movements, Stewart, Smith and Denton defines the strategies that institutions use to prevent social movements from achieving their desired change as evasion, counter persuasion, coercive persuasion, and adjustment. The strategy of evasion to me is the most prominently used by institutions.  The textbook says that "Institutions hope social protest will merely go away or dissolve through lack of attention and recognition." (374) The chapter breaks up evasion into two sections: the media and invisibility within institutions. The media focuses on the institutions (government or corporations) being licensed and as a result there is little to no media coverage about the social movements. This tactic often leads to an unaware population and limits the movements ability to reach out with the media.  Invisibility within institutions is taking measures to ignore not only in the media but on all representations of organizations. For example the movement will not be represented on ballots, or be denied meeting together as well as meeting with officials to incite change. A good example of a social movement that fits under both of these categories is the Ku Klux Klan. The KKK may not be as popular as it once was, but still has a presence today, especially in the online community, yet most of the population is unaware because they have no media coverage, no one allows the KKK to protest/ hold meetings anywhere, and as a result their movement is invisible.