Media Argumentation: Dialectic, Persuasion and Rhetoric

by Douglas N. Walton

Media argumentation is a powerful force in our lives. From political speeches to television commercials to war propaganda, it can effectively mobilize political action, influence the public, and market products. This book presents a new and systematic way of thinking about the influence of mass media in our lives, showing the intersection of media sources with argumentation theory, informal logic, computational theory, and theories of persuasion. Using a variety of case studies that represent arguments that typically occur in the mass media, Douglas Walton demonstrates how tools recently developed in argumentation theory can be usefully applied to the identification, analysis, and evaluation of media arguments.

Genres: Philosophy, Logic

406 pages, Paperback

First published September 24, 2007

About the author

Douglas Neil Walton (PhD University of Toronto, 1972) is a Canadian academic and author, well known for his many widely published books and papers on argumentation, logical fallacies and informal logic. He is presently Distinguished Research Fellow of the Centre for Research in Reasoning, Argumentation, and Rhetoric (CRRAR) at the University of Windsor, Canada, and before that (2008-2014), he held the Assumption Chair of Argumentation Studies at the University of Windsor. Walton’s work has been used to better prepare legal arguments and to help develop artificial intelligence. His books have been translated worldwide, and he attracts students from many countries to study with him. A special issue of the journal Informal Logic surveyed Walton’s contributions to informal logic and argumentation theory up to 2006 (Informal Logic, 27(3), 2007). A festschrift honoring his contributions, Dialectics, Dialogue and Argumentation: An Examination of Douglas Walton’s Theories of Reasoning and Argument, ed. C. Reed and C. W. Tindale, London: College Publications, 2010, shows how his theories are increasingly finding applications in computer science. A list of titles of many of Walton’s books is given below. Links to preprints of many of his published papers can be found on the website

http://www.dougwalton.ca

Reviews

[AH · Rating 4 out of 5]

After reading Analysing Newspapers: An Approach from Critical Discourse Analysis I thought to read something that has the right amount of pragmatics, logic and analysis so after searching a bit a was very pleasantly surprised to come across Walton's book. chapter 2 was where things really kicked in for me titled "The Speech Act of Persuasion" chapters 3 has a focus on propaganda, chapters 4 and 6 where also both informative and interesting. There is a great ending to this book as Walton brings all of the prisons chapters to its terminal analysis of media. Worth reading and worthy of my time. the right amount of linguistics, logic and everyday life.

[Phoenix · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Arts of Persuassion

Three children grew up together in a Greek garden: Logic, Dialectic and Rhetoric. According to Walton, Logic became rigorous and formalized and after the Enlightenment was seen as the only true method of argumentation. The problem though is that logical argument is not necessarily persuasive and persuasive argument is not necessarily logical. Rhetoric survived somewhat altered, and dialectic "faded into obscurity". Thus begins a fairly interesting book.

Canadian philosopher Douglas Walton makes a delightful case for reviving the empirical study of the techniques of discourse. Early on he differentiates types of dialog by purpose: persuasion, inquiry, negotiation, information seeking, deliberation and eristic (rhetoric that serves to attack one's opponent) - useful to reflect which mode each "side" may be in at any given time. He discusses the use of emotion and imagery to short circuit long chains of evidence and logic and the role of inducement, temptation and threats (ad baculum). He covers classical fallacies coming up with five variations of the "ad hominem" argument. Ad populum, an appeal to popular opinion is no longer considered completely disreputable - voting itself is a use of the technique. Another interesting topic is the use (or abuse) of definition. Terms such as "unemployment", "justice" or "rape" vary across jurisdictions and over time so comparison of different contexts can be very misleading. A rise or fall in drug related crime may be the result of a change in legislation, not a change in current social behaviour.

Many of the examples are based on topical items that would be familiar to most readers. Star Trek illustrates an amusing appeal to values where Jean Luc Picard tries to convince Klingon, Ferengi and Federation listeners to engage in a dangerous mission by invoking the ideals of honour, profit and exploration respectively. To illustrate a complex ad hominen he uses and aspect of the Clinton impeachment hearings (the Battalion case) and the charge that Al Gore's appeal to pathos in the death of his sister to smoking related cancer was hypocritical (poisoning the well) as hi as an ad hominem; there are examples of "push polls" which are designed to implant information rather than to gather it in. He applies an anti-drunk driving campaign in Canada and an AIDS information campaign in Australia (featuring the Grim Reaper bowling down average Australians) as appeals to fear. The coverage surveying and polling is informative and the author describes the use of the relatively high touch high cost "deliberative poll" where respondents are gathered together for several hours or even days to discuss the issues and propose solutions - I'll add that this method was recently tried here (it failed) in Canada where the government of the day had proposed to introduce a form of proportional representation in parliament.

I liked the book but it did have a couple of problems. The first chapter is a bit of a barrier - Walton references theories of some other writers but doesn't fill in enough detal as to their key arguments, making one feel like a wallflower at the party. Another is that the author spent very a great deal of his time discussing the philosophical groundings of rhetoric, but very little effort in looking at the difference modes of interaction in different hot media such as online discussions, blogs and social media - this was the promise that brought me to the book in the first place. IMV the human dimension of time and permanence has shifted - not only do we have an extensive record of previous statements can gleefully be picked apart, the rate at which we return to the record and our degree of willingness to change it is something worth looking at. Broadcast media is touched upon in the discussion of the Respondent-to-Dialog Problem (pp138) where argument is made to a mass audience, seemingly inviting dialog, but its really a proposed discussion framework to be carried out in the outside world - an actual dialog with the framers does not actually occur. Similarly the discussion of media argumentation in the last chapter, while detailed and useful, seems a bit old school with it's focus on traditional advertising. Nevertheless I found Walton to be an interesting writer with a lot to tell us.

Recommended.

[Carter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Much of this content, is known to me in a different context; the standard rules of modern argumentation, are mostly fixed; some of the one's mentioned here, which lie on the fringes of the discipline, argument from authority, which had some reality in the past, and the ad hominem, are mentioned in a bit of detail. There are other details specific towards, the magazine article, which takes forms quite different from the traditional argumentation essay. There is no mention of multimedia in the book. Recommended.