Quiz 1 Flashcards
Rhetoric
The ways in which signs influence people
Discrete vs Diffuse Texts
Discrete text is one which all it’s signs are in one place tightly bound together.
Diffuse text = Facebook page
Post Modern Condition
Because there are many different groups with which you identify with. you belong simultaneously with many different cultures. Because of this many people feel their lives are fragmented. Some social scientists call this fragmentation the post modern condition
Contradictions
(In terms of what artifacts mean)
Our simultaneous identification with different cultures are one important source of contradictions
Symbolic Meaning
Can get you thinking about something else purely by agreement or convention
Ex. Language
Iconic Meaning
A sign that makes you think of something else because the sign resembles that thing.
Indexical Meaning
One thing is always or often found with another thing so one thing gets you to think of the other (linked by way of cause or situation.)
Power
The ability to control events and meanings.
Popular Culture
Everyday objects, actions, and events
(A) Text
Set of signs related to each other in so far as their meanings all contribute to the same set of effects or functions
Rhetoric (according to Foss)
The human use of symbols to communicate
3 dimensions
- humans as creators of rhetoric
- Symbols as the medium for rhetoric
- Communication as the purpose for rhetoric
Symbols (according to Foss)
Something that stands for of represents something else by virtue of relationship, association, or convention.
A sign is not necessarily constructed by humans, a symbol is
Goal of Rhetorical Criticism according to Foss
In contrast to popular culture critics rhetorical critics don’t study an artifact for its qualities and features alone. Rhetorical critics are interested in discovering what an artifact teaches us about the nature of rhetoric.
Edifying impulse
Those with an Edifying Impulse hope to improve people by exposing them to the right artifacts.
Ideology or consciousness
An interrelated system of meanings that is generated by the system of artifacts that constitute that culture.
