Vernacular Rhetoric

Question 1

Participatory Media functions

Answer 1

• Blurs boundaries: Allows all people with access to be broadcasted or be an audience; difference between who the consumer is and who the producer is; difference between what entertainment is and what news is
• Changes the tone: Allows for a range of reports on a situation
• Disrupts control: Controls changes of media productions and news stations; media can use social media for information
• Makes institutional conversation (to tell us relationship between everyday situations and the institution)
• Turns media from something just ‘read’ to ‘read and write’ (read and participate)
• Changes access

Question 2

Vernacular Rhetoric definition

Answer 2

using language to produce messages to people around us and to express who we are

Question 3

Participatory Media examples

Answer 3

mashups, podcasts

Question 4

Classical Definition of Vernacular Rhetoric

Answer 4

• Root ‘Verna’ Means ‘local’ or ‘homegrown’

Question 5

Contemp. Definitions of Vernacular Rhetoric: Cultural Syncretism

Answer 5

• In protesting and responding to dominant/mainstream rhetoric, you create something new
• Tension between institution and local

Question 6

Contemp. Definitions of Vernacular Rhetoric: pastiche

Answer 6

• The process of using scraps of institutional hegemonic discourse to create our own institution.
• Ex: The video using scraps of other videos to support a point.

Question 7

Subaltern Vernacular Discourse

Answer 7

• Marginalized groups participate by responding to mainstream/dominant culture
• Especially to national dialogue
• This is often systematically ignored
• Contains counteragency

Question 8

Common Vernacular Discourse

Answer 8

• Language and arguments that come from the local/ everyday people, not institutions
• Sees rhetoric as available to all, but is homegrown (not from institutions)
• Uses ‘doxa’ or common sense

Question 9

Dialectical Vernacular Discourse

Answer 9

• ‘Dialectical’ means tension between two poles.

- Tension between everyday people (homegrown) and institutional discourse.

Question 10

What is participatory media?

Answer 10

where the audience can play an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing and disseminating content