2. A Liminal Space, Negatively Defined
Propaganda Rhetoric
Encyclopedic
knowledge
3. Often extends beyond what it claims to be
Propaganda Rhetoric
Encyclopedic
knowledge
Journalism
4. Aristotle
• Rhetoric: a necessary
and legitimate part of
public life, if employed
using sound arguments
and with genuine intent
– the speaker believes
what they are saying is
true.
5. Aristotle’s strategies for persuasion
• Logos – logic
• Ethos – you believe in the fair-mindedness of the speaker
• Pathos – appeal to the listener’s emotions
“Aristotle had a low opinion of history — much like how we would
regard newspapers today.”
• OK, newspapers are not high art, but they are publicly engaged.
8. Journalism is just propaganda?
• Mass Media is little
more than
propaganda for the
elite, maintaining the
system in their favour
and against the
majority’s interests
9. Objections
• Rhetoric is not propaganda
• Publishers pursue appetite for profit
• Dedicated journalists pursue anti-establishment stories
• Public media is widespread
• Media is too diverse to have a single ‘function’
11. Journalism and Rhetoric
Journalism is by necessity rhetorical:
• Mediated
• Selected
• Prioritised
• Interpreted
• Argued
• Simplified
• Structured
12. Inverted pyramid: note the similarity to a
an argument
Proposition
Supporting
Evidence
Context & Fallout
Three men arrested three
days before Remembrance
Sunday had planned to
behead a member of public
in the UK,
a court has been told.
13. Conclusion
• Journalism cannot be what we perhaps hoped it could be.
It is, in its essence, rogue, untamed and offensive. To
define and control journalism would be to turn it into
something else: propaganda, rhetoric or simply dull and
unread. What passes for journalism is often these things,
but often it is not. It will survive through our natural instinct
to know and understand the world around us in a manner
that relates to the everyday.