The Message, the Medium and the Means of Argumentation: Towards a More Holistic Approach to the Rhetorical Criticism of Television News Reports

ABSTRACT

This paper argues for developing a more holistic approach to the rhetorical analysis to understand the persuasive communicative work being done by television news as rhetors replicating and performing popular culture. The essay argues that studies on the rhetoricality of television news reports tend to either focus on the reports’ messages through an analysis of the content or consider the medium on which the reports are aired or the form of these texts. As such, there appears to be a gap in postulating how the content, the medium and the argumentation schemes employed in television news reports come together to engage in persuasive communicative work. Given the status of television news reports as popular culture texts, theories need to be developed to make meaning of their representations of society’s most dominant practices and perspectives.

KEYWORDS:

• television news reports
• rhetorical criticism
• means of argumentation

Acknowledgements

This discussion is based on material from my PhD dissertation, which was undertaken at the University of Cape Town under the supervision of Distinguished Professor Philippe Salazar. I also wish to acknowledge the South African National Research Foundation, which funded my studies and that I have been a recipient of the A. W. Mellon-UCT Rhetoric Studies grant.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by National Research Foundation [grant number 129419].