{"id":13794,"date":"2018-09-28T03:09:18","date_gmt":"2018-09-28T03:09:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=13794"},"modified":"2018-09-29T03:11:31","modified_gmt":"2018-09-29T03:11:31","slug":"how-the-media-encourages-and-sustains-political-warfare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/how-the-media-encourages-and-sustains-political-warfare\/","title":{"rendered":"How the media encourages \u2013 and sustains \u2013 political warfare"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kyle Jensen<\/a>, University of North Texas<\/a><\/em> and Jack Selzer<\/a>, Pennsylvania State University<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Since his inauguration, President Donald Trump has been waging war against the American press by dismissing unfavorable reports as \u201cfake news\u201d and calling the media \u201cthe enemy of the American people.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a countermeasure, The Washington Post has publicly fact-checked every claim that Trump has labeled as fake<\/a>. In August, The Boston Globe coordinated editorials<\/a> from newspapers across the nation to push back against Trump\u2019s attacks on the press. The Associated Press characterized this effort<\/a> as the declaration of a \u201cwar of words\u201d against Trump. <\/p>\n

News organizations might frame themselves as the besieged party in this \u201cwar.\u201d But what if they\u2019re as much to blame as the president in this back-and-forth? And what if readers are to blame as well?<\/p>\n

In an unpublished manuscript titled \u201cThe War of Words<\/a>,\u201d the late rhetorical theorist and cultural critic Kenneth Burke cast the media as agents of political warfare. In 2012, we found this manuscript in Burke\u2019s papers and, after working closely with Burke\u2019s family and the University of California Press, it will be published in October 2018. <\/p>\n

In \u201cThe War of Words,\u201d Burke urges readers to recognize the role they also play in sustaining polarization. He points to how seemingly innocuous features in a news story can actually compromise values readers might hold, whether it\u2019s debating the issues further, finding points of consensus, and, ideally, avoiding war.<\/p>\n

A book born out of the Cold War<\/h2>\n

In 1939 \u2013 just before Adolf Hitler invaded Poland \u2013 Burke wrote an influential essay, \u201cThe Rhetoric of Hitler\u2019s \u2018Battle,\u2019<\/a>\u201d in which he outlined how Hitler had weaponized language to foment antipathy, scapegoat Jews and unite Germans against a common enemy.<\/p>\n

After World War II ended and America\u2019s leaders turned their attention to the Soviet Union, Burke saw some parallels to Hitler in the way language was being weaponized in the U.S. <\/p>\n

He worried that the U.S. might remain on a permanent wartime footing and that a drumbeat of oppositional rhetoric directed at the Soviet Union was making the nation susceptible to slipping into yet another war.<\/p>\n

Tormented by this possibility, he published two books, \u201cA Grammar of Motives<\/a>\u201d and \u201cA Rhetoric of Motives<\/a>,\u201d in which he sought to to inoculate Americans from the sort of political speech that, in his view, could lead to a nuclear holocaust.<\/p>\n

\n \"\"
\n Kenneth Burke.<\/span>
\n Oscar White<\/a><\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThe War of Words\u201d was originally supposed to be part of \u201cA Rhetoric of Motives.\u201d But at the last minute, Burke decided to set it aside and publish it later. Unfortunately, he never ended up publishing it before his death in 1993.<\/p>\n

The thesis of \u201cThe War of Words\u201d is simple and, in our view, holds up today: Political warfare is ubiquitous, unrelenting and inevitable. News coverage and commentary are frequently biased, whether journalists and readers are aware of it or not. And all media coverage, therefore, demands careful scrutiny. <\/p>\n

To Burke, you don\u2019t have to launch social media missives in order to participate in sustaining a polarized political environment. <\/p>\n

Instead, the quiet consumption of news reporting is enough to do the trick.<\/p>\n

Pick a side<\/h2>\n

Most people might think that the content of media coverage is the most persuasive component. They assume what gets reported matters more than how it gets reported. <\/p>\n

But according to \u201cThe War of Words,\u201d this assumption is backwards: An argument\u2019s form is often its most persuasive element.<\/p>\n

Burke takes pains to catalog the various forms that news writers use in their work and calls them \u201crhetorical devices.\u201d <\/p>\n

One device he calls \u201cheadline thinking,\u201d which refers to how an article\u2019s headline can establish the tone and frame of the issue being discussed. <\/p>\n

Take, for example, an Aug. 21 article The New York Times ran about how Michael Cohen\u2019s indictment might affect the 2018 midterms. The headline read: \u201cWith Cohen Implicating Trump, a Presidency\u2019s Fate Rests With Congress<\/a>.\u201d <\/p>\n

The next day, the Times ran another article on the same topic with the following headline: \u201cRepublicans Urge Embattled Incumbents to Speak Out on Trump<\/a>.\u201d <\/p>\n

Both headlines seek to assail the Republican Party. The first implies that the Republican Party, because it holds a majority in Congress, is responsible for upholding justice \u2013 and if they don\u2019t indict Trump, they\u2019re clearly protecting him to preserve their political power. <\/p>\n

The second headline might seem less malicious than the first. But think about the underlying assumption: Republicans are only urging \u201cembattled\u201d elected officials to speak out against Trump. <\/p>\n

The directive, therefore, isn\u2019t born out of political principle. Rather, it\u2019s being made because the party needs to preserve its majority and protect vulnerable incumbents. The unstated claim in this headline is that the Republican Party exhibits political virtue only when it\u2019s needed to quell threats to its power.<\/p>\n

If you side with The New York Times, you may be heartened by its efforts to position the Republican Party as craven in its lust for power. If you side with the Republican Party, you are probably disgusted with the paper for claiming that its representatives lack moral virtue. <\/p>\n

Either way, the line is drawn: The New York Times is on one side, and the Republican Congress is on the other.<\/p>\n

A rhetorical \u2018call to arms\u2019<\/h2>\n

Another device Burke explores is one that he calls \u201cyielding aggressively,\u201d which involves accepting criticism in order to leverage it to one\u2019s own benefit. <\/p>\n

We see this at play in an op-ed piece published on Fox News<\/a> on Aug. 22, 2018. The writer, John Fund, concluded that Michael Cohen\u2019s guilty plea will \u201clikely\u201d not lead to an indictment of President Trump. <\/p>\n

To support his argument, he cites Bob Bauer, a former White House counsel to President Barack Obama, who has argued<\/a> that the campaign finance violations aren\u2019t very significant but are instead being used as a political cudgel. <\/p>\n

Fund admits that Cohen\u2019s guilty plea will hurt Trump and make things tougher for his supporters, requiring them \u201cto do a lot of heavy lifting when they come to his defense.\u201d Fund\u2019s editorial also admits to minor lapses in Trump\u2019s judgment \u2013 particularly in hiring Cohen, Manafort and Omarosa Manigault Newman. It thus yielded to popular criticisms of Trump. <\/p>\n

But this admission is not a call for accountability; it is a call to arms. Fund ultimately argues that if Trump is indicted, it will not be because he is guilty of violating a serious law. It will be because his opponents seek to vanquish him. <\/p>\n

Indictment or not, Fund seems to be saying, Trump supporters should be ready for a ferocious political fight come 2020.<\/p>\n

Again, the lines are drawn.<\/p>\n

How to survive the \u2018war of words\u2019<\/h2>\n

Burke once wrote<\/a> about how rhetorical devices like those explored above can sustain division and polarization. <\/p>\n

\u201cImagine a passage built about a set of oppositions (\u2018we do this, but they on the other hand do that; we stay here, but they go there; we look up, but they look down,\u2019 etc.),\u201d he wrote. \u201cOnce you grasp the trend of the form, [you see that] it invites participation regardless of the subject matter \u2026 you will find yourself swinging along with the succession of antitheses, even though you may not agree with the proposition that is being presented in this form.\u201d <\/p>\n

Burke calls this phenomenon \u201ccollaborative expectancy\u201d \u2013 collaborative because it encourages us to swing along together, and \u201cexpectancy\u201d because of the predictability of each side\u2019s argument. <\/p>\n

This predictability encourages readers to embrace an argument without considering whether we find it persuasive. They simply sit on one of two opposing sides and nod along. <\/p>\n

According to Burke, if you passively consume the news, swinging along with headlines as the midterms unfold, political divisions will likely be further cemented.<\/p>\n

However if you become aware of how the media reports you\u2019re consuming seek to subtly position and influence you, you\u2019ll likely seek out more sources and become more deliberative. You might notice what\u2019s missing from a debate, and what really might be motivating the outlet.<\/p>\n

To avoid getting sucked into a dynamic of two opposing, gridlocked forces, it\u2019s important for all readers to make their consciousness a matter of conscience.\"The<\/p>\n

Kyle Jensen<\/a>, Associate Professor of English, University of North Texas<\/a><\/em> and Jack Selzer<\/a>, Paterno Family Liberal Arts Professor of Literature, Pennsylvania State University<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kyle Jensen, University of North Texas and Jack Selzer, Pennsylvania State University Since his inauguration, President Donald Trump has been waging war against the American press by dismissing unfavorable reports as \u201cfake news\u201d and calling the media \u201cthe enemy of the American people.\u201d As a countermeasure, The Washington Post has publicly fact-checked every claim that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":13790,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[293],"tags":[3965,5182,2463,868,700,697,2462],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13794"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13794"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13794\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13795,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13794\/revisions\/13795"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}