Rachel Notley: A Politician’s Body Language Background and Context: A politician needs to master two languages: verbal and nonverbal. Nonverbal communications include such things as posture, gesture, tone of voice, facial expression, and eye contact. “Just as a dimmer switch on a light can be used to adjust intensity, nonverbal cues often reveal shades and degrees of meaning” (Weaver, 1978, p. 21). David Gergen attributed a major part of Ronald Reagan’s political success to his effective body language, observing that his “sense of humour and smile, when dealing with the press in television, were worth a million votes” (as cited in Grabe, 2009, p. 155). As a result, it is essential for politicians to master this language since a simple …show more content…
In addition, there is a lack of excessive pauses, slips of the tongue, repetitions, and incoherence in Rachel Notley’s voice. The lack of these vocal characteristics portray confidence and sincerity. During the debate, Rachel Notley maintains an upright posture with the shoulders pushed back while the chest is pushed forward. Her feet are shoulder-width apart. In addition, her head is held high in neutral position with the ears in line with the shoulder line and the chin parallel to the floor. While Rachel Notley talks to Jim Prentice, her hips, shoulders, and head are slightly turned to the right. At times, Rachel Notley also moves her head vertically, horizontally, or sideways preventing her posture from becoming too stiff. Numerous hand gestures are used by Rachel Notley during the debate. The most common is the cutting movement, moving the arms vertically with the palms facing each other. While defending her proposal on corporate taxes, Notley excessively uses this hand gesture. At the end of her remarks on this issue, Notley has her palms downward with the fingers straightened. This signals the end of her argument. In addition, Rachel Notley also uses her fingers to demonstrate numerical amounts indicating the numbers two and five. During the debate, Rachel Notley maintains eye contact with Jim Prentice, other candidates, and the
It is important for a politician to meet many other politicians and make allies and friends. President Lyndon Johnson was used this and got to know every politician face to face by taking multiple showers each day and brushing his teeth various times a day again and again just so he would be presentable when getting closer to others. He believed the personal connections he made would help him capture their attentions which would benefit him overall as he rose to the top in government positions. Lyndon's strategy was called retail politics, which later inspired author Chris Matthew as he used
Carter as well keeps a steady and strong eye contact with the audience throughout his speech (Jimmy Carter’s Full “Crisis of Confidence” Speech). This shows he is certain on what he is saying and once again, shows the urgency of this issue occurring. By doing so, he is getting his point across in a strong way because of the almost uncomforting eye contact with the audience that is hardly lost in its
During the final parts of the 2016 presidential election, Chris Christie gave a last ditch effort in a speech at the Republican National Convention to persuade all citizens on the fence of voting for either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, to vote for Donald Trump. Using Persuasive diction, pathos, and near arrogant body language by pointing to the crowd and T.V. camera, buffing out his chest while he glares into the camera, Chris Christie proved how Hillary wasn’t fit to be president while attempting to help Donald Trump fulfill his goal of becoming president. Christie uses positive diction to show how he believes Donald Trump is the best fit to be president out of the remaining candidate, using words such as “strong” “caring” and “genuine” (Reilly) to describe President Trump in a positive way. Christie uses these words to describe Trump as a normal person, or as a “friend” (Reilly) to bring him down to the same level as the citizens voting for him.
Secondly, Margaret Chase Smith uses simple diction to help the audience understand her viewpoints and her ideals as a politician. She states, “I would like to speak briefly and simply about a serious national condition.” Margaret Chase Smith does not want to hide behind eloquent language to confuse the American public into her believing her values. Instead, she uses common vocabulary and even warns the audience in her introduction of her speech. Because she uses this rhetorical strategy, the Americans feel that she is speaking only of the truth, creating confidence in her morality and a sense of credibility as a politician. Senator Smith then states, “I speak as
It also gives her an opening to refocus the conversation from her progressive credentials to the importance of winning in November – electability one of the few areas where she’s scored well with the progressive grassroots.
Although Rachel is very emotional, in the only dialogue between her and Mrs. Pierce she sounds very shy, unsure of herself, not ready to confront and timid.
Rachel now sees people in two different ways, she says, "People who look like me and people who don't look like me” (Durrow 9). She also said, “I'm not the color of my skin. I'm a story. One with a past and a future unwritten.”
When asked whether he learned anything as an actor that's been useful to his presidency, Ronald Reagan replied, “ There have been times in this office when I’ve wondered how you can do the job if you hadn’t been an actor.” Politicians must employ methods of artifice and present themselves as an idealistic image of themselves in order to win elections.
Tactics: The Palin for implicating this component of the campaigning process is to make the victims of sexism as relatable as possible to the woman in the intended audience lives that they love and care about. It is in hopes that by doing this the audience will feel that sexism is a treat to their loved ones and make them see how important it is to stop the problem.
Rachel took her arm away from his but still walked close to him. Then he had cried out "Rachel! Do you not love me? Is not my love for you as sacred as anything in all of life itself?" Rachel was quiet. They passed a street lamp. Her face was pale and beautiful. He had made a movement to grab her arm and she had moved a little farther from him. "No," she had replied. He then said "Some time--when I am more worthy?" he had asked in low voice, but she did not hear him, she did not even say goodnight and went into her house.
The president uses gestures, facial expressions, and various tones to make his speech effective in
There may be more truth to the old saying, “it’s not what you say but how you say it.” On average, 93 percent of meaning found in communication comes from nonverbal messages (Mehrabian 1967). Nonverbal communication is the wordless transmission of information through body language, gestures, tone, space and appearance. The first televised presidential debate is a pivotal example of how pervasive nonverbal communication actually is to an audience, and how it affects the credibility of the speaker(s). The purpose of this analysis is to present both the categories and functions of nonverbal communication within the context of the 1960
Television promotes the candidates’ image over their policies. Instead of the candidates discussing what they are going to do for the country, they simply argue why they are better than each other. The candidates being televised gives the audience a sense of knowing them, which causes them to “no longer feel the need for party guidance”(Source B). In other words, the audience no longer feels the need of the politician's policies due to basing their judgments on the superficial characteristics. In a recent political debate, candidates Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton argued that their images weren’t very presidential. It started off with Trump saying Clinton didn’t have the looks and the stigma of a president and she quickly fired back that Trump didn’t have the temperament. Instead of discussing how they were going to run the country they just bickered about appearance. The
Furthermore, there is the politician that is known to be a person that connects with people. A politician either plays the game or interacts with people. A few factors
The first form of nonverbal communication that plays a significant role in influencing the voting behavior is the physical appearance of candidates. The analytical study by Olivola and Todorov (2010) states that today’s politics have become so extremely intricate and incomprehensible that it is almost impossible for voters to genuinely agree to every aspect of the candidates’ views. For instance, it is highly conceivable for voters to agree on international and security issues with one candidate and agree on economic issues with the other candidate at the same time. Hence, the number of the voters who are unfamiliar with the intricacies of political issues and unmotivated to study candidates’ policy as a criterion for making their choice has increased (Olivola & Todorov, 2010). In addition, according to Olivola and Todorov (2010), the field of cognitive psychology indicates that people’s minds tend to simplify decision making process by relying on simple rules when they are confronted with too much information. As a result, instead of behaving as rational actors and voting reasonably as they are believed to do so, voters are hugely influenced by and unconsciously opt for irrelevant cues, which in this case, the candidates’ physical appearance.