Demagoguery

In the 2002 documentary Bowling for Columbine, American political activist and filmmaker Michael Moore sets out to explore the primary causes of the 1999 Columbine Highschool massacre, as well as the roots of gun violence in the United States in his trademark provocative yet satirical manner. Bowling for Columbine takes a deep and often disconcerting investigation into the motives of two Colorado student shooters, responsible for the deaths of over 12 people at Columbine High School on April 20, 1999, and examines other gun-related issues as well. From obtaining free guns at a bank, to reviewing America’s violent history, and interviewing a variety of people, Moore demonstrates that the conventional answers of violent national history and entertainment, as well as poverty are inadequate of causing this violence, for other nations share the same factors without the same levels of carnage. In order to arrive at a possible explanation, Moore takes on a deeper inspection of America’s culture of fear, and violence in a nation with widespread gun ownership. Ultimately, the documentary implies that the high incidence of gun deaths in America is caused by the deadly combination of cultural paranoia and easy accessible firearms that is, to some extent, effectively established through rhetorical techniques of ethos, logos, and pathos.

While viewing Hilary Clinton and Donald Trump speeches’ many would claim that they both have mastered the rhetorical triangle. As candidates, they both have both displayed strong and weak uses of their rhetoric. Aristotle also said that, “rhetoric is basis of democratic engagement in civic life.” Mastering rhetoric to appeal to the voters will be one of the key elements that determines our next president. Donald Trump attempts to use pathos a lot. He tries to play on the audience’s emotions. In one of his most controversial speeches he stated, “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending the best. They’re not sending you, they’re sending people that have lots of problems and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs.

The incessant drum of our "disastrous president" as a weak and ineffective international leader coupled with unsubstantiated oratory about "this nation is in trouble" seems to work. It works because conservatives and many independents assimilate the rhetoric without seeking specificity.

According to Effective Crisis Communication: Moving from Crisis to Opportunity, “A critical factor in resolving any crisis is determining the cause. Once the cause has been identified, some of the uncertainty is cleared up, and corrective action can be taken. The primary problem here, however, is that identifying the cause of the crisis often takes a great deal of time.” One reason for uncertainty after gun violence results from the diverse perceptions of threat found between the two party system of the United States, the democrat and republicans, which hinders the progress of finding a solution. With democrats protesting for stricter gun control while republicans hold true to the second amendment, determining the cause of mass shootings becomes a tug of war battle between the two parties. Ulmer continues, “Many different independent and governmental groups may work to identify the cause of a crisis, and they may often disagree with or question the veracity of the other groups’ evidence” which is evident throughout media coverage (Ulmer, p. 47-48). Even though major media outlets provided minimum live coverage of the event, which could have been a hazard to public safety with an unidentified gunman on the loose, they wasted little time focusing the event to fit their network’s

In his State of the Union Address for 2016, Barack Obama uses logical and ethical arguments to emphasize shared ground rather than partisan disputes. He also taps into the audience’s desire to feel better about themselves and their country. By using humor and irony, Obama paints his opponents into corners, out of which it would require outrageous extremism to effectively squirm away. At its best, this approach demonstrates how much Americans actually have in common in a culture dominated by ideologically polarized cable-news channels, Facebook, and cultural tribes that increasingly live and socialize apart from one another. The president's technique throughout the speech is to frame issues through a rhetorical jujitsu to persuade his opponents,

In the film, Bowling for Columbine, the director Michael Moore takes an extent look at what could have made these teenagers to do such a thing. He doesn’t just look at the terrible event at Columbine High School, but also at the NRA's effects on people, the 2nd amendment, other school shootings, and how the United States compared to other countries gun-control explanations such as Canada. Michael Moore looks as a sociologist would such as C. Wright Mills in which he explores the outside factors of the individuals, but how the personal troubles of the two teenagers involved are related to immense conditions of our society. He doesn’t look at the intellectual make up of each person who creates a crime, but instead looks at how our society as a whole views guns and their uses.

Throughout history, when it comes to a national crisis, many leaders and politicians tend to advance towards what the people want to hear. In order to gain their audience’s support, most political leaders and public speakers use the practice of demagoguery to have useful influence held towards their argument. In Patricia Roberts-Miller’s article “Democracy, Demagoguery, and Critical Rhetoric,” analyzes what demagoguery is and how it affects the audience. Speakers or authoritative figures that engage with demagoguery use strategies such as scapegoating and polarization in order to establish a separation between in-groups and out-groups; in-groups tend to form hateful discrimination on out-groups and define them with negative features. An example of demagoguery that Roberts-Miller uses is in Adolf Hitler’s speech about how he wanted German people to change their views and beliefs on the Jewish. Her article however, also consists of several fallacies and may seem somewhat unethical. Throughout Wayne LaPierre’s speech on the Newtown Tragedy in 2012, there is usage of what Roberts-Miller claims to be demagoguery. Wayne LaPierre is the Vice President of the National Rifle Association (NRA). After the shooting that occurred at Sandy Hook elementary, LaPierre expresses his sympathy for the families of the loss and he then gathers the attention of parents who may be uneasy about their children’s safety at school. Throughout

School shootings have become well known around the world due to the coverage by the media. . These shootings are a serious concern and have parents constantly concerned about their child’s safety when they are at school and also have students thinking twice about any unusual or suspicious behavior. The media appears to play a large part in school shootings and it is important to analyze the deviant behaviors of the shooters in these horrific instances and the fear they create in schools. Does the media play a large part in school shootings or does the media play a large part in the sensationalism of school shootings and the fear they create both in schools and with parents?

For this current event, I chose to read the article titled, Widespread media coverage contributing to rise in mass shootings, say psychologists, by Jess Staufenberg. In this article Jess elaborates on the idea proposed by psychologists that giving mass shooters the fame they desire in the media is contributing to their rise.

This article analyzes three cases of mass shootings that took place within the United States, their most recent example being the mass shooting that took place at the University of California in Santa Barbara. Within each case, the study interestingly noted that the media often highlighted "individual aspects" of the shooter, such as internal struggles with mental health and histories of harassment by peers. Blum and Jaworski found that the media does not often include social factors, such as types of strain suffered by the shooters nor the fact that many were isolated from social interaction and connection

Democrats must point out to voters the misogynistic, racist, and classist comments that these groups are making. While Democrats shouldn’t focus entirely on race/gender/inequality or even use it as a front-and-center issue that they deem most important, they must bring these concepts to the minds of the rightwing voters who are listening to the demagogues within the rightwing. Take for instance the 2016 election. While Donald Trump’s comments on misogyny were widely attacked and criticized within the media and those who supported Hillary Clinton, these comments and the clues they held regarding Trump’s way of thinking were not explicitly brought to the public’s attention through political candidates who may have had some sway on voter’s opinions. They were instead only reported on by media that Trump’s supporters would never see anyway. Had Donald Trump’s outlandish claims and quotes been tackled more directly and been analyzed for the public, many may have backed out of his support for him. Many of Trump’s supporters don’t realize that they are being played on the idea of race and that their fears are being widely exploited for the power gains of the few. This is especially prevalent in the white families that Donald Trump secured in his election who voted for him based on economic security, but who

On December 14, 2012, 26 people lost their lives in one of the saddest tragedies in the history of America. These people did not die peacefully but were brutally murdered in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. Twenty young students, two teachers, two teacher’s aides, a school psychologist, and a principal all had their lives taken away because of a gun. The shooting sparked much debate in America whether more gun control or less gun control is needed. Less than four months later on April 30, 2013, conservative political pundit Glenn Beck published Control: Exposing the Truth about Guns. In Control, Beck effectively uses secondary data to disprove many myths about guns; however, he ineffectively persuades readers that violent video games, television, and film are the real contributors to violence in America.

  Mass media's vital role in the public perception of school shootings is seen as a social problem, and social scientists

Bowling for Columbine is a documentary directed and written by Michael Moore about the United States of America’s mindset on gun violence and finding out the key causes of why America has the highest amount of gun related deaths in the world. Moore does this by venturing to Flint Michigan, Ontario Canada, Littleton Colorado, South Central Los Angeles, and interviewing the locals, Charles Heston (the president of the National Rifles Association), Marilyn Manson, Evan McCollum (director of communications for Lockheed Martin Space Systems), and those who knew of or were involved with the Columbine high school shooting. Each scene is created to invoke the viewer into sympathizing with Moore’s argument that the media’s constant stream of negativity and violence manipulates the American mass into fear and that causes them to consume and spend money. Michael Moore takes control of the documentary by editing horrifying clips to feel good music to create an emotional appeal. He also makes use of logical appeals by showing the history of America’s wrong doings and coincidence of NRA rally’s shorty after a mass massacre tragedy. Satirically he makes light of how ridiculous Americans love their guns by use of song and cartoon. (Moss) These deliberate techniques push the viewer to side with Moore and they are very effective especially for first time watchers -including me. I agree that America is insecure and focuses too much on the bad; we want the quickest and easiest solution

Over the past couple of decades, school shooting have seemed to occur often-- continuously shocking the nation and reminding everyone that no community is exempt from such horror. One main contributor of this hysteria is found within the media. At the catalyst of this hysteria, lies the horrific Columbine shooting in 1999. Since then, school shootings have received ample coverage-- some argue that this has romanticized school shootings, others argue that is has provided condemning coverage of the often insane perpetrators. In the first year after the Columbine shooting, over 10,000 articles were written about the event, likely setting the stage for the nationwide desire for constant coverage of such events (Elsass et al, p. 445-446).