In “Genre as a Social Action”, Carolyn Miller explains the importance of genre in a rhetorical piece as a form of persuasion. She states that “a rhetorical sound definition of genre must be centered not on the substance or the form of discourse but on the action it is used to accomplish”. Rhetoric, as she describes, leans towards provoking the audience into action or discourse. This is because the strong emotion that rhetoric creates is more impactful for a reader than the formal qualities that it carries. Rather than categorizing rhetoric as through its structure, the principle it tries to promote is more apt.
According to Miller, the reactions that emerge after a piece is delivered can be predicted. Her argument for this is that “’the existence of the recurrent provides insight into the human condition’ … Recurrence is implied by our understanding of situations as somehow ‘comparable’, ‘similar’, or ‘analogous’ to other situations”. By this she is stating that people in general are inclined towards a side based off previous experiences. When a specific topic is presented in the news or if a topic is presented in a colored manner, people have been seen to react predictably because of their predisposition. This is “because human action is based on and guided by meaning, not by material causes, at the center of action is a process of interpretation”. Miller’s point is that people are most invoked by the message that an author imbues on the audience. The “material causes” or composition qualities are insufficient in defining a piece as they aren’t the focal point.
A writer can pen a strong and manipulative piece aimed at the right audience by studying the disposition of the public. This can be seen by looking at past reactions as well as gauging the current public mood after receiving news. It is important for a writer to effectively tailor the formal quantities of their piece to strongly display the message they want to impart.
I like how your whole response was centered around the concept of connecting with an audience through emotional appeal. From the work of Miller, she reinforces your opinion that that genre should help provoke action in your audience rather than relying solely on form and substance. I also addressed the idea of recurrence in my blog post, but I see this as a potential problem. Yes, some situations are comparable and thus their may be a ‘typical’ way of discourse to relay your message. However, is this limiting to what you want to do with your campaign? Audiences are used to seeing some types of communication in certain ways, but this may not allow you to express your idea/concern fully. Does this make sense? I’m curious as to how you will be able to control the “predictable reaction” from your audience and have it evoke the action that you want. As you said, people have predispositions to seeing similar genres of writing. How can you use this to your advantage? I’m not in any way saying that you’ll have trouble with your campaign, but I think it’ll really help you to work through this issue. Blogs, editorials, press releases, etc. all have a general format, so how exactly will you use these genres to evoke action from your audience? I thought your reflection of Miller’s piece was solid, and I’m excited to see how your campaign pieces turn out!