ISSA Proceedings 2014 – A Strategic Maneuvering Analysis Of The Japan’s First Internet Election In 2013

Abstract: In 2013, Japan experienced its first Internet election campaign in history. This essay attempts to analyze political moves in the campaign within the framework of strategic maneuvering developed by Frans H. van Eemeren. Different approaches were found between major and minor parties. An opposition party increased its seats with the effective use of the Internet. With the analysis, the authors hope to indicate the future direction of the Internet election of Japan.

Keywords: Internet Election Campaign, Japanese Political Parties, Strategic Maneuvering

1. Introduction
This essay is aimed at clarifying the strategic maneuvers provided by the ruling coalition parties and by a minor one in the 2013 Japanese Upper House election from the pragma-dialectical perspective. In the year’s summer Japan experienced its first Internet election campaign in history, which was designed to provide a new form of argumentation. Until then, the previous versions of Public Offices Election Act had restricted the use of web tools in elections. But with blogs and social networking services (SNS), such as Facebook, LINE and Twitter permeating as convenient communication media among individuals, the prohibition of online election campaign became apparently obsolete.

Originally, the election Act had limited the amount of printed materials available for each candidate to call for support in consideration for fairness of public relations chance. Thus the original purpose of this restriction was designed for fairness against the freedom of expression. Needless to say, it is significant to reconcile both values. There is no wonder that the Internet campaigning on one hand would contribute to the freedom of expression with its accessibility, but on the other hand would raise the necessity to carefully design rules to deter false information or fallacious argument from erupting to confuse the electorate. The less restrictive the rule becomes, the more rhetorical argument would be. In such a case argumentative moves likely derail from the rules of critical discussion in “the pragma-dialectical” sense (Eemeren and Grootendorst, 2004). Read more

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ISSA Proceedings 2014 – Political Argument And The Affective Relations Of Democracy: Recovering Vaclav Havel’s Theory Of Associated Living

Abstract: This essay approaches Vaclav Havel’s first and second presidential addresses as artifacts of democratization theory. We propose that Havel’s speeches contribute to an affective theory of argumentation that can capture the lived, immersive quality of political phenomena such as the collective emotional experience of the post-communist transition. Specifically, we suggest that Havel’s observations illustrate the function of arguments as attuning devices that connect, orient, and sometimes disconnect subjects within the affective atmospheres of common life.

Keywords: affect, affective atmosphere, democratization, post-communism

1. Introduction
Post-communism was more than a period of political and economic transformation. It was also an emotional period of hope, uncertainty and affective dislocation. It was not unusual early on for observers to claim that the post-communist transitions in Eastern Europe brought forth an “identity in crisis” or even an “existential revolution” (Matustik, 1993, p. 187). On both sides of the crumbling Berlin wall there was a tendency to imagine the impact of the political and social developments in the region in dramatic emotional terms. Suddenly everyone was “dizzy with democracy” (Jowitt, 1996). In his first presidential address in former Czechoslovakia, capturing the sudden and seemingly inexplicable shift in the public mood, Vaclav Havel referred to the last six weeks of the country’s peaceful revolution as evidence that “society is a very mysterious creature” (par. 10). He also wondered about the atmospheric forces that seemingly overnight reconstituted the fabric of society: “Where did the young people who never knew another system get their desire for truth, their love of free thought, their political ideas, their civic culture and civic prudence? How did it happen that their parents – the very generation that had been considered lost – joined them? How is it that so many people immediately knew what to do and none needed any advice or instruction?” (par.10). Read more

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ISSA Proceedings 2014 – The Role Of Prosodic Features In The Analysis Of Multimodal Argumentation

Abstract: This paper aims to contribute to our understanding of multi-modal argumentation by examining the role of prosodic features in persuasive messages. Standard analyses of advertisements already assign a key role to visuals in understanding, reconstructing and assessing the argument. I present reconstructions of TV commercials that take into account verbal, visual and prosodic components. Because prosodic features are here especially relevant to reinforcing the argumentation, they should not be neglected in argumentation analysis.

Keywords: argumentation, multimodal discourse, nonverbal communication, prosodic features.

1. Introduction
Contemporary studies on argumentation broaden the scope of argumentation research beyond verbal and include analyzing the role of images (Birdsell & Groarke 1996; Birdsell & Groarke 2007; Groarke, 1996; Groarke & Tindale 2013….), music (Branigan 1992), gesture (Gelang & Kjeldsen, 2010) and other nonverbal elements in argumentation discourse. The need to deal with other than merely verbal elements in the argumentation process is perhaps most obvious especially in view of technological developments that alter our means of communication (and argumentation), as well as the ever present influences of the media and advertising industry in shaping public opinion, values, interests, and incitements to action. Groarke (1996, p.10) points out the perhaps plainest reason to develop an account of visual arguments that are in some cases crucial to persuade an audience: “Visual appeals are especially pervasive in everyday discourse, in which visual images propound a point of view in magazines, advertising, film, television, multi-media, and the World Wide Web”. Read more

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ISSA Proceedings 2014 – Institutional Constraints Of Topical Strategic Maneuvering In Legal Argumentation. The Case Of ‘Insulting’.

Abstract: Strategic maneuvering refers to the efforts parties make to reconcile rhetorical effectiveness with dialectical standards of reasonableness. It manifests itself in topical selection, audience-directed framing and presentational devices. In analyzing strategic maneuvering one category of parameters to be considered are the constraints of the institutional context. In this paper I explore the institutional constraints for topical selection for the legal argumentative activity type insulting. I will make a distinction between statutory constraints, constraints developed in case law and constraints regarding language use and the logic of conversational implicatures

Keywords: conversational implicatures, insulting, legal argumentation, speech act theory,

1. Introduction
Frans van Eemeren explains in Strategic Maneuvering in Argumentative Discourse (2010, p. 40) how the theoretical reconstruction of argumentation should incorporate strategic maneuvering of parties in a discussion. Strategic maneuvering refers to the efforts parties make to reconcile rhetorical effectiveness with dialectical standards of reasonableness. It manifests itself topical selection, the audience-directed framing of the argumentative moves, and in the purposive use of presentational devices. In analyzing strategic maneuvering the following parameters must be considered:

(a) the results that can be achieved,
(b) the routes that can be taken to achieve these results,
(c) the constraints of the institutional context and
(d) the mutual commitments defining the argumentative situation (Van Eemeren 2010, p. 163). Read more

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ISSA Proceedings 2014 – Arguments By Analogy (And What We Can Learn About Them From Aristotle)

Abstract: The paper contributes to the debate about arguments by analogy, especially the distinction between ‘deductive’ and ‘inductive’ analogies and the question how such arguments can be ‘deductive’, yet nonetheless defeasible. It claims that ‘deductive’ and ‘inductive’ are structural, not normative categories, and should not be used to designate argument validity. Based on Aristotle’s analysis of enthymemes, examples, and metaphors, it argues that arguments from analogy are complex arguments that involve inductive, abductive, and deductive components.

Keywords: abduction, analogy, comparison, deduction, enthymeme, example, induction, metaphor, similarity.

1. Introduction
Arguments by analogy have been a much-disputed subject recently. The most controversial issues in that discussion have been whether or not there are different types of analogical arguments, whether they are to be regarded as basically inductive or deductive or as a completely distinct category of argument of their own, whether or not they involve any hidden or missing premises, and whether it is possible for analogical arguments to be deductive and yet defeasible. Read more

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ISSA Proceedings 2014 – Evidence-Based Practice: Evidence Set In An Argument

Abstract: Evidence-based practice (EBP) is currently a dominating trend in many professional areas. But what do we want evidence for in EBP? Evidence generally speaks to the trustworthiness of our beliefs, but EBP is practical in nature and truth is not really what is at stake. Rather we are after effectiveness in bringing about changes. What we need evidence for is a prediction to the effect that what has worked in one context will also work here. In this paper I argue that is makes good sense to view this prediction as the conclusion of an argument. To set the evidence in an argument will structure our thinking and help us focus on what kinds of evidence we need to support the likelihood that an intervention here will work.

Keywords: Argument, causal role, EBP, effectiveness, enablers, evidence, external validity, local facts, RCT, stability of context

1. Introduction
There exists a vast literature on EBP, hardly surprising given the status of ‘evidence-based’ as a buzzword in contemporary professional debates, such as education, medicine, psychiatry and social policy. Researchers are responding in many ways to political demands for better research bases to inform and guide both policy and practice; some by producing the kind of evidence it is assumed can serve as a base for practice; others by criticizing or even rejecting the whole enterprise of EBP – the latter frequently, but not exclusively, couched in terms of worries about instrumentalization of practice and restrictions in the freedom of professionals to exercise their judgment. Read more

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