ISSA Proceedings 2014 – “I Did Not Do It, Because I Would Not Do It”: Defending Oneself Against An Accusation

• by: Henrike Jansen, Leiden University Centre for Linguistics, Leiden, The Netherlands

Abstract: When hard proof is absent, someone who faces an accusation can seek assistance in arguments making it plausible that (s)he ‘did not do it’. This paper deals with an argument saying that the accused would never do the alleged act because of the harmful consequences it would yield. An analysis and evaluation of this kind of argumentative strategy is demonstrated with examples of two professional cyclists defending themselves against doping accusations.

Keywords: accusation, character, convincingness, denial, counterfactual, critical questions, hypothetical, plausibility, risk weighing, soundness

1. Introduction
In August 2012, the head of the USADA (United States Anti-Doping Agency), Travis Tygart, reported that its investigation had revealed manifold doping practices by Lance Armstrong. The accusation was based on detailed allegations of ex-teammates. Armstrong responded in a statement published on his website. He called the investigation a ‘witch hunt’ and a ‘one-sided’ trial that was only set up to punish him at all costs. As he had done before in defending himself against doping accusations, he based his denial of guilt on the hundreds of controls he had undergone during his career without a single positive result:

There is zero physical evidence to support his [Tygart’s] outlandish and heinous claims. The only physical evidence here is the hundreds of controls I have passed with flying colors. I made myself available around the clock and around the world. In competition. Out of competition. Blood. Urine. Whatever they asked for I provided. What is the point of all this testing if, in the end, USADA will not stand by it? (King, 2005) Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2014 – The Failure Of Fact-Checking

• by: Jeffrey W. Jarman - Elliott School of Communication, Wichita State University, USA

Abstract: Fact-checking rests on a foundation that is desirable: an educated citizenry, informed of the facts, will make a rational decision. Unfortunately, the theory of motivated reasoning suggests prior attitudes strongly influence the process. This paper reports the results from two studies (n=456) that investigated the effectiveness of fact-checking in the context of ObamaCare. The results of the studies confirm the real problem for fact-checking: prior attitudes intervened to reduce the utility of the fact check.

Keywords: fact-checking, motivated reasoning, Obama, political affiliation, Romney

1. Introduction
In an effort to combat a new wave of false and misleading political advertisements, American journalists in the early 1990’s shed their tendency merely to report politicians’ claims and instead took up the challenge to report their truthfulness. These new adwatches were meant provide the public with the information necessary to make an informed decision. Journalists embraced their role as the arbiters of truth with the hope “that prospective voters will use information about misleading ads to discount their claims and turn away from candidates who ads lack veracity” (Frantzich, 2002, p. 35). The idea that voters would rely on evidence and rationally choose a candidate is an ideal that is firmly rooted in democracy. But, what is less clear is whether voters use the information provided in adwatches to make a “good” decision. Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2014 – Mitt Romney And Ideological Enthymeme In Denver: “Obamacare” And Its Functions

• by: Justin Kirk - Department of Communication Studies, University of Kansas, USA

Abstract: This paper argues that surface-level analysis of political argument fails to explain the effectiveness of ideological enthymemes, particularly within the context of presidential debates. The choice of a terminological system limits and shapes the argumentative choices afforded the candidate. Presidential debates provide a unique context within which to examine the interaction of ideological constraints and argument due to their relatively committed and ideologically homogenous audiences.

Keywords: argument, Barack Obama, enthymeme, ideology, Mitt Romney, Obamacare, presidential debates, terminology

1. Introduction
On October 3, 2012 Mitt Romney and Barack Obama took the stage at Magness Arena at the University of Denver and participated in the first of three debates prior to the general election. Heading into the Denver debate, Romney was suffering a slow bleed of independents and moderate conservative voters (John F. Kennedy School of Government, 2013, p. 210). Whether due to the now-infamous 47% comment at a fundraiser in Florida, the near-calamity of the GOP convention, or Romney’s persistent vagueness in regards to his tax policies, one aspect of the race was abundantly clear; the challenger’s campaign needed a significant boost to remain competitive in the last month of the election. As a result, the Romney campaign entered the debate in Denver with a lower threshold of expectations than President Obama.

Reactions after the debate did not match the expectations established prior to the encounter. Rather than being the “knock down, drag-out fight” described in US News and World Report, the first matchup between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama was, as described by one writer at Politico, “relatively sleepy” with “no fireworks or big ‘moments’ to speak of” and “unusually civilized” (Metzler, 2012; Haberman, 2012; Mariucci and Farofoli, 2012). Expectations were on the Obama’s side by a 2 to 1 margin among voters, with the belief firmly in the minds of the electorate that Obama would win because of his experience (Milbank, 2012, p. A02). However, pundits agreed that the biggest difference between expectations and results was the lacklustre performance of the president (Medved, 2012; McAskill, 2012; Ingold, 2012). Read more

ISSA Proceedings 2014 – Fine Arts As Visual Argument: Optical Argument In Discourse, Technology And Paintings*

• by: Hideki Kakita - Department of English, Dokkyo University, Japan

Abstract: This essay performatively critiques seventeenth-century Dutch visual culture to offer an alternative way of understanding visual argument. The formation of optical discourse is rhetorically analyzed, and a focus is given to how the relationships among paintings, knowledge and technology are rhetorically subverted, transformed and maintained along with a pre-text of optical controversy. As visuality is historically and culturally constituted, its constitution is practiced in and by argumentative discourse of optics and technology.

Keywords: camera obscura, controversy, excess, extramission theory, iconophobia, intromission theory, Johannes Kepler, optics, retinal image, seventeenth-century Dutch visual culture.

1. Introduction
Recent scholarship on visual argument in the field of argumentation theory has produced some fruitful areas to explore in order to re-conceptualize the relationship between verbal texts and visual images. George Roque’s argument offers a promising starting point. Roque (2010) argues that it is time for visual argumentation to self-reflect this emerging field and to start conferring a thorough definition, after having grounded a legitimacy of its scholarship by collective demonstrations of numerous cases for visual arguments ever since its incipient recognition of the field. Specifically, he points out the disciplinary problem in which the visual is singled out as a means of communication to display the contents of argument, and accordingly, in which visual aspects become considered neutral and transparent, and hence subservient to the verbal (Roque, 2010, p.1723). Read more

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

• by: Takayuki Kato - Department of Law, Seiwa University, Japan & Takeshi Suzuki - School of Information and Communication, Meiji University, Japan & Suzuki Masako - Keio Research Center for Foreign Language Education, Keio University, Japan

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

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

• by: Zornitsa Keremidchieva - Political Science Department, Macalester College, USA & Vera Sidlova, Czech Republic

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