The Contitutive Perception of Persuasion

Influence, defined as the action of affecting an audience's beliefs, values, actions, principals, etc., is often used to characterize one's ability to persuade. The validity of one's argument is can be measured by the "speaker's success or failure to accomplish his/her persuasive goal," as stated by Greene. This is the most typical way that persuasion is perceived. Persuasion, when considered in this way, is an idea centered on a goal or a desired outcome. Under this influence model, a "persuader" must have an objective in order to influence a "persuadee" (their intended audience). This model is in line with the mainstream definition of persuasion. For example, through the use of advertisements, a company will attempt to persuade the audience to purchase their product, or a preacher may try to persuade his/her congregation to give money to the church. The influence model infers that persuasion usually occurs when someone is trying to sell something, regardless of whether that things is a product or a value. Therefore this model implies a general pattern for persuasion:

Sender → Persuasion → Receiver

However, as a student of persuasion, this model is found to be extremely flat and ineffective. Not ineffective in terms of its influence or persuasiveness, but rather ineffective in its ability to define what persuasion really is in its entirety. The influence model is not incorrect in theory; persuasion is obviously occurring in the examples stated, but the limitations put on the term "persuasion" are unsympathetic to the trueness of what persuasion can really be.

Finding the true meaning of persuasion calls for the understanding of certain areas of human perception. Even more so, an understanding of rhetorical principles is necessary. Kenneth Burke's piece on "terministic screens" helps us get a grasp of rhetoric in a more constitutive way:

"Even if any given terminology is a reflection of reality, by its very nature as a terminology it must be a selection of reality; and to this extent it must function also as a deflection of reality (p. 45)."

In this quote, Burke poetically opens the door to a deeper understanding of rhetoric and persuasion. His ideas imply that within the very essence of language is a nature to guide the perception of a message. Burke calls it the "directing of attention" (p. 45). For example, in a presidential address on terrorism a specific terminology would be used. Within the stated terminology three things would happen. First, a reflection of reality would paint a picture for the audience. Suppose that the president used the word "evil" to describe the act of terrorism. The reflection is that the individuals in question were evil people. Second, a selection of the reality would be displayed. Using the term "evil" in this case would cause the audience to have their attention drawn to the idea that the terrorists were evil. Lastly, the terminology selected will inherently lead the audience to ignore or deflect certain parts of reality. For example, the term "evil" implies that they were not "good," not "holy," not "righteous," and so on. Simply consider the difference of the implication in using a word like "bad" instead of "evil." "Evil" as a selected term automatically reflects and deflects reality in many ways that "bad" does not. The meaning of Burke's "terministic screens" begins to become more clear. McGee talks of a similar rhetorical device he titles the "ideograph." McGee's ideographs, however, exist solely in a political dialog. Ideographs are true in discourse and function as "agents of political consciousness". Terministic screens are not solely the action of the sender of the message, nor do they have the same effect on every member of the audience. For example, how one individual perceives the term "freedom" is likely to be different than that of the person next to him. The conception of terministic screens and ideographs help to identify the form of persuasion that is the constitutive model.

In terms of rhetoric, the constitutive model as defined by Greene "concerns itself with how ... subjects, persona's, situations, and problems emerge as the effects of rhetorical practices." Also, it "focuses on the role of public discourse in the process of world disclosure." In opposition to the model of influence, a constitutive model considers Burke's terministic screens. The effects of a text on the public are not exclusive, but rather they are in action within a plethora of facets. The constitutive model of persuasion means to say that it is possible to be persuaded without being targeted as an audience. Instead of being influenced by a persuasive argument, individuals partake in identification through persuasion. Therefore, texts actively create and limit identification. In other words, material rhetoric has elements that cause people to identify with any given outlet and ignore the identification with other given outlets. Michel Foucault's article, The Subject and Power states:

"It is a set of actions on possible actions; it incites, it induces, it seduces, it makes easier or more difficult; it releases or contrives, makes more probable or less; in the extreme, it constrains or forbids absolutely, but it is always a way of acting or being capable of action. A set of actions upon other actions (p. 341)."

Here Foucault is speaking of power and its many actions that are ever-present. The idea that power is "a set of actions upon other actions" is a significant concept to an analysis of persuasion. Persuasion is often seen as an facet of power. Foucault says that "power is ... a mode of action that does not act directly and immediately on others" (p. 340). In this same sense, persuasion, under the construct of the constitutive model, is also not an action that acts directly or immediately on others. Instead it is an "action upon an action." In terms of persuasion, one may think of power as identification upon identification. Here persuasion is not an event, nor is it an effort by a group or individual. Like Foucault's "power," persuasion simply exists in our rhetoric and in our symbol systems. One may be unaware of its influence on us or one may be completely aware of it. Burke would argue that even though one can not change the fact that persuasion is ever-present and unavoidable, he would say that it is our duty as humans aware of its existence to challenge its course and seek its nature.

Persuasion in the influence model is not effective as a rhetorical principle. The constitutive model contains a much better logic and produces a greater comprehension of persuasion in our lives. Under a constitutive model persuasion is related strongly to identification, not just simply identification, but identification on a sub-conscious level too. Persuasion is part of our lives in many ways that the influence model ignores. The constitutive model serves as a sufficient way to understand the true meaning of persuasion.

Works Cited:

Burke, Kenneth. A Rhetoric of Motives. U of California P, 1950.

Foucault, Michel. "The Subject and Power," Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics. University of Chicago, 1982.

Greene, Robert. The 48 Laws of Power. Viking Press, 1998.