4. Rhetorical Criticism and Environmental Melodrama
4.7 Gaps or Problems within Melodramatic Theory
Existing rhetorical scholarship rarely distinguishes that within a functioning social melodrama there at least two sets of rhetors and two corresponding audiences. Thus, critics of melodrama, as Schwarze (2006) vaguely addresses, dismiss this form due to its polarizing nature (240) assuming that, based on Burke’s (1969) claim that “there is no chance of keeping apart the meanings of persuasion, identification…and communication” (46), the purpose of persuasion is to achieve identification.27 Even though Schwarze (2006) contends that one of melodrama’s positive potential rhetorical features is that of “enabling division” (240), he does not make explicit that such division occurs between audiences, not amidst audiences. Furthermore, even though Osborn & Bakke (1998) observe how two melodramas can simultaneously occur in a public controversy in the form of a melodrama/counter-melodrama (227), they do not fully acknowledge that one of the rhetorical purposes behind a rhetor’s attempt to create identification with one audience is to create division from the other simultaneous audience. To address this gap, in my analysis, I will explore the variety of polarization tactics employed by WCO to illustrate how the rhetorical strategy of fostering identification in one audience simultaneously
27 Importantly, this is Schwarze’s (2006) interpretation of Burke’s discussion of identification and division in A Rhetoric of Motives. However, in “The Rhetorical Situation,” Burke discusses the coexistence of identification and division, what he deems “congregation by segregation,” observing that “partisanship…comes so natural to rhetoric”
and uses the analogy of a presidential campaign in “which contestants stress their divisiveness” to create identification with the electorate (264).
creates dis-identification from another audience. Through such analysis, I will contribute to the existing scholarship by illustrating how WCO uses environmental melodrama to construct inter-audience identification while dissociating itself from the institutional discourses which promote IWT developments.
A second gap which is apparent in the scholarly literature exploring environmental melodrama is that aside from Schwarze’s (2006) application of this conceptual framework to analyze the discursive response to the asbestos controversy in Libby, Montana, to my knowledge no other environmental controversies have been researched using this theoretical approach, let alone opposition to industrial wind turbines. Thus, an analysis of WCO’s rhetorical strategy of melodrama will enable me to contribute to environmental rhetorical scholarship, as well as scholarship exploring opposition within this specific context.
A third gap in the scholarship which examines melodrama within social controversies is that little attention has been paid to the particular argumentative and stylistic techniques within public melodramas. For example, McWilliam (2000) observes that “there is very little work that
concentrates on the specifics of melodramatic form” (71) and Bsumek urges rhetorical scholars to “find additional aspects of melodrama” (qtd. in Kinsella 84). In terms of the stylistic
techniques within melodrama, Osborn & Bakke (1998) state that:
An interesting sidelight of this study is that it confirmed the close relationship between melodrama and metaphor, explained by Brooks as follows: ‘To the melodramatic
imagination, significant things and features are necessarily metaphoric in nature because they must refer to and speak of something else’ (10). Other significant figures in
melodrama, Brooks argues, are hyperbole, antithesis, and oxymoron (40). (233)
However, the authors offer this observation in passing with no further analysis of these figures in practice. Furthermore, where authors such as Brooks (1973) discuss the stylistic characteristics of melodrama, such as tropes, he does so by exploring theatrical melodramas as opposed to public melodramas. Blain (1994), as discussed, offers one of the most useful overviews of melodramatic language by noting the prevalence of militaristic jargon in melodramatic political movements. Though my analysis, I will build on this work by contributing additional evidence of the stylistic techniques employed in environmental melodrama.
In addition, in “Environmental Melodrama,” Schwarze’s (2006) primary focus is to justify environmental melodrama as a valid rhetorical form for environmental activists. He does so by claiming that environmental melodrama can create a “fault line” (246) between advocates and opponents in a controversy; that environmental melodrama polarizes audiences (248); that environmental melodrama can remoralize controversy (250); that environmental melodrama can create “monopathy” (251); that environmental melodrama can function as constitutive rhetoric (252) and that these are worthwhile objectives in an environmental advocacy campaign. Since Schwarze’s (2006) purpose is to provide theoretical support for this frame, it is understandable that his focus is on demonstrating, through a case study, that environmental melodrama ‘can’
achieve these rhetorically relevant objectives. With his focus on what melodrama ‘can do,’
Schwarze (2006) not only leaves room for further research to consider ‘how’ particular rhetorical tactics and stylistic techniques are used to achieve these objectives, he encourages scholars to contribute to a “richer theory of melodrama” (240).
To analyze the stylistic techniques of melodrama, I will draw on Fahnestock’s Rhetorical Style:
The Uses of Language in Persuasion which:
(O)ffers methods of language analysis derived from the rhetorical tradition. It uses the descriptive categories standard in rhetorical treatments of style involving still familiar matters of word choice and sentence construction, since rhetoric’s attention to style also identifies structures below the sentence level, as well as multisentence structures that emerge across passages, the most neglected level of analysis. (8)
Through this type of analysis, I will illuminate the discursive features of my selected
phenomenon as well as highlight the particular stylistic and strategic characteristics of WCO’s embedded third-party edited posts within the form of environmental melodrama. Such analysis will also contribute to a stylistic taxonomy of melodrama and complicate a conventional understanding of rhetorical melodrama by demonstrating that melodrama isn’t a simple,
sensationalized, hyperbolized emotional form but rather one which is complex and discursively malleable.
Schwarze (2006) also directs scholars who are embarking on a study of environmental
melodrama to contribute to an understanding of environmental melodrama in relation to kairos (Schwarze 257) – especially, the “conditions that are more or less favorable for melodramatic intervention” (256). By examining how WCO effectively appropriates journalistic conventions as part of its digitized melodramatic rhetorical strategy, my analysis will explore this relationship in depth and provide insight to how environmental melodrama functions in an online
environment
Finally, Schwarze (2006) directs scholars to treat “melodrama as an integrated rhetorical form”
as such treatment “enhances accurate identification of [melodrama’s] frames and encourages more careful analysis of [its] frames” (256). In response to this directive, my analysis
investigates the particular appeals which WCO employs to make explicit the positions, key values, and beliefs promoted by the organization. Through such treatment, I am able to delineate the themes which constitute the parameters of this conflict as well as describe how such themes constitute the identities of both WCO and its implied audience – both IWT opponents and neutrals as opposed to supporters. In addition, my analysis offers insights on how WCO
appropriates the scientific and technical discursive frames typical of technocratic discourse in its creation of a counter-rhetoric to the institutionalized discourses which promote IWT
developments in Ontario.
Furthermore, my analysis will expand existing theories of environmental melodrama by showing how the rhetorical technique of “differentiation humour” (Meyer, 2000), including satire and irony, plays a key role in WCO’s melodramatic oppositional discourse. In “Humor as a Double-Edged Sword: Four Functions of Humor in Communication,” Meyer (2000) describes how
“communicators use differentiation quite often, contrasting themselves with their opponents, their views with an opponent’s views, their own social group with others” and that “comic ridicule can also maintain identification and political unity among members of one group while stressing contradictions and differences they have with others” (321-22). As I will argue, this technique helps WCO to achieve the particular rhetorical functions of melodrama as noted by Schwarze (2006). In particular, it functions to foster ‘identification through polarizing division’
and it helps to maintain the energy of the movement over time through comedic ridicule of its opponents. Both the appropriation of technocratic discursive tendencies and the use of humour are typically considered to be outside of the realm of melodrama. Thus, my analysis provides a novel contribution to the theoretical understanding of environmental melodrama in these areas.