Applying Theoretical Perspectives to Social Media Influencers

This chapter examines how persuasion manifests in online communications from social media influencers to their followers. As the authors explore ways to manage the unprecedented amounts of information and media, they examine influence and communication from social media influencers the LaBrant family and illustrate why people might believe content on the internet without examining the validity of the information. It will demonstrate how theoretical frameworks of media convergence, the narrative paradigm, and six principles of persuasion can be used to comprehend how influencers disseminate information to their followers and utilize persuasive strategies to amass a large following. Further, it will increase our understanding about social media influencers and the cultural shifts shaping our world, and it will increase our understanding of the digital world that many of our students and children are familiar with.

RETROSPECTIVE CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF BARACK OBAMA’S AND OLUSEGUN OBASANJO’S POLITICAL COMMUNICATION FEATURES AND STYLES

Governments make calculated human capital commitment to political communication because of its indispensability and effectiveness as a veritable tool, which underlies and is underlined by massive government investment in public communication. Presidential communication is rooted in, influenced, and limited by, usually, certain written codes. This study examined why, when, and how two presidents said what they said, and why they did or not do as said. Thesis problem was unravelling how features and styles of two presidents facilitated their political communication and public policies. Study fitted into two models, using two political communication theories: mainly ‘Aristotelian Political Rhetoric;’ Walter Fisher’s ‘the Narrative Paradigm’ as theoretical guides. Using original communications of two presidents, this comparative and historical study bridged the sparse scholarship on comparative presidential political communication. Data were obtained from purposively selected sample population, collated, analysed and interpreted, deploying multiple instruments, majorly content and discourse analyses chosen for their effectiveness at measuring predetermined variables. Selected published presidential communications 178 and 158 each all totaling 336 obtained from secondary sources formed the sample population. Findings of study revealed both presidents were largely more dissimilar than otherwise. Their backgrounds reflected, not dominated their communications. As communicators, they were urban-romanticisers, but rural-jilters, promoting rural exclusion, and accessibility to selected urban congregations. Obama’s presidential communication was delivered using peculiar styles, like Olusegun Obasanjo’s, both relying on diverse notable features. Conclusively, presidential political communication should be additional statutory responsibility of presidents to legally guarantee accountability, and practical democracy. Presidential communication system must be deconstructed and reconstructed to promote professional speech-making, and polity-connected presidential political communication.

Strategy Analysis of Storytelling in Communicating Marriage Age Maturity Program in The Society

Even though some measures to reduce the incidence rate of child marriage have being undertaken for years, the implementation of the marriage act, Undang-undang No.16/2019, has been strengthening the implementation of Program Pendewasaan Usia Perkawinan (PUP), a national program to reduce the incidence rate of child marriage in Indonesia. Under these circumstances, communication holds an essential role in that program, mainly to reach behavioral and social changes among community as the main target of the program. A number of previous research still focused on the role of communicators and the communication effectiveness of the program. Through narrative paradigm framework, the present study is conducted to explore story-telling strategies performed by extension agents in Kabupaten Pasuruan, a distric where the incidence rate of child marriage is relatively high. Data gathered through FGDs and indepth interviews which involved extension agents of Program PUP in Kabupaten Pasuruan, local authority that concerns in family welfare and women empowerment, and Muslimat NU – those directly involved in the communication and education process towards PUP Program. Through interactive analysis presented by Miles, Huberman & Saldana (2014), this study revealed that within their strory-telling strategies, the extension agents as a story-teller tends to performed themselves in a more symmetrical relationship with their audiences. In order to involve their audiences to their stories, the extension agents employed Islamic based stories. From the structural narration, it is clear that they use humor and mitos to convince their audiences to avoid child marriage. The stories used also performed both structural and characterological coherence. However, in some stories, there are still lack of material coherence. Meskipun penanganan masalah pernikahan usia anak telah sejak lama dilakukan, berlakunya Undang-Undang Nomor 16 Tahun 2019 tentang perkawinan semakin memperkuat pelaksanaan Program Pendewasaan Usia Perkawinan (PUP) sebagai langkah konkret penanganan tingginya pernikahan usia anak di Indonesia. Komunikasi pada akhirnya turut memegang peranan kunci dalam proses pelaksanaan program khususnya untuk mencapai perubahan dalam level masyarakat sasaran. Berkaitan dengan PUP, berbagai riset terdahulu masih banyak berfokus pada peran komunikator serta efektivitas proses pengomunikasian program. Melalui kerangka narrative paradigm, penelitian ini hadir dengan tujuan mengeksplorasi strategi komunikasi berbasis storry-telling yang telah dilakukan oleh para penyuluh lapangan di wilayah Kabupaten Pasuruan, wilayah dengan jumlah pernikahan usia anak yang cukup tinggi. Teknik pengumpulan data dilakukan melalui FGD dan wawancara dengan melibatkan para penyuluh lapangan Program PUP di Kabupaten Pasuruan, dinas terkait, serta Muslimat NU yang terlibat langsung dalam proses edukasi terkait PUP. Melalui analisis interaktif Miles et al (Miles, M.B; Hubberman, A.M,; Saldana, 2014), disimpulkan bahwa melalui strategi story-telling yang digunakan, para penyuluh selaku pencerita berusaha memposisikan dirinya dengan membawakan cerita yang didasarkan pada penggunaan kisah-kisah dalam sejarah Islam untuk melibatkan target audiens di dalam cerita mereka. Dari struktur narasi yang digunakan, secara umum cerita yang disampaikan melibatkan humor dan mitos dan telah dapat memenuhi koherensi struktural dan karakterologis. Akan tetapi, terdapat beberapa cerita yang belum menunjukkan koherensi material.

(in)Fidelity: The Narrative Rationality of Tiger Woods

In this article, the narrative paradigm is applied to the documented life of Tiger Woods, viewing his story as sports folklore and public moral argument, asking, what patterns exist in his narrative? What values? And how can the narrative of Tiger Woods be described in terms of narrative rationality? Looked at as a mythic hero, Tiger feathers the line between fantasy and reality and has gone through the requisite rituals of violation and reconstruction. Accordingly, the duplicity in his character revealed through scandal, and the fallibility of his superhuman image exposed through injury give him something to overcome. As long as he redeems himself each time he falls the conditions of the mythic hero are kept intact. However, implicit in his story is the notion that ends can justify means as he has overcome scandal, criticism of his training methods, and criticism of his character throughout his career.

À la table d'Apollon : de l'abondance à la modération dans Francion

The first edition of the Histoire comique de Francion by Charles Sorel (1623) contains numerous references to the eating and drinking. My study examines narrative sequences focused on a fluctuation between deprivation and abundance, frustration and jouissance. In addition to the domain of food, I consider allusions to sexuality and knowledge, insofar as they share the same narrative paradigm, and shed light on each other. This analysis also shows how Sorel relates ambivalent references to food to some of his moral claims, expressed through subversive uses of the tradition of comic fiction. The four books added for the 1626 and 1633 editions of Francion can be perceived as a wavering attempt to displace Bacchus, who presides over the protagonist’s birth and is emblematic of the various immoderations in the first edition.

Decoding the nascent entrepreneurial pitch

PurposeThis paper investigates how early-stage founders use the 60-s nascent pitch to attract co-founders, by applying the narrative paradigm.Design/methodology/approachVideos of supported and non-supported pitches from Startup Weekend were analysed using the Grounded Theory Method.FindingsThe findings were used to develop a framework for a successful nascent pitch. It shows that founders who can engage the audience, convey credibility and use symbols effectively are more likely to attract co-founders. Bringing these three elements together through personalisation, that is, making the startup concept tangible and personally relevant for co-founders to visualise, enables the founder to talk a venture into existence.Practical implicationsThis paper holds implications for founders and entrepreneurship mentors to craft a powerful, persuasive pitch by drawing on the framework.Originality/valueThe framework brings a holistic understanding to the nascent pitch and explains how nascent founders acquire human resources at one of the earliest stages of venture formation. In this way, concerns of prior fragmented approaches focussed only on narrative elements of investment pitches are addressed.

What’s So Special about Video?

This chapter examines video’s epistemological trio of moving images, audio, and a timeline and their evidentiary affordances. Based on a single court case that blended video clips from a variety of perspectives, the project explores the evidentiary value of video and the way it’s used in testimonial narrative. Fisher’s narrative paradigm serves as the foundation for this chapter, which theorizes video as both an affordance and as a text with its own embedded narrative. In US courts, video cannot stand for itself but must accompany other testimony, and as testimonial affordance, video can explain or illustrate the order of action. Video is especially useful for refuting testimony that does not match what the video depicts. While its timeline affords a natural plot, the narrative that matters most is the discursive one crafted in court, offering what Fisher labeled coherence and fidelity—the moral or legal “point” of the story.

Christian Oughtness for Today: Biblical Perspectives for Christian Living

The world has traveled on a path that has presented inherent complexities and untold challenges as well as difficulties to the living of the ‘religious’ life in general and the Christian life in particular. Often, modern-day values offer a contradiction to traditional, religious, and biblical values which most of the time eclipses the Christian understanding of how one ought to live in the awareness of one’s Christian identity and vocation. This has culminated in the laxity of awareness in the Christian oughtness, in other words, of how the Christian ought to live in response to one’s identity and calling. This paper has sought to re-present the Christian oughtness anew situating it in its biblical-ethical perspectives. The paper used a narrative paradigm to reflect on biblical Christian ethics in the light of imperatives from the Old and New testaments. The paper envisages deepening a treatise on the awareness of the Christian oughtness from the biblical ethical perspective as a new paradigm through which Christians and people of goodwill would live as they ought to live, in promoting justice, progress and development of all people and their nations. Keywords: Christian Oughtness, Ethics, Biblico-imperatives

Working in Unfamiliar Territory: A Rhetorical Criticism of the Work-Related Sequences in The Arrival by Shaun Tan

Shaun Tan’s 2006 wordless graphic novel The Arrival presents readers with an affecting portrait of the immigrant experience. Drawing from semiotic theory and the narrative paradigm, this paper offers a rhetorical criticism of the scenes in The Arrival related to the main character’s employment-related experiences. The paper proposes a novel theoretical concept – a semiotics of unfamiliarity – and, guided by this concept and the narrative paradigm, concludes that The Arrival is an effective rhetorical artifact that poignantly presents important information about the professional difficulties faced by immigrants. It is recommended that The Arrival be considered for use in organizations that employ newly arrived immigrants.

Narratives in Televised Political Ads: Toward Alternative Discourses and Critical Voters

Televised political ads are powerful instruments of campaign communication because they are dominant and ubiquitous repositories of narratives by candidates and their strategists. Using Walter Fisher’s narrative paradigm and Robert Rowland’s narrative approach, this study looks into the use of narratives in 127 political TV ads in the 2016 and 2019 national elections. The discussion is divided into two major sections. First, the study uncovers dominant, emerging, and missing narratives in the TV ads and reflects on what these narratives reveal about Philippine political culture. Second, through a critique of these existing narratives, this study raises the challenge of reimagining and creating ads that foster critical public discourse. To this end, the paper recommends alternative topics, subjects, and strategies to improve TV ads in the future while recognizing the medium’s constraints such as length and costs.