Media and Government Manipulation

It was interesting that Bitzer highlighted that the rhetorical situation is not necessarily a persuasive situation. According to Bitzer:

“Let us regard rhetorical situation as a natural context of persons, events, objects, relations, and an exigence which strongly invites utterance; this invited utterance participates naturally in the situation, is in many instances necessary to the completion of situational activity, and by means of this participation with situation obtains its meaning and its rhetorical character.”

However Vatz stated that “meaning is not discovered in situations, but created by rhetors.” Prime examples of both of these authors definitions of the rhetorical situation can be found in V for Vendetta. V for Vendetta shows an exigent situation that is manipulated by the government through the media. The main character, V, learns to use the media in order to encourage the public to participate in his revolution.  All of the readings emphasize the importance of the audience in the rhetorical situation. Audience is particularly important as a catalyst in the film as it is the public as an audience that the major aspects of the film take place.   The government manipulates the situation by downplaying the assassination of several public figures yet emphasizes catastrophic events outside the country. By doing this they are controlling how the public views the control of the country. As described by Biescker: “ “Rhetoric,” here is the name given to those utterances which serve as instruments for adjusting the environment in accordance to the interest of the inhabitants.” In the case of V for Vendetta, perhaps the most accurate of the rhetorical situation is the concept of ecology by Edbaurer “Rhetorical situations involve the amalgamation and mixture of many different events and happenings that are not properly segmented into audience, text, or rhetorician.” V for Vendetta shows an accumulation of atrocities that the government commits in order to create the rhetoric that suppresses the people into a strict society. The catalyst begins with a school where a biological weapon is released resulting in the death of school children. The society becomes withdrawn and suppressed. Detective Finch states: “I suddenly had this feeling that everything was connected. It's like I could see the whole thing, one long chain of events that stretched all the way back before Larkhill. I felt like I could see everything that happened, and everything that is going to happen. It was like a perfect pattern, laid out in front of me. And I realized we're all part of it, and all trapped by it.”

V, as a powerful rhetor, changes the situation when he broadcasts his speech:

“Good evening, London. Allow me first to apologize for this interruption. I do, like many of you, appreciate the comforts of every day routine- the security of the familiar, the tranquility of repetition. I enjoy them as much as any bloke. But in the spirit of commemoration, thereby those important events of the past usually associated with someone's death or the end of some awful bloody struggle, a celebration of a nice holiday, I thought we could mark this November the 5th, a day that is sadly no longer remembered, by taking some time out of our daily lives to sit down and have a little chat. There are of course those who do not want us to speak. I suspect even now, orders are being shouted into telephones, and men with guns will soon be on their way. Why? Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth. And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn't there? Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? Who's to blame? Well certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you're looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror. I know why you did it. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn't be? War, terror, disease. There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense. Fear got the best of you, and in your panic you turned to the now high chancellor, Adam Sutler. He promised you order, he promised you peace, and all he demanded in return was your silent, obedient consent. Last night I sought to end that silence. Last night I destroyed the Old Bailey, to remind this country of what it has forgotten. More than four hundred years ago a great citizen wished to embed the fifth of November forever in our memory. His hope was to remind the world that fairness, justice, and freedom are more than words, they are perspectives. So if you've seen nothing, if the crimes of this government remain unknown to you then I would suggest you allow the fifth of November to pass unmarked. But if you see what I see, if you feel as I feel, and if you would seek as I seek, then I ask you to stand beside me one year from tonight, outside the gates of Parliament, and together we shall give them a fifth of November that shall never, ever be forgot.”

It is not the actual speech that changes the situation, it is the culmination of events afterward that lead the audience to form new ideas. The audience actively participates in the revolution and thus distinguishes themselves from being “mere hearers or readers,” as Bitzer suggests, they are a rhetorical audience, “those persons who are capable of being influenced by discourse and of being mediators of change.

V for Vendetta. Dir. James McTiegue. Perf. Nathalie Portman, Hugo Weaving. Warner Brothers, 2006. DVD.