Rhetoric & Technical Communication
Rhetoric & Technical Communication
Aaron A. Toscano, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Dept. of English

Resources and Daily Activities

  • Conference Presentations
    • Critical Theory/MRG 2023 Presentation
    • PCA/ACA Conference Presentation 2022
    • PCAS/ACAS Presentation 2021
    • SEACS 2021 Presentation
    • SEACS 2022 Presentation
    • SEACS 2023 Presentation
    • South Atlantic MLA Conference 2022
  • Dr. Toscano’s Homepage
  • ENGL 2116-014: Introduction to Technical Communication
    • April 10th: Analyzing Ethics
      • Ethical Dilemmas for Homework
      • Ethical Dilemmas to Ponder
      • Mapping Our Personal Ethics
    • April 12th: Writing Ethically
    • April 17th: Ethics Continued
    • April 19th: More on Ethics in Writing and Professional Contexts
    • April 24th: Mastering Oral Presentations
    • April 3rd: Research Fun
    • April 5th: More Research Fun
      • Epistemology and Other Fun Research Ideas
      • Research
    • February 13th: Introduction to User Design
    • February 15th: Instructions for Users
      • Making Résumés and Cover Letters More Effective
    • February 1st: Reflection on Workplace Messages
    • February 20th: The Rhetoric of Technology
    • February 22nd: Social Constructions of Technology
    • February 6th: Plain Language
    • January 11th: More Introduction to Class
    • January 18th: Audience & Purpose
    • January 23rd: Résumés and Cover Letters
      • Duty Format for Résumés
      • Peter Profit’s Cover Letter
    • January 25th: More on Résumés and Cover Letters
    • January 30th: Achieving a Readable Style
      • Euphemisms
      • Prose Practice for Next Class
      • Prose Revision Assignment
      • Revising Prose: Efficiency, Accuracy, and Good
      • Sentence Clarity
    • January 9th: Introduction to the Class
    • Major Assignments
    • March 13th: Introduction to Information Design
    • March 15th: More on Information Design
    • March 20th: Reporting Technical Information
    • March 27th: The Great I, Robot Analysis
    • May 1st: Final Portfolio Requirements
  • ENGL 4182/5182: Information Design & Digital Publishing
    • August 21st: Introduction to the Course
      • Rhetorical Principles of Information Design
    • August 28th: Introduction to Information Design
      • Prejudice and Rhetoric
      • Robin Williams’s Principles of Design
    • Classmates Webpages (Fall 2017)
    • December 4th: Presentations
    • Major Assignments for ENGL 4182/5182 (Fall 2017)
    • November 13th: More on Color
      • Designing with Color
      • Important Images
    • November 20th: Extra-Textual Elements
    • November 27th: Presentation/Portfolio Workshop
    • November 6th: In Living Color
    • October 16th: Type Fever
      • Typography
    • October 23rd: More on Type
    • October 2nd: MIDTERM FUN!!!
    • October 30th: Working with Graphics
      • Beerknurd Calendar 2018
    • September 11th: Talking about Design without Using “Thingy”
      • Theory, theory, practice
    • September 18th: The Whole Document
    • September 25th: Page Design
  • ENGL 4183/5183: Editing with Digital Technologies
    • August 23rd: Introduction to the Class
    • August 30th: Rhetoric, Words, and Composing
    • Major Assignments for ENGL 4183/5183 (Fall 2023)
    • September 13th: Verb is the Word!
    • September 27th: Coordination and Subordination
      • Parallelism
    • September 6th: Sentence Patterns
  • ENGL 4275: Rhetoric of Technology
    • April 13th: Authorities in Science and Technology
    • April 15th: Articles on Violence in Video Games
    • April 20th: Presentations
    • April 6th: Technology in the home
    • April 8th: Writing Discussion
    • Assignments for ENGL 4275
    • February 10th: Religion of Technology Part 3 of 3
    • February 12th: Is Love a Technology?
    • February 17th: Technology and Gender
    • February 19th: Technology and Expediency
    • February 24th: Semester Review
    • February 3rd: Religion of Technology Part 1 of 3
    • February 5th: Religion of Technology Part 2 of 3
    • January 13th: Technology and Meaning, a Humanist perspective
    • January 15th: Technology and Democracy
    • January 22nd: The Politics of Technology
    • January 27th: Discussion on Writing as Thinking
    • January 29th: Technology and Postmodernism
    • January 8th: Introduction to the Course
    • March 11th: Writing and Other Fun
    • March 16th: Neuromancer (1984) Day 1 of 2
    • March 18th: Neuromancer (1984) Day 2 of 2
    • March 23rd: Inception (2010)
    • March 25th: Writing and Reflecting Discussion
    • March 30th & April 1st: Count Zero
    • March 9th: William Gibson’s Neuromancer (1984)
  • ENGL 6166: Rhetorical Theory
    • April 12th: Knoblauch. Ch. 4 and Ch. 5
    • April 19th: Jacques Derrida’s Positions
    • April 26th:  Feminisms and Rhetorics
    • April 5th: Knoblauch. Ch. 3 and More Constitutive Rhetoric
    • February 15th: Isocrates (Part 2)
    • February 1st: Aristotle’s On Rhetoric Books 2 & 3
      • Aristotle’s On Rhetoric, Book 2
      • Aristotle’s On Rhetoric, Book 3
    • February 22nd: St. Augustine’s On Christian Doctrine [Rhetoric]
    • February 8th: Isocrates (Part 1)-2nd Half of Class
    • January 11th: Introduction to Class
    • January 18th: Plato’s Phaedrus
    • January 25th: Aristotle’s On Rhetoric Book 1
    • March 15th: Descartes, Rene, Discourse on Method
    • March 1st: Knoblauch. Ch. 1 and 2
    • March 22nd: Mary Wollstonecraft
    • March 29th: Second Wave Feminist Rhetoric
    • May 3rd: Knoblauch. Ch. 6, 7, and “Afterword”
    • Rhetorical Theory Assignments
  • ENGL/COMM/WRDS: The Rhetoric of Fear
    • April 11th: McCarthyism Part 1
    • April 18th: McCarthyism Part 2
    • April 25th: The Satanic Panic
    • April 4th: Suspense/Horror/Fear in Film
    • February 14th: Fascism and Other Valentine’s Day Atrocities
    • February 21st: Fascism Part 2
    • February 7th: Fallacies Part 3 and American Politics Part 2
    • January 10th: Introduction to the Class
    • January 17th: Scapegoats & Conspiracies
    • January 24th: The Rhetoric of Fear and Fallacies Part 1
    • January 31st: Fallacies Part 2 and American Politics Part 1
    • Major Assignments
    • March 28th: Nineteen Eighty-Four
    • March 7th: Fascism Part 3
    • May 2nd: The Satanic Panic Part II
      • Rhetoric of Fear and Job Losses
  • Intercultural Communication on the Amalfi Coast
    • Pedagogical Theory for Study Abroad
  • LBST 2213-110: Science, Technology, and Society
    • August 22nd: Science and Technology from a Humanistic Perspective
    • August 24th: Science and Technology, a Humanistic Approach
    • August 29th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem (Science), Ch. 2
    • August 31st: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem (Science), Ch. 3 and 4
    • December 5th: Video Games and Violence, a more nuanced view
    • November 14th: Boulle, Pierre. Planet of the Apes. (1964) Ch. 27-end
    • November 16th: Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. 1818. Preface-Ch. 8
    • November 21st: Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. 1818. Ch. 9-Ch. 16
    • November 28th: Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. Ch. 17-Ch. 24
    • November 30th: Violence in Video Games
    • November 7th: Boulle, Pierre. Planet of the Apes Ch. 1-17
    • November 9th: Boulle, Pierre. Planet of the Apes, Ch. 18-26
    • October 12th: Lies Economics Tells
    • October 17th: Brief Histories of Medicine, Salerno, and Galen
    • October 19th: Politicizing Science and Medicine
    • October 24th: COVID-19 Facial Covering Rhetoric
    • October 26th: Wells, H. G. Time Machine. Ch. 1-5
    • October 31st: Wells, H. G. The Time Machine Ch. 6-The End
    • October 3rd: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem at Large (Technology), Ch. 7 and Conclusion
    • September 12th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem (Science), Ch. 7 and Conclusion
    • September 19th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem at Large (Technology), Prefaces and Ch. 1
    • September 26th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem at Large (Technology), Ch. 2
    • September 28th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem at Large (Technology), Ch. 5 and 6
    • September 7th: Collins & Pinch’s The Golem (Science), Ch. 5 and 6
  • New Media: Gender, Culture, Technology (Spring 2021)
    • April 13th: Virtually ‘Real’ Environments
    • April 20th: Rhetoric/Composition Defines New Media
    • April 27th: Sub/Cultural Politics, Hegemony, and Agency
    • April 6th: Capitalist Realism
    • February 16: Misunderstanding the Internet
    • February 23rd: Our Public Sphere and the Media
    • February 2nd: Introduction to Cultural Studies
    • January 26th: Introduction to New Media
    • Major Assignments for New Media (Spring 2021)
    • March 16th: Identity Politics
    • March 23rd: Social Construction of Gender and Sexuality
    • March 2nd: Foundational Thinkers in Cultural Studies
    • March 30th: Hyperreality
    • March 9th: Globalization & Postmodernism
    • May 4th: Wrapping Up The Semester
      • Jodi Dean “The The Illusion of Democracy” & “Communicative Capitalism”
      • Social Construction of Sexuality
  • Science Fiction and American Culture
    • Assignments for Science Fiction and American Culture
    • August 21: Introduction to to “Science Fiction and American Culture”
    • August 23: More Introduction
    • August 28: Gender Studies and Science Fiction
    • August 30th: Robots and Zombies
    • September 11th: William Gibson, Part I
    • September 13th: William Gibson, Part II
    • September 18: The Matrix (1999)
    • September 20: Hackers (1995)
    • September 25: Firefly and Black Mirror
    • September 27th: All Systems Red
    • September 6th: Alien Other and Worlds Beyond
  • Teaching Portfolio
  • Topics for Analysis
    • A Practical Editing Situation
    • American Culture, an Introduction
    • Cultural Studies and Science Fiction Films
    • Efficiency in Writing Reviews
    • Feminism, An Introduction
    • Fordism/Taylorism
    • Frankenstein Part I
    • Frankenstein Part II
    • Futurism Introduction
    • How to Lie with Statistics
    • Isaac Asimov’s “A Cult of Ignorance”
    • Langdon Winner Summary: The Politics of Technology
    • Marxist Theory (cultural analysis)
    • Oral Presentations
    • Oratory and Argument Analysis
    • Our Public Sphere
    • Postmodernism Introduction
    • Protesting Confederate Place
    • Punctuation Refresher
    • QT, the Existential Robot
    • Religion of Technology Discussion
    • Rhetoric, an Introduction
      • Analyzing the Culture of Technical Writer Ads
      • Rhetoric of Technology
      • Visual Culture
      • Visual Perception
      • Visual Perception, Culture, and Rhetoric
      • Visual Rhetoric
      • Visuals for Technical Communication
      • World War I Propaganda
    • The Great I, Robot Discussion
      • I, Robot Short Essay Topics
    • The Rhetoric of Video Games: A Cultural Perspective
      • Civilization, an Analysis
    • The Sopranos
    • Why Science Fiction?
    • Zombies and Consumption Satire
  • Video Games & American Culture
    • April 14th: Phallocentrism
    • April 21st: Video Games and Neoliberalism
    • April 7th: Video Games and Conquest
    • Assignments for Video Games & American Culture
    • February 10th: Aesthetics and Culture
    • February 17th: Narrative and Catharsis
    • February 24th: Serious Games
    • February 3rd: More History of Video Games
    • January 13th: Introduction to the course
    • January 20th: Introduction to Video Game Studies
    • January 27th: Games & Culture
      • Marxism for Video Game Analysis
      • Postmodernism for Video Game Analysis
    • March 24th: Realism, Interpretation(s), and Meaning Making
    • March 31st: Feminist Perspectives and Politics
    • March 3rd: Risky Business?

Contact Me

Office: Fretwell 255F
Email: atoscano@uncc.edu
ENGL/COMM/WRDS: The Rhetoric of Fear » April 4th: Suspense/Horror/Fear in Film

April 4th: Suspense/Horror/Fear in Film

Today’s plan is to try to understand how fear is entertaining as well as motivating. We’ve discussed fear as a political strategy, an (obvious) emotional appeal, and a personal motivator. Although we’ll touch on psychoanalysis and personal tastes, we should be looking at broader cultural anxieties that make suspense and horror films so popular…or are they popular.

  • Robinson, Tom, Clark Callahan, and Keith Evans. “Why Do We Keep Going Back? A Q Method Analysis of our Attraction to Horror Movies.”
  • Nietzsche, Freud, and Modernity
  • Hitchcock’s The Birds (1963)
  • Siegel’s The Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
  • Rhetoric of Fear Analysis Essays (Draft: 4/14–new date; FINAL DUE: 5/02–no change)

Don’t forget to do the Weekly Discussion Post #10: Jump Start on your Rhetoric of Fear Analysis by 11:07 on Friday, 4/07.


The Appeal of Horror Films

I’m going to gloss over the differences among horror, suspense, and thriller films (and other media). In this were a film class concerned with genre integrity or pet peeves (obviously not this course), we might be more true to the definitions. There is “suspense” in horror and thriller films, so our look into “the appeal of fear”–notice the slight change there–is relevant. However, let’s consider what attributes we expect in horror films, specifically. What are the common tropes?

Robinson, Callahan, and Evans. “Why Do We Keep Going Back?”

I’m not a psychologist, but this article is useful for both information about the appeal of horror films and for an interesting critique on violent media research (more on that below). Q methodology (William Stephenson developed this long before the contemporary Q stuff) seeks to capture the subjective responses and assumptions people have. Of course, as you noticed in the article, patterns form among people, making us able to identify intersubjective beliefs–even if just for discussion’s sake. This is hardly the level of empiricism that most social scientists would require for more generalizable attributes, but it’s a way into a discussion of general appeal and types of appeal.

  • p. 41: “The purpose of this research is to identify what types of people are attracted to horror movies.”
  • p. 42: Quoting Dani Cavallaro’s The Gothic Vision (2002, rev. 2005):
    “…attraction to the unknown by presenting us with characters and situations that point to something beyond the human, and hence beyond interpretation – a nexus of primeval feeling and apprehension which rationality can never conclusively eradicate. (p. 6)”
  • p. 42: “Viewers experience arousal while watching horror films, which continues after the film is over. The sense of relief or even of satisfaction that can come from the resolution at the film’s end is intensified, and viewers often mistakenly associate this intense relief with the film itself.”
  • p. 43: “…males enjoyed a horror movie more when their female partner was scared; in concert with this finding, the opposite was discovered for women, who preferred their male partners to show strength and courage.”
  • What can we say about this heteronormative observation?
  • p. 44: “They can even feel as if what is happening to the characters in the movie is actually happening to them.”
  • p. 45: Let’s just remember the authors took 75 statements, got them to 48 statements, and asked 38 participants to rate their responses on an 11 point scale.
  • p. 46: “Horror movies for adrenaline junkies are similar to an extreme sport that is played for excitement and to increase the heart rate.”
  • pp. 46-47: “Adrenaline junkies do not internalize the horror movies. For them, this type of media is psychologically transitory, meaning the effects of horror movies are very short lived…”
    • Full disclosure: Bushman & Anderson actually have very good evidence that consumers of violent media have temporary increases in aggression.
  • p. 48: “For [white knucklers], the higher levels of perceived reality cause higher levels of genuine fear. Because white knucklers perceive the movies as being real, in their minds they know that the killer from the movie could actually be hiding in their houses, waiting under their beds, or watching them from inside their closets.
    • Sounds like a film we watched…
  • p. 49: “For detectives, viewing a horror movie is as much an intellectual experience as it is entertainment, and their enjoyment comes from figuring out who the bad guy is and which character will be the last one alive to beat the monster.”
  • Appendix A: I have a thought or two about the following statements that weren’t “highly correlated” enough to make it into any of the three groups of viewers “Significant Positive and Negative Statements” tables.
    • 10. I believe that for some people, watching horror movies is kind of a release for cruel
      or aggressive impulses they might have.
    • 24. I can endure the horror because I know there will be a sense of relief at the end.
    • 33. The best horror movies are the ones that have the characters in situations that resemble my own life.
    • 37. Making it through a horror movie gives me a sense of accomplishment – I can conquer my fears.
    • 46. Watching horror movies makes me realize that everything in my own life if OK.
    • 48. By watching a horror movie I’m able to confront my fears in a safe environment.
  • Is catharsis “conscious”?

Anderson & Bushman and Bushman & Anderson

There’s a reference to Anderson & Bushman, 2002 that needs some attention. These two are anti-violent video game crusaders who, although never formally discredited, miss the mark on violent media. They have misleading studies that foist connections between consuming violent media and real world violence. The article Robinson, Callahan, and Evans cite is the 2002 Science article “The Effects of Media Violence on Society.” They fail to understand that violent media reflects the values of a violence-loving culture. That article is shorter than Bushman & Anderson’s 2001 “Media Violence and the American Public.” Video Games and American Culture has a critique of their findings:

Perhaps viewing violent media is cathartic. Bushman and Anderson disagree and dismiss two important figures while glossing over the idea that viewers get an emotional release from viewing violence and horror: those figures are Aristotle and Alfred Hitchcock. They quote Hitchcock who claimed “seeing a murder on television can be good therapy. It can help work off one’s antagonism”;[57] then, they paraphrase Aristotle’s Poetics where he argues “by watching the characters in the play experience tragic events, the viewer’s own negative feelings were presumably purged and cleansed. The emotional cleansing was believed to benefit both the individual and society.”[58] They end their three-paragraph aside by linking catharsis to Sigmund Freud’s theories, subtly implying that the idea has no merit because Freud’s psychoanalytic ideas have fallen out of favor with contemporary psychology.

Instead, they go right into a section titled “The Scientific Evidence” and argue for quantitative study to get to the truth.[59] Essentially, juxtaposing these two topics, without any more discussion marginalizes the value of both Aristotle, a pillar of Western civilization, and Hitchcock, a brilliant director able to convey layered, complex psychological thrillers that explore the darker, violent side of humanity. Dismissing approaches from other fields reveals bias and limits what questions can be answered. Additionally, using a humanities approach can help answer questions when data evade researchers. Bushman and Anderson cannot make their findings and the crime statistics and video game sales correlate. Outside of the laboratory—or just clinical setting—there is no proof media violence directly causes a person to commit violent acts.

Toscano, Aaron A. Video Games and American Culture: How Ideology Influences Virtual Worlds. Lexington Books, 2020.

Nietzsche, Freud, Modernity: How to Deal with the Abyss

This is probably a bit too ambitious, but, as research in media res (so to speak), a lot of stuff I’m doing in this class is trying out some ideas that I’m working through. My nihilism studies, not surprisingly, keeps brining me back to Friedrich Nietzsche. The totality of Nietzsche is beyond the scope of an entire Philosophy class, so it’s well beyond the scope of our stuff, but I have some thoughts on Nietzsche’s thoughts on the abyss…

146: He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee.

Nietzsche, Friedrich. Beyond Good and Evil, p. 87.

Nietzsche is often considered to have predicted the angst of the 20th Century. While there’s much to critique, there’s lots to help us make sense of fear, terror, and the unknown.

Sigmund Freud The Interpretation of Dreams

Classic rationalization from Freud…

Accompanied by an enormous crowd, he was led to the place of execution. He mounted the scaffold; the executioner tied him to the plank, it tipped over, and the knife of the guillotine fell. He felt his head
severed from his trunk, and awakened in terrible anxiety, only to find that the head-board of the bed had fallen, and had actually struck the cervical vertebrae just where the knife of the guillotine would have fallen.

Online version

Edward J. Ingebretsen’s At Stake: Monsters and the Rhetoric of Fear in Public Culture (2001)

Ingebretsen, a Catholic priest and literary scholar, published this book on the heels of the Bill Clinton Scandal. Reading the book, one gets the feeling that Ingebretsen believes in metaphysical angels and demons. He also has a consumerist-capitalist critique. He sets up his analysis in a rather catholic (pun intended) way and notes that “Fear and dread, of course, are traditional markers of divinity. In this monsters are more like angels, than not” (p. xiii). He appears to suggest that both come from the divine and both need to be appreciated.

  • p. xiii: “Yet there is a messenger, instantly understood as otherworldly, whose divine credentials nonetheless seem suspect. That is, monsters, like angels are ubiquitous in markets and cultural byways.”
    • “…a characteristic of all angelic visitations is that they are terrifying. Scripture tells us that the ritual salutation of the angel is ‘Be not afraid!”
    • Beside “ritual” being an important component of Ingebretsen’s argument throughout the book, he references Titian’s (the Venetian) Annunciation, 1559–1564.
    • He also buries reference Lorenzo Lotto’s Recanati Annunciation, c. 1534.
    • Think back to our first class where we discussed Antonello da Messina. Vergine Annunciata, c. 1476.
  • pp. xiii-xiv: “The angel only comes in at the last moment, apocalyptically, to announce the end of Eden.
  • p. xiv: “…the monster’s divinity is marked on the sly–a shadow of the fear inspired by God in every text in which he ever appeared…”
    • “…guardian angels….part of our narcissistic religious fantasy that they hover nearby at moments of peril–a bridge crossing troubled waters…”
  • p. xv: “Anxiety about what it all means takes us shopping at Christmas, not to church.”
  • p. xvi: “…whether guarding the bridge or standing at the gates of the normal, angels teach us what we must love; from the other side, monsters teach us who or what to fear.”
  • p. 2: Merely identifying the monster as terrible, as awful and perverse, is only one of the fearful ceremonies designed around them.”
  • Sexy monsters???
  • p. 3: “For sex in public, it would seem, is still the banal though disguised point of many narratives from politics to shopping.”
    • Consider the eroticized monsters in popular culture. We probably don’t have to go too far beyond True Blood.
  • pp. 3-4: “The monster-face is a mask placed on someone whose offense is obliquely desirable to us, however much we disguise that knowing from ourselves or call it something else–for instance, news, or interest in the moral tone of the community, or whatever.”
  • p. 4: “Monsters have, or seem to have, freedoms we lack….They get away with murder and that fascinates us.”
  • p. 33: “Whether flickering on the screen or in the lurid prose of the fifties generated their opposite, sentimental fantasies of romance and domesticity.” [Via Janice Radway]
  • p. 67: “Monsters by definition are to be seen, watched, made over. They are spectacles of reprisal; the sinuous, unacknowledged pleasure of administering pain, and watching it…”

Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds, 1963

Famous director Alfred Hitchcock’s (in)famous film about flocks of birds terrorizing a seaside town. Everything’s fair game, but we ought to re-watch these scenes:

  • The birds attacking Cathy’s birthday party attendees. (52:00)
  • School “fire drill.” (1:13:00)
  • Ornithologist’s Scientific Explanation (1:17:45)
  • Explosion! (1:25:00)
  • When you got here, this all started (1:28:45)
  • Anticipation of the birds. (1:47:25)

Don Siegel’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers, 1956

Don Siegel, who directed Dirty Harry, turns a pseudo-B film into an A film.

Siegel’s film surfaces the fear of loss of identity and then locates the threat to that identity, not in some stock Martian menace, but in our own souls.

Kevin Jack Hagopian

Next Week

Keep up with the syllabus. Your is due 4/14 on Canvas. We’re getting into McCarthyism—Part 1, so read the Richard Hofstadter’s “The Paranoid Style in American Politics” (on Canvas), and get on Alexander Street.


Works Cited

Bushman, Brad J. and Craig A. Anderson. “Media Violence and the American Public: Scientific Facts Versus Media Misinformation.” American Psychologist, vol. 56, no. 6/7, June/July 2001, pp. 477–489. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.56.6-7.477.

Ingebretsen, Edward J. At Stake: Monsters and the Rhetoric of Fear in Public Culture. U of Chicago P, 2001.

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