Structuralism Analysis on Kennedy vs Nixon 1960 Election Campaign

A2: Friendly advice

Prepared by Dr. Adam Stapleton for the students of MDIA 5028

Here are a few suggestions for how you may wish to approach the second assessment. This guidance is not a series of prescriptions, but it is probably sensible to consider these things when undertaking this task. Please note that this document should be read alongside the other A2 help file that Paul has put together.

Structuring Your Argument

Ideally, your essay should present a clear and concise argument demonstrating how particular concepts/theories/models (primarily relating to structuralism) can be used in the analysis of a campaign. While the focus is to be on the sorts of structuralist concepts indicated in Paul’s document, you may certainly augment your arguments using models and devices from classical rhetoric, New Criticism, and Russian Formalism.

One tried-and-tested way to do this would be a three-part thesis statement. For information on this, see:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcm4jsUi-pk

https://web.stanford.edu/class/ihum20a/handouts/3PartThesis.doc

Another way to think about it could be related to Quintilian’s structure.

However, you should all aim to present a clear argument in your introduction. Here, as is suggested in the video clips, you outline a proposition, offer statements apropos evidence, and point to the question of relevance. So, rather than merely restating the assessment task in your introduction, it is best to outline a clear argument in respect to your chosen campaign.

Furthermore, the body of your essay should provide a clear and well- developed articulation of the concepts you are using to analyse your campaign collateral. This will help ensure that a) the argument that you present is connected to the concepts you have outlined and, b) your work satisfies the “key tasks” as described in the MDIA5028 assessment guide

Your conclusion should restate your proposition and briefly summarise the key points offered in your argument.

Choosing a Campaign

When considering a campaign, you are advised to reflect on the specific ways in which the campaign focuses on the expression of particular values through different structural modes. e.g. in terms of Paul’s resource, what

or particular are tacitly invoked?

In building an argument around how structuralist concepts might help us to understand the campaign, you do not have to argue that the campaign in its entirety is reducible to these values alone.

Nor is it necessary to give equal treatment to both sides of the campaign. However, it is strongly advised that you consider the way that both sides attempted to formulate coherent expressions around these values.

Example:

Trump vs Clinton 2016 presidential campaign

The Trump campaign relied upon polarising American citizens, with the promise of restoring lost privilege. This promise touches upon the value of ethno-nationalism. Looking at Paul’s resource, the value of ethno-nationalism would align with a range of structuralist concepts. This value is tactically expressed through the slogan: Make America Great Again.

It finds concrete policy expression through plans to “build a wall (and make Mexico pay for it.”

Returning to Paul’s resource, this kind of rhetoric and policy tends to reinforce an “us and them” .

Clinton attempted to counter this rhetoric through slogans like “stronger together” and the (very awkwardly expressed) “love trumps hate.”

It would be a mistake to argue that Trump won because of these appeals to these values (because this statement would ignore other material factors related to his electoral college victory) but it is probably reasonable to argue that these appeals were effective in giving salience to these values within the context of the campaign.

Selecting Campaign Collateral

Campaign collateral should come from more than one source. While you may wish to focus upon a specific debate, speech, advertisement etc you are strongly advised to select a minimum of two pieces of collateral. This will allow you to draw connections between them and so substantiate your argument about the centrality of the values to the campaign.

While you could examine four or five pieces of collateral, it is better to concentrate on just a couple of values (or even one) that you identify as salient. If you’ve got five different pieces of collateral and they are all demonstrating five different values, then you work might be seen as incoherent and/or superficial.

Ideally, the collateral that you select should refer to a small number of values (most, but not all, campaigns tend to do so), while examining these values via different (mainly structuralist) modalities. That is, it’s better to find different expressions of the same values (plural) than to find different pieces of collateral that are all using one approach to express a single underlying value.

Analysing Campaign Collateral

The concepts that you use to make your analysis should have a degree of coherence/consonance. This is of particular relevance when considering different semioticians e.g. Saussure + Barthes = "#$% Peirce + Barthes = &'( Pierce + Richards = "#$% Saussure + Richards = &'(

This is because of underlying philosophical distinctions in the semiological systems articulated by Saussure and Peirce, respectively.

Figures like Eco and Jakobson exist somewhere between these two broad camps.

Although the work of Peirce and his successors has contributed much to the field of semiotics, in terms of their impact on structuralism Saussure and his successors are clearly the more influential of the two. This contention is supported by simply looking to whom the post-structuralists gave their response.

Although much of your analysis is likely to address linguistic signs, you can and probably should examine some non-linguistic signs as well e.g. paralinguistic signs in oratory; visual images; modality.

Please ensure that the method that you use to interpret a sign is well suited to its form. For example, social semiotics may be applicable when considering a campaign image but is less likely to be applicable to the analysis of oratory.

Referencing

Sources should be referenced properly (using APA6 or Harvard). It is best to find reputable/heavyweight sources for your arguments. The reading list on Moodle has plenty of suggestions, as does the annotated bibliography at the back of Structuralism and Semiotics.

If you’re quoting some sort of heavyweight figure who’s making a typically “substantive yet vague/obtuse” pronouncement, then it is a good idea to explain your understanding of the quote (and to use it to explicitly drive your argument forward) than it is to just use the quote but offer no demonstration of its meaning or applicability to your broader argument. To put it another way, make very sure that a quote chosen and any explanation or unpacking of it clearly contributes to your argument.

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