The Audience: The Director

The audience plays an undeniably huge role in the ethics of a rhetorical situation. In our modern age of technology, much emphasis is put on consumerism and tending to the needs of buyers and viewers of a given product. The audience likes that our model of public of discourse because the news is more interesting and appealing. Maybe the audience doesn’t understand our unethical form of discourse, but statistics show that when news is heavily covered, and done so maliciously, the view ratings increase. This is in line with our apparent love, as an audience, for reality television and other forms of staged entertainment. There are more obvious forms of unethical rhetorical situation and there also situations that are less obvious. The audience plays a larger role on those that are more obvious because the blatant, unethical tactics are generally for the audience. The less obvious tend to stem from the severity of the issue. In this case the lack of ethics stems from the producers, directors, etc. and the people who are shown in the situation. A key example of this, are the presidential debates. Though the audience still has a substantial role, namely political moderates, in the ethics of this situation, most of this is placed on the candidates because they have the power to stage and form the situation, as they feel most suitable. The audiences’ apparent love for the unethical rhetoric situation doesn’t justify the producers creating such dishonest, superficial work in the public sphere. The lack of knowledge, by much of these audiences, is the reason nothing is done regarding the unethical form of public discourse in a rhetorical situation.