The dynamic spectacle: Transforming experience into social forms of community

The talk of movers and shakers: Class conflict in the making of a community disaster

“…The Grand Forks flood truly became the "spectacle" described by both Edelman (1988) and Proctor (1990). Those who were evacuated from the city as well as others across the country and world were drawn to striking visual images of miles of flood water covering the cities of Grand Forks and East Grand Forks, of people sleeping in cots at the Grand Forks Air Force Base, of giant fires leaping across the horizon of the downtown, of a mayor wiping a tear from the corner of her eye, and finally, of a spectacular rainbow arched across the burned-out shell of a downtown surrounded by four feet of water.…”

“…Linguistic choice calls both the speaker and the spoken about into the world of human meaning. An event named a disaster also is a public spectacle, what Proctor (1990) described as a coalescing, dynamic event where the flow of argument is crystallized for a moment and group differences can be revealed. Public spectacles in contemporary times can be made widely known and widely visualized when national news media make the linguistic assignment of "news story" to the event.…”

“…These interactions or conversations create an order that coordinates the flow and location of people and materials in a geographic space known as a town or city. Proctor (1990) described how rhetoric molds the values, goals, and actions of a community through the process of "transforming experience into social forms that subsequently organize community" (pp. 117-118).…”

“…Indeed, the blame that could be laid at the feet of the National Weather Service, whose forecasting methods were clearly implicated in a report completed in July of 1997 by a federal team of investigators (Fee, 1997), was not pursued by other governmental agencies or the news media. Proctor (1990) used the terms integrationists and separatists to differentiate the rhetorical positions of two groups in a different type of community. We sought new terms that better describe the philosophy and position of the groups we are examining, settling on the terms "Movers" to represent the mood of community decision-makers to move residents from their properties and to "move on" and the term "Shakers" to represent those who were doing their best to rattle the positions of those in power and to disrupt their framing of events and consequences.…”

Epideictic rhetoric and baseball: Nurturing community through controversy

“…Giamatti's rhetoric and the accompanying media attention represents what Proctor (1990) calls a "dynamic spectacle," hence this study is as much an examination of community identity and formation as it is a close reading of discourse. Proctor argues that "by holding an event constant and studying the rhetoric which attempts to explain and contextualize that event, one may examine community-building through symbolic struggle" (1990,118).…”