Author: Rebecca Rohn 

The study of Rhetoric & Communications is filled with questions about who has power, how they obtained it, and how they use it. Power is a potent influence on the way a speaker thinks, acts, and creates rhetoric and media. It also influences how they view others and whether they view other people as their equal or their inferior. An important term in analyzing these questions of power in the field of rhetoric and communications is agency. Agency refers to someone’s ability to perform action, or to make decisions for themselves. In other words, the ability to act independently and make their own decisions. Many factors can influence whether a person has agency in society, including race, gender, class, physical ability, and sexual orientation. Rhetoric can be used both to give agency to some, and to take it away from others. In media, agency is important because it allows for an active audience to interpret media messages in different ways. Agency also allows for oppressed groups to resist oppression, through their own actions and decisions. This often results in such groups creating their own rhetoric and media to shift the balance of power. Activist groups such as Black Lives Matter, for example, effectively use rhetoric to reclaim agency where it has been previously hindered. Because rhetoric and media are consistently used both to enforce and to disrupt traditional power structures in society, agency is an important keyword in the study of Rhetoric & Communications.

There are several factors that can impact how much agency an individual or group is given in society. These factors, listed earlier, can be anything that makes someone appear “non-normative”. Because those in power tend to use rhetoric and media to define certain groups as “other,” those who are not considered normative (i.e., western European and male), often have their agency removed or diminished through this verbal and representational degradation. When groups are portrayed as less than the normative group – culturally, intellectually, or economically – hey are forced into a framework that they may not want and therefor are deprived agency. One  example of a group being denied agency from the normative group in power is the case of gay marriage. Before the 2015 Supreme Court Ruling that made gay marriage legal in all 50 states, these marriages were against the law. Such laws made by typically white, religious groups denied gay citizens of their agency and rights to legally marry. Many politicians, religious groups, and state governments are still trying to fight the Supreme Court Ruling. Just because a court ordered mandate restores agency to a group of people rhetorically or through law does not mean that everyone will automatically adhere to that decree. Rhetoric and media can be used to deny and give agency, to influence who has agency in the first place, and to resist the leveling of the playing field when inequalities are addressed through new legislation. However, agency was not defined as a scholarly term until recently (Higgins).
The foundations for defining the idea of agency were laid down in John Locke’s The Social Contract (1762). In this work, Locke was one of the first philosopher to espouse the idea that humans have the ability to create and shape their own circumstances, as opposed to everything being shaped by the will of a higher power. Locke proffered that individuals in society made the conscious decision to surrender some of their freedoms to a ruler or authority, such as the government, in exchange for protection of fundamental rights (Tikkanen). Although he did not use the word agency, Locke was one of the first to articulate the idea not only that individuals have agency, but that that agency is confined by societal structures. He emphasized that citizens of nations traded some of their agency in exchange for protection from the country’s rulers. Locke influenced many philosophers to come and created a standard idea of individualistic agency that is still fundamental in typical Western ideas of freedom and civilization (Emirbayer, 19998, 965).

Despite philosophers such as Rousseau and Kant t building on Locke’s ideas of free will throughout the enlightenment, the term “agency” itself did not gain popularity in the scholarly world until the 1970s. Social movements such as the New Left began to challenge existing power structures and reclaim agency that had previously been denied to them. Laura Ahearn writes in her essay on agency that “inspired by activists who challenged existing power structures in order to achieve racial and gender equality, some academics sought to develop new theories that would do justice to the potential effects human action,” as a reaction against structuralism’s failure to acknowledge individual actions (Ahearn, 1999, 12). She emphasized that agency was always related to social structures, and influenced by larger societal and political issues. Because of this, agency is not the same thing as free will, as agency is inherently constrained by social, political, and cultural boundaries. Therefor agency is one’s free will within a certain societal structure. Even language, Ahearn writes, “shapes individuals’ thought categories even as it enables them to transcend those categories” (Ahearn, 1999, 13). This is reminiscent of Spivak’s ideas on the epistemic violence that is inflicted on colonized peoples when they are forced to communicate and live within cultural and linguistic structures that are not thier own (Spivak, 1988, 75). A group of people loses agency when they are forced to struggle through a new language and culture that their oppressors are fluent in. Further, this process removes the oppressed peoples’ agency to then shape their own communities.

The denial of agency through linguistics, rhetoric, and media can be seen often in the history of the United States. During the imperial age for example, American rhetoric often referred to Philippines as “primitive” and less than human. U.S. rhetoric created an image of the Philippines residents as uncivilized and animalistic (Doty, 2012, 337). Similar patterns emerged during the civil rights movements of the 1960’s. Anti-integrationists used inflammatory and derogatory rhetoric in reference to African Americans, as well as physical violence, in order to remove their agency and enforce white dominant power structures. Such rhetoric was also used against white supporters of the civil rights movement. For example, in George Wallace’s 1963 inaugural address, he vehemently and infamously declared that he would support “segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever,” and referred to those who opposed this as communists. He also stated that the 14th Amendment, which granted citizenship to former enslaved peoples and any person born in the United States, was passed illegally (Wallace, 1963, 2). Such insinuations denied the agency of African American by implying that their very citizenship in the U.S. was illegitimate, thus discrediting their right to fight for equal rights. Even today, voter suppression still occurs in many areas of the United States, as agency continues to be taken away from marginalized  groups. This was seen recently in the case of the contested election for the governor of Georgia between Stacey Abrams and Brian Kemp, in which voting irregularities and errors disproportionately prevented black citizens from casting their ballots (Lopez, 2018).

These power structures are both enforced and disrupted by rhetoric and media. While the field of rhetoric and communications can and has often been used to enforce traditional power structures and deprive marginalized communities of agency, it can also be used by dissenters to rupture societal power structures, and reclaim agency that had previously been denied. For example, activists throughout history have used both rhetoric and media to disrupt traditional power structures and make their voices heard. For example, during the civil rights movements, Martin Luther King Jr. used rhetoric in his speech at the Washington Monument to spread a message of inclusion and equality. Similarly, while peaceful protests were unarguably effective, what truly elevated their impact was the fact that television stations broadcasted the brutality of police on peaceful protesters for the entire nation to see. In this way, the combination of media and rhetoric used by activists can be extremely powerful in disrupting power structures by revealing the problems that exist in the structures. Similarly, during the New Left social movements of the 1970’s, feminist groups used similar methods of dissent and message circulation through media and rhetoric in order to reclaim agency. For example, the women who burned their bras in protest of the Miss America Pageant in 1969 used both verbal and visual rhetoric to show that they would no longer submit to patriarchal structures of power and constraint of the meanings of feminism and femininity (Gay, 2018). This use of visual rhetoric was so effective that still today people refer to “bra burning feminists,” despite the fact that most feminists do not in reality burn their bras.

Finally, in recent years, the Black Lives Matter movement has continued the journey of the civil rights movement to reclaim the agency of black people in the United States. Their use of combined verbal, written, and visual rhetoric has also proven extremely effective in creating a national movement that is visible, and has become part of everyday cannon. Despite controversies surrounding the inclusivity of the organization, BLM is clearly an effective movement as the phrase “Black Lives Matter” has taken on a life of its own with the American political sphere, through social media campaigns, large protests, and memorable speeches (King, 2018). The use of social media to spread the message of the group has also proven to be an instrumental tool for BLM, fundamentally changing the way that activism occurs and spreads in the United States.

Activist groups such as Black Lives Matter create a form of agency that has only recently begun to be discussed and analyzed. While individual agency has been discussed by scholars for many decades now, some sociologists have recently begun to create more categories of agency, including shared agency and collective agency. The study of rhetoric and communications, while often focussing on classical philosophers and rhetoricians, would benefit from adding more rhetoric on shared and collective agency to its cannon, something that has already begun to happen. Activist groups play a crucial role in our understanding of the uses and impacts of rhetoric and media, and rhetoric on their shared and collective agency should be included in this study as much as individual rhetoric. Shared agency is when two or more people engage in an activity such as moving a piece of furniture. Collective agency, meanwhile, is when a group such as an activist group engages in activity that is shaped by the guiding principles of the group, rather than the individuals (Hainz, 2016). There have been arguments among scholars as to what extent then such activism constitutes true individual agency. I would argue that when individuals choose to allow their actions to be guided by a group’s principles, it is still agency, as they could choose to leave the group. Additionally, since agency is inherently constrained by societal and linguistic structures anyway, engaging in collective activism does not constrain agency much more than it is already constrained. If that activism is working to deconstruct the societal structures that constrain agency in the first place, participants are essentially trading one form of constraints for a different, potentially better system of constraints.

Agency is also important in relation to other keywords in the field of rhetoric and communications. For example, it is related strongly to the concept of othering, as othering in rhetoric and media is one tool that is used by those in power to remove agency from groups. This also is linked to hegemony, or who has the dominant power in society. Those with hegemony have more agency, as this allows them more freedom and more power. White patriarchal power structures in society influence inequality in agency and power by giving some members of society an advantage and more opportunities simply by the circumstance of being born a certain race and gender.

Agency is a critical keyword in the study of rhetoric and communications. It not only impacts the ways that audiences interpret rhetoric and media, it is also created and enforced by rhetoric and media. Dominant groups can use rhetoric and media both to deny others agency, or to restore agency and create a more equal and just society. Activists use rhetoric and media to disrupt the status quo and reclaim their own agency, as well as the agency of others. So much rhetoric and media is centered, whether intentionally or not, around agency that it must be included in any collection of relevant keywords for the field.

Works Cited

Ahearn, L. (1999). Agency. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 9(½). 12-15. Retrieved from: https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/43102414.pdf. 

Alabama Department of Archives & History. [Alabama Department of Archives & History]. (2015, Feb. 26). George Wallace 1963 Inauguration Address. [Video File]. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RC0EjsUbDU.

Bloomberg. [Bloomberg]. (2016, July 17). A History of the Black Lives Matter Movement. [Video File]. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMedqlxbFfM. 

CBGP News. [CBGP News]. (2018, Sept. 5). Up Against the Wall Miss America (1968) - Second-wave Feminism Protest - Atlantic City, New Jersey. [Video File]. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dffBFG9xgYY. 

Doty, R. (2012). “The Logic of Differance in International Relations.” Post-Realism: The rhetorical turn in international relations. Ann Arbor, MI: Michigan University Press.

Emirbayer, M. & Mische, A. (1998). What is Agency? American Journal of Sociology, 103(4), 962-70. Retrieved from: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/8927/615e80bbcd46c04cfeccfb9f10ec9b8b4de1.pdf.

Gay, R. (2018, January). Fifty Years Ago, Protesters Took on the Miss America Pageant and Electrified the Feminist Movement. Retrieved from: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/fifty-years-ago-protestors-took-on-miss-america-pageant-electrified-feminist-movement-180967504/.

Hainz, T., Bossert, S., & Strech, D. (2016). Collective agency and the concept of ‘public’ in public involvement: A practice-oriented analysis. BMC Med Ethics, 17(1). Retrieved from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4702418/.

Higgins, S. (2015, June 26). Party in the USA! America celebrates SCOTUS same-sex marriage ruling. Screener. Retrieved from: http://screenertv.com/misc/america-celebrates-scotus-same-sex-marriage-ruling-photos-2015-06/. 

King, J. (2018, March 5). How Black Lives Matter has changed US politics. The Internationalist. Retrieved from: https://newint.org/features/2018/03/01/black-lives-matter-changed-politics.

Lopez, G. (2018). Voter suppression really may have made the difference for Republicans in Georgia. Vox. Retrieved from: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/11/7/18071438/midterm-election-results-voting-rights-georgia-florida.

Spivak, G. (1988). Can the Subaltern Speak? Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory: A Reader, eds. Patrick Williams & Laura Chrisman. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.

Tikkanen, A. Social Contract. Encyclopedia Britannica: Political Philosophy. Retrieved from: https://www.britannica.com/topic/social-contract.

Wallace, G. (1963). The Inaugural Address of Governor George C. Wallace. Retrieved from: http://digital.archives.alabama.gov/cdm/ref/collection/voices/id/2952.