Collegiate speech and debate (forensics): 2017-2018 season communication analysis manuscript (Stevie Wonder, 2016 Grammys, braille notecards)

A few months ago, I promised to United states speech and debate community that I will release the manuscript of a competitive communication analysis (rhetorical criticism) speech for use as reference for people wishing to learn how communication analysis works. The following manuscript is the CA I presented throughout 2017-2018 season, and since January is National Braille Month (celebrated by blindness community), it is fitting that this manuscript be released at this time. There is a more interesting CA (on disability emojis) I did in 2018-2019 season, which I will release sometime in March.

An important note: text within curly braces ({}) are stage directions or description of something I'm holding or pointing to while speaking.

Haha, you can't read braille: Stevie Wonder, 2016 Grammy’s, and selling symbolic accessibility and empowerment through braille

Background: During 2016 Grammys, Stevie Wonder, the presenter for “Song of the Year” that year, came up on stage and showed a braille card and exclaimed, “Haha! You can’t read braille!”. Then he said, “we need to make things accessible for everyone, including people with disabilities” before presenting the award.
Possible model: Thomas, L. Disability Is Not So Beautiful, Disability Studies Quarterly, 2001.
Manuscript version: April 2018 for American Forensic Association-National Individual Events Tournament (AFA-NIET) in Colorado College (Colorado Springs, CO)

Introduction

{stands on stage with an envelope close by on a desk}

The 2016 Grammy’s telecast was a night entertainers, producers and viewers won’t soon forget, with enough wins, dresses, and controversies to fill an entire YouTube video. But the highlight of the event wasn’t performed by a nominee. The Huffington Post explained on February 15th, 2016 that as part of his presentation for “Song of the Year”, musical icon and role model for disabled people Stevie Wonder discussed universal accessibility: making information  accessible to everyone, including for people with disabilities. While saying this, he flashed a card with the recipient of the Song of the Year written in braille {mime reading braille, stress and pause}, a visible emblem of disability culture around the world.

This wasn’t the first time that celebrities such as Stevie Wonder did a public advocacy performance, but this time Wonder’s specific use of a disability tool – here, Braille – as a communicative strategy frames his approach interestingly. He didn’t just read Braille, he demonstrated how normal reading Braille should be. As ten million blind Americans (including I) use braille to access information, as noted by National Federation of the Blind (website last accessed on October 9, 2017), and the stigma and misunderstanding they receive every day prompts the following research question {look straight ahead}:

How did Stevie Wonder’s use of Braille notes in his 2016 Grammy’s speech advertise the normalcy of disability?

To answer this question, let’s turn to research by Lorraine Thomas from University of Windsor titled “Disability Is Not So Beautiful”, which appeared in Spring 2001 issue of Disability Studies Quarterly. Thomas’s work provides a semiotic analysis of disability tool advertisement, rendering her research apt for our analysis. In order to better understand why Wonders’ speech worked, let’s initially examine Thomas’s research, apply it to the speech, and derive implications, for what Stevie Wonder sums up best: “Haha, you can’t read Braille!”

Model

{transition walk while speaking}

Semiotics is study of signs - or as Em Griffin, a communication professor from Wheaton College and author of A First Look at Communication Theory notes, the world is an ocean of communicative signs: street signs, postings, and audiovisual markers all advertise distinct messages. Lorraine Thomas’s research examines this theory in the context of advertisements for disability assistive technology, and outlines three signaling tenets that is applicable to the speech act and beyond {really short pause after announcing each one}: narrative authority, projection of commodity, and performative normalization.

First, Thomas requires stories about disability tools to be narrated by the proper authority on the tools: disabled individuals. When outside experts describe the benefits of disability tools, they often unintentionally reinforce unempowering ideas, and their act of narration subconsciously suggests to viewers that disabled people cannot tell their own stories. Several of the ads in Thomas’s content analysis are narrated by doctors, who rhetorically focused on disabled bodies as “objects to be pitied”, overshadowing the potential of disabled body to achieve more.

Second, Thomas argues that sign usage shouldn’t present disabled bodies as advertisement commodities. When advertisement focuses too much on the restoration of productivity through assistive technologies, they approach disability in an {bold} overtly materialist way {pause}, framing “… disability [as] a loss of productivity”. The ads Thomas examined routinely presented disabilities like missing limbs as a sign of “damaged goods”, and assistive technologies were crucial to “restore them”. But by placing empowerment in the hands of their products, rather than the individuals using them, they remove disabled individuals’ agency.

Lastly, advertisements need to visually, performatively present disability as normal. Advertisements need to display disabled individuals utilizing assistive technologies in accessible ways, because doing so powers the normalization of disability and frames it as a powerful advocacy tool. The ads Thomas examined didn’t violate all of her tenets: they presented many disabled individuals using prosthetic limbs and other disability tools, allowing others to see their role models functioning in integrated ways with society.

Thus, Lorraine Thomas’s research makes clear that the disabled body is a sign that evokes diminishing or advertising narratives – but we’re just getting started. Having broken down Thomas’s model, {transition walk} let us apply it to Stevie Wonder’s speech at the 2016 Grammys.

Application

Initially, we need to consider who is talking about accessibility: it’s Stevie Wonder, a blind musician and a proper narrative authority on this subject. Despite living in the midst of diminishing narratives and misrepresentation and stigma associated with blind people – you don’t see scenes of Daredevil reading braille on Netflix, do you – through use of an extra tool  – here, the Braille card which merely enables his speech – he demonstrates his ability to tell his own narrative confidently, just with a little help, fulfilling Thomas’s first tenet: {bold} narrative authority {pause so audience can absorb this info}.

Second, Wonder avoids commodifying disability. Throughout the speech act, the most important “item for sale” – apart from universal accessibility and Song of the Year, was the tool he used, not his own disability. The braille notes was the centerpiece of Wonder’s impromptu PSA on accessibility needs and omnipresence (not damaged goods) of disability. By reframing his tool as the commodity, he fulfills Thomas’s second tenet: {again bold} projection of commodity {pause again}.

Last, Stevie Wonder visually and performatively presents blindness as normal. By reading the recipient of “song of the year” in braille in front of millions of viewers, Wonder enforced the notion that disability is something to be proud of. Not only did Wonder visually portray what millions of blind people go through every day, he gave viewers a mandate that should be followed: make things accessible to all, flipping audience expectations by showing them the name on the card, but in Braille, so that THEY couldn’t access it. His presentation was the highlight of the night, and impossible to ignore – fulfilling Thomas’s final tenet: {bold} performative normalization.

Answer and implications

Wonder’s presentation engaged a massive, star-studded audience, and prompted the research question: How did Stevie Wonder’s use of Braille notes in his 2016 Grammy’s speech advertise the normalcy of disability? The answer is that Stevie Wonder used his greatest asset – himself – to shape the content and delivery of his advertisement. His approach {transition walk} draws two implications.

First, Wonder’s speech redefines semiotics. Semiotic theories and research largely focus on signs primarily visual in nature. Wonder’s speech uses a visual sign – showing audiences the card – to engage the semiotics of his audience – but only for his SEEING audiences. He engages non-visual audiences in an entirely different way, both using audio cues – his speech – and the context of lived experience reading Braille. His speech gives semioticians a new avenue through which to explore their field – the facets that make a sign a sign are more complex than only sight.

Second, focusing too much on commodity raises {bold} dissonance about what to focus on: the rhetor (Stevie Wonder and others) or tools (braille). If we focus our cameras on braille note card, we can examine how this emblem of disability culture enhances the effects of normalization advertisement. But people and their intentions are just as important as the tool: without basics of ethos (an ad from a celebrity authority), the potency of the speech act would have been reduced. What made the speech act work was not just the use of a disability tool, but a clear intention of making the invisible {spatial gesture} visible through discussing universal accessibility. This is relevant to all speaking activities: if my goal is to discuss accessibility, and you critique my use of the tools that would make doing so more effective, then you’ve fallen into the same rhetorical track that Thomas critiques.

{Transition walk}

Conclusion

Last month, Stephen Hawking passed away, and numerous images of his “freed from his wheelchair” were circulated online. This is not how assistive technology really works, but Stevie Wonder did show how it really works two years ago. Stevie Wonder’s performance helped normalize disability for millions that night – having engaged Thomas’s tenets, applications to his speech, and implications, we now have a better understanding of why. Simply advertising disability tools isn’t enough – tools need effective strategy and rhetors to effectively and safely strengthen accessibility efforts. Luckily, Wonder was the right performer for the job.

The End