Description
In this article, I assess viral videos depicting environmental crises and species loss, theorizing the “eco-subjunctive voice” as a rhetorically productive perspective for engaging extinction imagery. Building on Barbie Zelizer’s notion of the “subjunctive voice” in images, I explore how viral videos of a polar bear and a sea turtle in jeopardy unite despair and hopefulness, strategically deploy “about-to-die” moments, and make the “hyperobjects” of climate catastrophe more intelligible. Additionally, an ecosubjunctive reading of each video demonstrates the limits of the synecdochic logic commonly employed in ecological discourse. The eco-subjunctive voice is an analytic useful for academics, activists, and audiences. Its capacious character and ability to accommodate contingency and complexity make the ecosubjunctive voice a powerful rhetorical resource in the effort to combat ecological disaster.
Publication Date
9-22-2022
Publisher
Quarterly Journal of Speech, Routledge
Keywords
communication; species loss;
Department
Communication Studies
Recommended Citation
Lind, Katherine D., "Embracing the Subjunctive Voice: An Analytic for Ecologically
Uncertain Times" (2022). Communication Studies Faculty Works. 51.
https://openriver.winona.edu/communicationstudiesfacultyworks/51
Unique Identifier
2022-Lind-Subjunctive Voice
Comments
QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF SPEECH 2022, VOL. 108, NO. 4, 402–417 https://doi.org/10.1080/00335630.2022.2128200