An Analysis within a Pragma-Dialectical Framework

for the Breast Cancer Foundation campaign

of DDB Group Singapore

Argumentation Theory

By Mădălina Moise

The National University of Political Studies and Public

Administration

2

Table of contents:

1. Introduction………………………………………………………………….……….....page 3

2. The dimension of argumentation…………………………………………….……….....page 4

3. Analysis……………………………………………………………………………...….page 6

4. Relevance in argumentation……………………………….………………...……...…..page 7

5. Analytical reconstruction……………………………………………………….....……page 8

6. Rules of the critical discussion…………………………………………………….……page 9

7. Strategic Maneuvering…………………………………………………………...……page 10

8. Violations of the rules of a critical discussion………………………………...………page 11

9. The soundness of argumentation……………………………………...….………..…..page 13

10. Conclusion……………………………………………………………...…….……….page 15

11. Bibliography…………………………………………………………...……….……..page 17

12. Annex…………………………………………………………………...……….……page 19

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Introduction

Argumentation is the dynamic side of the ration which gives value to different forms of the

ration which may contribute to proving a statement in the discursive practice.

Argumentation can be used in every field: in journals, in television debates, in a political

discourse, or even in day to day quarrels. No matter the field it is manifested into, the

argumentation is oriented to the other party1, the addressee. As each conversational act has an

addresser, an addressee and a channel, the argumentation serves as the channel in every equation.

And every argumentation has the intention of convincing the addressee of a certain idea.

DDB Group Singapore is the group that came with the idea for the breast cancer posters

involving altered social media logos. At first, the graphics seem to be the logos of Facebook,

Twitter and Instagram, but as you look closer, you can easily see they are really showing a hand

doing a breast self-examination.

This graphics speak loud to women around the world to urge them to spend time checking their

breast. The message of the campaign is that by spending a little less time checking social media,

women could have more time checking their breast for breast cancer.

It is a clever campaign with a big impact on the audience by making this connection to social

media, which is today’s generation major concern. We live in the digital era, this is for sure.

1 Perelman C., Olbrechts-Tyteca L., 2008, La nouvelle rhétorique. Traité de l'argumentation, University of Bruxelles

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The dimension of argumentation

Taking into consideration the Breast Cancer Foundation Campaign, we can easily see that there

is an addresser (the Foundation), a strong message (breast cancer is dangerous), an addressee

(women over 20’s from all over the world), a channel (the argumentation) and an obvious

difference of opinion between the Breast Cancer Foundation and the social media networks.

These social media networks have been used in this campaign as they are the most popular. We

live in a digital era that is for sure, so drawing attention through social media is a common

practice nowadays.

But the difference of opinion appears when the foundation uses social media an places it as the

bad guy, stealing precious time, time that can be used in a better way doing breast check-ups.

However, social media founders might disagree with this statement, because there is enough time

outside social media that can be used doing breast check-ups. They both argue on the same

statement. The first, the Breast Cancer Foundation is supporting the statement while the latter,

the social media rejects the statement.

However, the argumentation does not have a polemic character2. The interlocutor, the

foundation, supports the statement and the argumentation. But the social media does not clearly

manifest its disagreement with the matter. The polemic intention is not manifested. Most of the

times, the argumentation is more like a confrontation of supporting and disagreeing with the

matter and taking these arguments into consideration, the statement will be accepted or not.

Also, the ideal model of a critical discussion has four stages: the confrontation (when the

differences of opinion are established), the opening (when the parties decide to solve the

differences of opinion), the argumentation (when argumentation tools are user to prove each

point of view) and concluding (the result).

2 Stefanov G., 2009, Phylosophy Class for the Phylosophy Faculty, University of Bucharest

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Therefore, if the arguments of the addressee, in our case the Breast Cancer Foundation, are

strong enough and well defended, then in the concluding stage, it will come to the agreement that

the foundation’s statement is correct.

The message of the campaign is powerful, not only it brings awareness between women all

over the world, but also it sounds as a threat to check and prevent.

In this case, the argument is more than enough that breast cancer is a danger to our society.

Women should be more careful about their health rather than beauty. Even if appearance is the

first thing people notice, when there is something wrong inside, it will sooner or later show on

the outside.

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Analysis

For this campaign, there were used three impressive pictures with altered images of social

media in an attempt to make them appear as a hand doing a breast examination. Twitter,

Instagram and Facebook were the three main channels used in rendering the message, as they are

the most popular social media channels. Below, you can take a look at the messages of each of

these networks.

Twitter: ,If only you checked your breast as often. Missing your friends’ latest messages isn’t

the end of the world. But for many women, breast cancer is. In the time you spend online, you

can easily do a self-examination instead.’

Instagram: ,If only you checked your breast as often. Checking your photos for likes isn’t a

matter of life and death, but breast cancer often is. In the time you spend online, you can easily

do a self-examination instead.’

Facebook: ,If only you checked your breast as often. Not checking status updates won’t hurt

you. But breast cancer can, and might even kill you. In the time you spend online, you can easily

do a self-examination instead.’

As far as the copyright goes, I see this campaign as being an intense one. The words are mainly

written not only to make you think but especially to scare you. It is most likely a threat that went

viral in the form of an advertising campaign.

The main standpoint is that women should check their breast more often than going online.

Women don’t pay much attention to their bodies in term of medical check-ups. When it comes to

their bodies, the outer beauty is the one that counts more, even more than the inner beauty.

Nowadays, people pay much more attention to their looks. The outside is much more important

than the inside.

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This is why social media has become so important. The main reason is because you want to be

liked by other people and show them who you are by posting a new status, photo or video every

day.

A very important substandpoint in this campaign is that your virtual life is not as important as

your real life. Social media will never replace reality. Not when you are healthy and especially

not when you are sick. So the advertising agency draws the attention on women’s health while

placing social media as the bad guy, stealing precious time and thorough attention.

The message expressed as a threat is working great in this campaign. Warning women about

getting cancer is probably a wise way of putting emphasis on the situation. By making this threat,

they are making women aware and they are being sure that the message is really powerful and

will remain in people’s minds.

Relevance in argumentation

In order to conduct a proper critical discussion, we must follow the communication elements.

This way, by making use of the felicity conditions the argumentation will be clearly linked with

the addressee accepting the standpoint. (Van Eemeren, Grootendorst 2004)3 That means that

women around the world will accept the idea that breast cancer is dangerous and as a solution to

the problem they should replace checking social networks with checking their breasts.

Knowledge of the speech act and the matters discussed is primordial. Having a good know-

how on the matter will only make one reason its arguments very well. Such is the case of the

advertising DDB Singapore in researching social media traffic.

3 Van Eemeren F.H., Grootendorst R., 2004, A Systematic Theory of Argumentation, the Pragma-Dialectical

Approach, Cambridge University Press (A Pragma-Dialectical Notion of Relevance)

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With the help of the pragma-dialectical approach it can easily be illustrated how to spot a

relevance problem. With concern to this campaign, the first question we ask ourselves is whether

women neglect doing breast self-examinations. In the confrontation stage, this would stand for

the standpoint ‘women do not always do breast self-examinations’. In a second instance, we can

also ask whether women spend more time on social media, which comes as an argument

‘because they spend valuable time on social networks’.

The analysis in this case has to be valid. This is where the research comes in hand for the

media agency. This way they formed their know-how about women on social media which is

more than enough to support the argument. Women do spend more time on social networks than

doing breast check-ups. The assertion is not redundant so the argument is therefore appropriate.

Analytical reconstruction

In order to analyze properly the copy of the campaign, firstly the speech act must be

reconstructed. The difference of opinion between the addresser the addressee must be clearly

pointed out.

A pragma-dialectical reconstruction means deleting the parts of the text that are not relevant

for the issue, expressing implicit premises, substitution of the unclear and uncertain part of the

text and permutation of various parts in the text in order to bring out the relevance and make it

more eligible.

I will try below to do a analytical reconstruction for the text for the campaign posters. They

follow the same structure, so analyzing them together should not be a problem.

1. Deletion: From my perspective, none of the information presented should be deleted from

the analysis. They are presented in a sort of chronology. First, the regret, the problem is

being put forward ‘women do not always do breast check-ups’. Second, the threat that

cancer brings death and the argument that this is more important that your online profile.

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And last but not least, the advice ‘start doing breast examinations’. It is a simple problem-

solution issue, easy to understand by women of all age, background and education.

2. Implicit premises: Preventing breast cancer should be a top priority to women. Social

media is not so important. Your life is more important. Women should always do breast

check-ups.

3. Substitution: ‘If only you checked your breasts as often’ is an unclear assertion expressed

by a regret. It can easily be substituted by a phrase like ‚You should check your breasts

more often’, ‚Check your breasts more often’. ‚In only’ in a grammar marker of regret, but

the pattern is used also for wishes about the future when there is a chance that this may

happen or women will change their behavior towards breast cancer.

4. Permutation: As far as permutation goes, the last sentence ‘In the time you spend online,

you can easily do a breast self-examination instead’ might be put up front, as this is the

entire message of the campaign. However, maybe there is a reason behind this idea of

placing it on the last place. Sometimes, the last thing read remains the most clear in

reader’s mind.

Rules of the critical discussion

For the critical discussion to be in the parameters of the pragma-dialectical rules, both the

protagonist and the antagonist have to debate and see through argumentation whether the

standpoint of the protagonist is valid and withstands the doubts of the antagonist. (Van Eemeren,

Grootendorst 2004)4 The antagonist is the one pushing the discussion to the limit by expressing

counter arguments. This way, the protagonist is forced to provide more arguments defending his

initial standpoint.

4 Van Eemeren F.H., Grootendorst R., 2004, A Systematic Theory of Argumentation, the Pragma-Dialectical

Approach, Cambridge University Press (A Dialectical Notion of Reasonableness)

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The difference of opinion in not solved until the antagonist, the addressee accepts the

protagonist, the addresser’s standpoint. The arguments are not a sufficient condition in winning

an argument, but they are indeed necessary. For winning the argument, our reasons must be

without doubt true and valid.

Strategic Maneuvering

All theories of argumentation bring light upon maintaining reasonableness to the

argumentation.

As Tindale properly underlined, “strategic maneuvering works best when the rhetorical

influences brought to bear at each of the three levels are made to converge”. (Tindale, 2004)5

The first level involves a selection of topics, from which the arguers will select materials

according to what fits best the advancing of their arguments. In the confrontation stage, the

writer of the copy of the campaign is selecting, or excluding, just to establish how the

confrontation is defined.

In the opening stage, both the protagonist and the antagonist should try to advance the best

form of the starting point, by establishing roles of dialectic and rhetoric and winning concessions

on how these aspects might be related. In the argumentation stage, the most appropriate status

will be selected for the standpoint at issue. In the concluding stage, the accent is on the trying to

achieve the best outcome, being careful at the consequences in the same time.

5 Tindale C.W. (2004) Rhetorical Argumentation, Principles of Theory and Practice, Sage Publications

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The second level involves adapting to the audience demand, which means the campaign must

rely to its target audience – women around the world. Respecting the auditorial demands, the

agency creates empathy with the public. (van Eemeren 2009)6 However, the arguers have to

agree upon audience concerns and expectations.

The third level involves the exploitation of the appropriate presentational devices. Rhetorical

figures are being used just to create images in the mind of the public. This technique is used in

the breast cancer campaign with statement such as ‘Missing your friends’ latest messages isn’t

the end of the world’ or ‘Checking your photos for likes isn’t a matter of life and death’ or ‘Not

checking status updates won’t hurt you’. These statements manage to take the place of

comparison with the campaign message. Through the statement ‘But for many women, breast

cancer is’ the highlight is put on the real problem, the cancer. This is how elements were

maneuvered and how obstacles were avoided in order to get to the final goal.

Other instances of the rhetorical figures are the images used for the print. In the Annex (page

17), it can be seen that social media logos have been altered in order to render the image of a

breast self-examination. This is a metaphor used by the agency to express the importance of

preventing against breast cancer. From my point of view, this metaphor could not be expressed

any clearer, drawing this parallel to social media.

Violations of the rules of a critical discussion

The ideal model provides ten rules for a critical discussion, rules which constitute the general

reasonableness of the argumentation. If violated, the text loses its reasonable resolution and gains

fallacies.

6 Van Eemeren, F.H., (2009) Examining Argumentation in Context, Fifteen Studies on Strategic Maneuvering, John

Benjamins Publighing Co.

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The ten rules (Van Eemeren, Grootendorst, Henkemans, 2002):

1. Freedom rule: Parties must not prevent each other from advancing standpoints or

from casting doubt on standpoints.

2. Burden of proof rule: A party that advances a standpoint is obliged to defend it if

asked by the other party to do so.

3. Standpoint rule: A party’s attack on a standpoint must relate to the standpoint that

has indeed been advanced by the other party.

4. Relevance rule: A party may defend a standpoint only by advancing

argumentation relating to that standpoint.

5. Unexpressed premise rule: A party may not deny premise that he or she has left

implicit or falsely present something as a premise that has been left unexpressed

by the other party.

6. Starting point rule: A party may not falsely present a premise as an accepted

starting point nor deny a premise representing an accepted starting point.

7. Argument scheme rule: A party may not regard a standpoint as conclusively

defended if the defense does not take place by means of an appropriate

argumentation scheme that is correctly applied.

8. Validity rule: A party may only use arguments in its argumentation that are

logically valid or capable of being made logically valid by making explicit one or

more unexpressed premises.

9. Closure rule: A failed defense of a standpoint must result in the party that put

forward the standpoint retracting it and a conclusive defense of the standpoint

must result in the other party retracting its doubt about the standpoint.

10. Usage rule: A party must not use formulations that are insufficiently clear or

confusingly ambiguous and a party must interpret the other party’s formulations

as carefully and accurately as possible.

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The way I see the arguments of the campaign, I would say that the messages violate the

argument scheme rule and the usage rule. As far as the usage rule goes, specialists say that

insufficiently clear of confusingly ambiguous formulations can be wrongly interpreted. Such is

the case for the statement ‘If only you checked your breast as often’ which may confuse the

reader. The phrase ‘if only’ represents, no doubt, regret. But for a social campaign, this should be

understood as a warning. You should. You should definitely check your breast as often. More

often if you can.

The argument scheme rule explicitly say that for an argumentation to be reasonable, the party

may not regard a standpoint as conclusively defended if the defense does not take place by

means of an appropriate argumentation scheme that is correctly applied. To put it more easy, the

standpoint is not conclusively defended if the argumentation scheme is nor correctly applied. But

the argumentation scheme involves an antagonist, which, of course, we have, but who does not

express its counter arguments. His premises can only be implied from the statements advanced

by the protagonist.

The soundness of argumentation

The soundness is the property that any statement that can be proved is valid on all

interpretations or structures of the semantic theory. Expressing it with symbols, we have the

equation: If ⊢S P, then also ⊨L P7, where S is the deductive system and L the language.

Soundness is basically the validity of the arguments given. With respect to the three sources of

strategic maneuvering, the overall soundness lies in selecting the topics and advancing the

arguments, in the adaptation to the auditorium, in presentational devices such as rhetorical

figures.

7 Validity and Soundness on Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, accessed on 20th of June, 2015

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For the breast cancer campaign, the adaptation to the audience was the step which I consider

the most thought through. The agency tried to be emphatic with women around the world, but in

the same time it tried to warn them about the danger of breast cancer.

As far as presentational devices go, the rhetorical figures were properly used. Drawing the

parallel to social media, the metaphor of the breast self-examination could not be more creative.

The message itself is creative, but it is common knowledge that the images speak loudly than a

thousand words. And it can be proved. The images are entirely the whole message, and more

may I say, expressed through symbols (in our case, logos).

The arguments are valid if there is no logically possibility to have all of the premises true and

the conclusion false. However, it is not relevant to whether the argument is valid or not, even if

the premises and the conclusion are true. The implicit premises have to be true as well. In our

case, an implicit premise such as ‚Cancer is dangerous’ is as true as it can be, because cancer is a

disease and has very strong reactions.

Another instance of a true premise is ‚You have to do self-examinations’. The conclusion of

the argumentation ‚You can prevent cancer’ follows. This way, if we apply the ‚if...then...’

scheme we will get something like: ‚If you do self-examination you will prevent cancer’.

The argument is sound if it is valid and if it has all premises true and valid. We’ve established

so far that the argument itself is indeed valid, but what about the premises? Are they all true? I

will later on indicate if the next premises are valid (V) or invalid (I), sound (S) or unsound (U).

Women do not always do check-ups (V – S)

Preventing breast cancer should be a top priority to women. (V – S)

Social media is not so important. (V – S)

Your life is important. (V – S)

You have to prevent against breast cancer. (V – S)

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Women should always do breast check-ups. (V – S)

All of these premises seem to be valid. So the argument itself is sound. But, after all, we are

talking about a medical concern so we may say that even their idea for the campaign is valid

itself. We can never truly make these arguments concerning a disease so powerfull and invasive

unvalid. And for social media, people have lived without it for ages. It is true, we live in a digital

era and everything seems to happen so fast and everything applies more and more often to the

online space, but there are people living without it, or at least, with less of it.

Conclusion

To conclude, I truly believe that DDB Group Singapore made a great campaign out of their

idea. The altered social media logos struck me the first time I saw them. At first, the graphics

seem to be the logos of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, but as you look closer, you can easily

see they are really showing hands doing breast self-examination. I could not be more impressed,

I didn’t even need to argument their message since the photographs are so powerful.

The graphics address to women around the world, acting as an advice to spend more time

checking their breast. Cancer prevention is a very delicate matter and has to be treated

correspondingly. The message of the campaign is that by spending a little less time checking

social media, our generation major concern, women could have more time checking their breast

for breast cancer.

This paper tried to prove how the message of this campaign is properly addressed. The

campaign addresses to the target, which is the primordial aspect, in an emphatic way.

The structure begins with the protagonist, the antagonist and the difference of opinion. The

campaign has a certain context – a global context, it has a message, it has true and valid premises

and a valid conclusion.

16

However, the text of the campaign violates two of the rules of the critical discussion, the

argument scheme rule and the usage rule. First of all, the ‘if only’ phrase is giving an ambiguous

formulation to the premise and can be wrongly interpreted. And when messages ‘can’ be

wrongly interpreted, they ‘will’ be, no doubt.

Another unclear fact about the argumentation is the fact that for the argument to not violate the

rules of critical discussion, it may not regard a standpoint as conclusively defended if the

appropriate argumentation scheme is not correctly applied. This specific argumentation scheme

involves an antagonist, but he does not have a chance to express its counter arguments. His

premises can only be implied from the statements advanced by the protagonist.

The overall argumentation is defended by the graphics. A picture values more than a thousand

words, they say. And this is exactly what made this campaign a good campaign, even with its

fallacies. In this case, we managed to prove that the argumentation is enough to warn that breast

cancer is a danger to our society and ask women to replace some valuable time on social media

with some time doing self-examinations.

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Bibliography:

1. Perelman C., Olbrechts-Tyteca L. (2008) La nouvelle rhétorique. Traité de l'argumentation,

University of Bruxelles

2. Stefanov G. (2009) Phylosophy Class for the Phylosophy Faculty, University of Bucharest

3. Tindale C.W. (2004) Rhetorical Argumentation, Principles of Theory and Practice, Sage

Publications

4. Van Eemeren F.H., Grootendorst R. (2004) A Systematic Theory of Argumentation, the

Pragma-Dialectical Approach, Cambridge University Press

5. Van Eemeren, F.H., Houtlosser, P. (2002). Strategic maneuvering: Maintaining a delicate

balance, John Benjamins Publighing Co.

6. Van Eemeren, F.H., Houtlosser, P. (2010) Strategic maneuvering in argumentative discourse:

extending the pragma-dialectical theory of argumentation, John Benjamins Publighing Co.

7. Van Eemeren, F.H., (2009) Examining Argumentation in Context, Fifteen Studies on Strategic

Maneuvering, John Benjamins Publighing Co.

8. Van Eemeren, F.H., Grootendorst, R., Henkemans S. (2002) Argumentation: Analysis,

evaluation, presentation, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates

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Webliography:

http://adsoftheworld.com/media/print/breast_cancer_foundation_twitter

http://adsoftheworld.com/media/print/breast_cancer_foundation_instagram

http://adsoftheworld.com/media/print/breast_cancer_foundation_facebook

Validity and Soundness on Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, accessed on 20th of June, 2015

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Annex

Twitter

‘If only you checked your breast as often. Missing your friends’ latest messages isn’t the end of

the world. But for many women, breast cancer is. In the time you spend online, you can easily do

a self-examination instead.’

http://adsoftheworld.com/media/print/breast_cancer_foundation_twitter

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Instagram

‘If only you checked your breast as often. Checking your photos for likes isn’t a matter of life

and death, but breast cancer often is. In the time you spend online, you can easily do a self-

examination instead.’

http://adsoftheworld.com/media/print/breast_cancer_foundation_instagram

21

Facebook

‘If only you checked your breast as often. Not checking status updates won’t hurt you. But breast

cancer can, and might even kill you. In the time you spend online, you can easily do a self-

examination instead.’

http://adsoftheworld.com/media/print/breast_cancer_foundation_facebook