A Cardiology Exhibit at a Science Museum, Viewed as Speech Acts in Sequence

Abstract

An exhibit about cardiology at a science museum is an elaborate form of health communication, with messaging happening across text, pictures, models, and videos. This qualitative case study uses concepts of speech act sequencing and interpellation to explain a series of multimodal exhibits about cardiovascular health. Health exhibits are described as verbal and audiovisual arguments combining assertions of information; directives to change behavior, and designations of risk candidacy-or sequences of assertive, directive, and declarative speech acts. Visitors are targeted as heart disease candidates according to their risk factors, such as hypertension, overweight, and inactivity. Communication research focused on health exhibits is rare, and this article presents a new way of looking at them that contributes to the current discussions about controlling language. Implications for health communication scholars and multimedia message designers are explored.

Minimizing the Dangers of Air Pollution Using Alternative Facts: A Science Museum Case Study

“…In what other ways do the exhibits prescribe a course of action for the visitor, even after their visit? This piece follows up on previous work (Lee, ; Lee, Steier, & Ostrenko, ) about the prescriptive (and not just descriptive) purpose of museums, also noted in the museum rhetorics literature. For example, Sharon Macdonald () notes how political agendas are inscribed in the classification and juxtaposition of objects (p. 3).…”

The Dual Meanings of Artifacts: Public Culture, Food, and Government in the “What’s Cooking, Uncle Sam?” Exhibition

“…Lynch (2013) observes that museums have the rhetorical capacity “to fully immerse visitors into an experience and an attendant subject position” (p. 7). In a study of a science museum exhibit about cardiovascular health, Lee (2019a) suggests how the “disease candidate” (p. 710) subject position is fashioned: By focusing first on the normal function of the cardiopulmonary system, then leaning into an increasingly morbid focus on common risk factors (such as overweight) and everyday symptoms (such as tiredness), the exhibit hails visitors, forcing an acknowledgement of health risks (p. 709). The question of subject position is also central to the current project.…”

Exhibitions of Impact: Introducing the Special Issue

“…The detour into health exhibits is intended to spotlight exhibitions less inhibited about exhorting or commanding, since what they advertise is "good for us." "Prescriptive exhibits" (Lee, 2019(Lee, , 2017 are those that tell us to do something, or to think about something differently, or to assume the position of intended recipient. Just as traffic lights say stop and go, a taxidermized gorilla, posed, beating on its chest (see Haraway, 1984, p. 25), might reinforce male dominance.…”