Multimodal rhetorics in the gun debate: Encouraging youth agency in March for Our Lives’ “The Most Vicious Cycle”

Abstract

ABSTRACT In October 2018, March For Our Lives (MFOL) released “The Most Vicious Cycle,” a music video designed to mobilize collective agency among youth voters in the midterm election. The video, which features the song “Safe,” performed by Sage (featuring Kesha, Chika), utilizes a Rube Goldberg machine sequence to visually depict the “vicious cycle” of gun violence and the predictability of the gun control debate. Rhetorical scholars have largely examined the gun control debate by analyzing the public address of political elites and argumentation presented in gun rights discourses. There exists, then, a need to consider how youth activists, who have been excluded from the gun control debate, are using emergent discursive strategies like the music video to claim authority and exercise agency. I argue that the video’s multimodal discourse employs visual, lyrical, and sonic elements to create an immersive and instructional experience that performs a collective youth agency grounded in struggle. The video acts as a pedagogical tool to inspire collective agency by visualizing gun violence and amplification, visually refuting the status quo, and displacing authority. In moments when discourse and debate have become static, multimodal elements can provide a new perspective, making arguments felt, immediate, and grounded in experience.