An ideograph in rhetoric often exists as a building block or simply one term or short phrase that summarizes the orientation or attitude of an ideology.
The term ideograph was coined by rhetorical scholar and critic Michael Calvin McGee (1980) describing the use of particular words and phrases as political language in a way that captures (as well as creates or reinforces) particular ideological positions.
However, McGee (and others who have followed him) have identified several examples of ideographs or virtue words in Western liberal political discourse, such as
By encapsulating values which are perceived to be widely shared by the community, but which are in fact highly abstract and defined in very different ways by individuals, ideographs provide a potent persuasive tool for the political speaker.
McGee offers the example of Richard Nixon's attempt to defend his decision not to turn over documents to Congress during the Watergate scandal by invoking "the principle of confidentiality."
Ideographs appear in advertising and political campaigns regularly, and are crucial to helping the public understand what is really being asked of them.
It can refer to a situation in which all people have the same opportunities, or a condition in which social resources are distributed uniformly to different individuals and groups.
[5] The former is the more commonly used definition in US history, according to Condit & Lucaites, although in a socialist or left-leaning political state, the term may refer foremost to the distribution of social resources.
Condit and Lucaites depict the racial facet of equality as the dominant meaning in an American context of political discourse, since 1865.
The term divides those who are civilized from those who are uncivilized, those who defend economic freedom from those who would attack America’s way of life and those who support democracy from those who would disrupt it".
[9] Marouf Hasian discusses how key ideographs representative of a society's commitments change over time, particularly in the name of
From the 1900s-1930s, Americans justified the restriction of reproductive rights based on medical, social, economic, and political considerations, but were appalled when the Nazis used some of the same arguments in their creation of the "perfect race".
Instead, the critic is much more likely to gain a better understanding of an ideograph by looking at how it is used and depicted in movies, plays, and songs, as well as how it is presented in educational texts aimed at children.
"An ideograph is a culturally biased, abstract word or phrase drawn from ordinary language, which serves a constitutional value for a historically situated collectivity.