Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
- Institution
-
- Minnesota State University, Mankato (4)
- Duquesne University (3)
- The University of Maine (3)
- Abilene Christian University (2)
- Clemson University (2)
-
- Marshall University (2)
- Nova Southeastern University (2)
- University of Nebraska - Lincoln (2)
- Bellarmine University (1)
- Colby College (1)
- James Madison University (1)
- Liberty University (1)
- Michigan Technological University (1)
- Northwestern Pritzker School of Law (1)
- Selected Works (1)
- St. John Fisher University (1)
- The University of Southern Mississippi (1)
- University of Arkansas, Fayetteville (1)
- University of Dayton (1)
- University of Kentucky (1)
- University of Massachusetts Amherst (1)
- University of Nevada, Las Vegas (1)
- University of New Mexico (1)
- University of Richmond (1)
- University of Windsor (1)
- Wayne State University (1)
- Western Kentucky University (1)
- Publication Year
- Publication
-
- Electronic Theses and Dissertations (6)
- All Dissertations (2)
- Communication and Theater Association of Minnesota Journal (2)
- Department of Communication Studies: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research (2)
- All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects (1)
-
- All HCAS Student Capstones, Theses, and Dissertations (1)
- Basic Communication Course Annual (1)
- Communication ETDs (1)
- Communications Faculty Research (1)
- Conversations: A Graduate Student Journal of the Humanities, Social Sciences, and Theology (1)
- Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports (1)
- Doctoral Dissertations (1)
- Faculty Working Papers (1)
- Graduate Theses and Dissertations (1)
- Honors College (1)
- Honors Scholarly Publications (1)
- Honors Theses (1)
- Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects (1)
- Master's Theses (1)
- Masters Theses (1)
- OSSA Conference Archive (1)
- School of Professional and Continuing Studies Faculty Publications (1)
- Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019 (1)
- Speaker & Gavel (1)
- Stephen M. Underhill (1)
- The Qualitative Report (1)
- The Review: A Journal of Undergraduate Student Research (1)
- Theses and Dissertations--Political Science (1)
- Theses, Dissertations and Capstones (1)
- UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones (1)
- Publication Type
Articles 1 - 30 of 39
Full-Text Articles in Entire DC Network
Queer Crises: Movements From Queerness And Feelings Of White Religion In The United States, Austin Williams Miller
Queer Crises: Movements From Queerness And Feelings Of White Religion In The United States, Austin Williams Miller
Communication ETDs
Anchored by contemporary crises surrounding queer and trans people in the United States, I employ movements from queerness within an affective queer phenomenological framework to understand how arrangements of “white religion” (Schaefer, 2015, p. 63), a process whereby U.S. American Christian forms escape ideology into religious affective economies in the United States, relegate queer people “to the background… to sustain a certain direction” (Ahmed, 2006, p. 31). I assemble a queer rhetorical context analyzing white religious space in documentary film, secular sexual regulation through contemporary U.S. legal contexts around marriage, and settler colonial Christian nationalist political imaginations to critique how …
Public Mediations Of Accountability In The #Metoo Era, Amanda Brand
Public Mediations Of Accountability In The #Metoo Era, Amanda Brand
Department of Communication Studies: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research
Tarana Burke initially launched the Me Too movement to cultivate solidarity among sexual assault survivors in 2006, and public appropriations of this effort have resulted in a kairotic moment of accountability in sexual assault cases. Particularly, the 2017 hashtag, #MeToo populates media platforms as the public invokes it to make sense of sexual assault cases, bearing witness to victim-survivors, assigning blame, or disavowing culpability. Challenging legacies of public denial, #MeToo marks a cultural shift in which victim-survivors are not only speaking out, they are also being heard and believed. I argue that accountability is rhetorically-constructed, negotiated, and imposed through …
Neil Postman's Loving Resistance Fighter: A Philosophy Of Communication In The Age Of Technopoly, Ryan Mccullough
Neil Postman's Loving Resistance Fighter: A Philosophy Of Communication In The Age Of Technopoly, Ryan Mccullough
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This project walks the work of Neil Postman (1931-2003) into the philosophy of communication. Traditional conceptions of Neil Postman’s body of work position his ideas within the traditions of media ecology, general semantics, or, more broadly, as a form of media studies and criticism. In addition, others label Postman’s work, especially in Technopoly (1992), as pessimistic, deterministic, and/or imbibed with Luddite tendencies. This project articulates a different view and contends that Postman’s scholarship, in particular his articulation of the loving resistance fighter in the final chapter of Technopoly, is committed to resisting the nefarious forces embedded in both technology …
The Myth Of Perfection: Charting The Rhetoric Of Veteran Disability For A Course To Stability, Nicholas Rader
The Myth Of Perfection: Charting The Rhetoric Of Veteran Disability For A Course To Stability, Nicholas Rader
All Dissertations
This dissertation rhetorically analyzes discrimination in Western institutional discourses and documentation procedures, such as architectural texts and procedures, through a historiographic lens. An analytical methodology will be offered to show how discrimination of intersectional bodies is historically informed and reaffirmed by the manipulation of Western myths and mythos. Specifically, by mapping navigational mathematics and cartographic methods over rhetorical, architectural, and historiographic theory, it will be shown how the manipulation of Western myths establishes and reifies patriarchal discrimination that eventually fissions into eugenicist logics in nineteenth and twentieth century France, England, and the United States. In modernity, the practice of manipulating …
"Ok, Groomer" :(Post) Truth Rhetoric And Transphobia, Adit R. Selvaraj
"Ok, Groomer" :(Post) Truth Rhetoric And Transphobia, Adit R. Selvaraj
All HCAS Student Capstones, Theses, and Dissertations
Paying attention to anti-LGBTQ rhetoric circulating on social media in Fall 2022, this thesis situates political rhetoric on Twitter, by analyzing the use of the hashtag #okgroomer. This hashtag, a corruption of the popular phrase “ok, boomer,” has been used to show contempt on social media by equating left-wing ideologies to pedophilia. Informed by gender critical theory, this work espouses the idea that #okgroomer is constructed as a post-truth ideal aided by the mythos that queer people are dangerous to children. To study #okgroomer, this thesis employs a critical technical discourse analysis informed by ecological scholarship to a case study …
Faking And Conspiring About Covid-19: A Discursive Approach, Rosa Scardigno, Alessia Paparella, Francesca D'Errico
Faking And Conspiring About Covid-19: A Discursive Approach, Rosa Scardigno, Alessia Paparella, Francesca D'Errico
The Qualitative Report
In the more general climate of post-truth - a social trend reflecting a disregard for reliable ways of knowing what is true, mostly acted through massive use of misinformation and rhetoric calling for emotions - an alarming “infodemic” accompanied the COVID-19 pandemic, affecting healthy attitudes and behaviors and further lessening trust in science, institutions, and traditional media. Its two main representative items, fake and conspiracy news, have been widely analyzed in psycho-social research, even if scholars mostly acknowledged the cognitive and social dimensions of those items and devoted less attention to their discursive construction. In addition, these works did not …
Alt-Right Of The_Donald And Authoritarian Communists On Reddit: Internet Memes To Build Community, Joshua Hendricks
Alt-Right Of The_Donald And Authoritarian Communists On Reddit: Internet Memes To Build Community, Joshua Hendricks
Master's Theses
This project infuses Lacanian psychoanalysis further into the rhetorical study by exploring authoritarian discourses on Reddit. I analyze the alt-right community that found a home on the subreddit r/The_Donald and chart their discourse as it shaped from the quarantine to the establishment of an independent forum called TheDonald.win. I selected memes and the comments around them to build the analysis. The second aspect of this thesis examines authoritarian communist discourse on Reddit. The leftist community splintered when r/socialism banned a community member because the person made catgirl art. The ban sent shockwaves through the leftist community on Reddit and generated …
Is France Having A Populist Moment?, Emma Gilmore
Is France Having A Populist Moment?, Emma Gilmore
Honors Theses
The word populism is often thrown around in news media and academic scholarship, but there is a lack of understanding of what it actually means as a political theory. In France, the two presidential candidates that made it to the second round in 2017, Emmanuel Macron and Marine le Pen, were both called populist, despite having vastly different campaign strategies and messages. This study used a computer-based method to analyze Campaign books from 24 candidates beginning in 1981 that determined that Populist language is on the rise, but not as aggressively as news media suggests.
Reading Memory: A Dual Heuristic Method For Interpreting Rhetorical Architectural Memory Texts, Diane Quaglia Beltran
Reading Memory: A Dual Heuristic Method For Interpreting Rhetorical Architectural Memory Texts, Diane Quaglia Beltran
All Dissertations
Memorials operate rhetorically, architecturally, and spatially as a written mode of remembrance. The rhetorical potential of memory texts has been discussed in rhetorical theory and includes the idea that the monuments and memorials are conveying something to someone for the purpose of influencing memory and remembrance of a place, person, or event. Still what makes them public, rhetorical, and architectural is not as clearly defined, so understanding only what the objects are saying and to whom misses the opportunity to more fully understand the ways in which they are rhetorical and architectural: rhetorical in their epideictic functions and kairotic possibilities, …
“But You Have To Have Been There To Know What We Are Talking About”: An Examination Of The Rhetorical Environments Of Cults And Other Extremist Groups And How They Lead To Violence, Katherine Camille
Honors College
Popular culture often cites charismatic leaders as the catalysts for violent acts in cults and other extremist groups. This explanation is insufficient and oversimplified, and this thesis challenges the idea that a single speech or person can move a large group to act violently and without their own best interests in mind. This thesis examines two well- known cults: The Peoples Temple and Heaven’s Gate, to determine what compelled their followers to commit violent acts 3⁄4 particularly mass suicide. I then take this analysis and look at QAnon, a far-right conspiracy theory group, whose participation in the January 6th, 2021 …
Doing Things With Arguments: Assertion, Persuasion, Performance, Blake D. Scott
Doing Things With Arguments: Assertion, Persuasion, Performance, Blake D. Scott
OSSA Conference Archive
In “Three Perspectives on Argument,” Wenzel argued that scholars should orient their research around the well-known triad of rhetorical, dialectical, and logical perspectives on argument. Despite the success of Wenzel’s triad in orienting pluralistic research, he nonetheless maintained that an “eventual synthesis” of the three perspectives was both possible and desirable. In this paper I reconsider Wenzel’s idea by asking what might be preventing such a synthesis today. I argue that one obstacle to this is a common philosophical assumption about rhetoric that opposes assertion to persuasion, truth to effectiveness. Following Barbara Cassin, I challenge this assumption and consider how …
What’S In A Name? Exploring The Definitions Of 'Public' And 'Speaking', Joseph M. Valenzano Iii
What’S In A Name? Exploring The Definitions Of 'Public' And 'Speaking', Joseph M. Valenzano Iii
Basic Communication Course Annual
The purpose of this essay is more of an intellectual exercise than an attempt at a pragmatic redesign of the basic course. Essentially, I submit that we as a discipline have lost sight of what the phrase “public speaking” actually means and have erroneously and dangerously equated it with simply delivering formal presentations. When the term is broken down into its component parts of “public” and “speaking” it is understood as something much broader, and thus allows for the curricular flexibility forwarded by Hess (2012), West (2012), Valenzano (2013) and Wallace (2015), to name a few. In this essay, I …
Challenging Public Rhetoric Justifying Immigrants As ‘Indecent', Aaron Martin, Lisette Lemerise, Riya Chhabra, Sudharshana P. Kanduri, Julia Beleshi
Challenging Public Rhetoric Justifying Immigrants As ‘Indecent', Aaron Martin, Lisette Lemerise, Riya Chhabra, Sudharshana P. Kanduri, Julia Beleshi
Honors Scholarly Publications
Elites employ various rhetorical strategies in public discourse, including on the topic of immigration. As such, those with influence rely on storytelling to shape views about the narratives related to immigrants as a minority out-group. This has significant consequences, particularly in areas of policy development. Policy shapers have isolated immigrant groups by creating certain ideologically derived criteria well beyond citizenship for them to eventually receive “full American” status. Further, such status first has required immigrants to unduly prove their “worthiness” as exceptional—like being extra hardworking and very law abiding. Our essay seeks to show how foundational rhetoric is often intentionally …
Bureaucratic Modernity And The Erosion Of Practical Reason: A Rhetorical Education As An Antidote, David Impellizzeri
Bureaucratic Modernity And The Erosion Of Practical Reason: A Rhetorical Education As An Antidote, David Impellizzeri
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
To what extent and in what ways does modernity reveal itself through the bureaucratic? This project aims at an interpretive understanding of bureaucratic modernity. The rationalization of society and action in the (late) modern world requires that an increasing number of human activities and domains be explained in allegedly neutral, ‘rational’ terms and without reference to morally substantive ends. Ultimately, this entails a form of epistemic reductionism that elevates instrumental rationality to the exclusion of practical reason and probabilistic ways of knowing. Bureaucratic modernity signifies a decrease in choices that can be legitimized in public on some basis other …
Prisoner Of Context: The Truman Doctrine Speech And J. Edgar Hoover’S Rhetorical Realism, Stephen Underhill
Prisoner Of Context: The Truman Doctrine Speech And J. Edgar Hoover’S Rhetorical Realism, Stephen Underhill
Stephen M. Underhill
In this project, I argue that J. Edgar Hoover’s style of political realism should be studied by critics because it long preceded that of President Harry S. Truman. Thestyle belonged to a stockpile of anti-Communist imagery that helped to shape how the Truman Doctrine speech was drafted and how audiences interpreted its meanings in more local domestic politics. When Truman fınally announced that the Soviet Union had challenged international protocol, I argue that he confırmed the vision that his Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) director and other detractors had developed throughout the New Deal to discredit reformers who challenged issues …
A New Materialist Rhetoric: Theorizing Movement From A Rhetorical Ethnography Of Hiking, Bryan Picciotto
A New Materialist Rhetoric: Theorizing Movement From A Rhetorical Ethnography Of Hiking, Bryan Picciotto
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
In the field of rhetoric, conventional concepts of movement depend on dialectical theories of materiality that posit matter is not rhetorical until acted upon by human sign or symbol systems. New materialist philosophy, which considers the dynamism of matter without situating materiality in dialectical relationship to language, provides a theoretical context for reconceptualizing the rhetoricity of movement. Working from a nondialectical approach to materiality, this dissertation theorizes how movement functions rhetorically, specifically within cultural practices of hiking. For this project, I participated in 15+ hikes at state and national parks in Maine, and generated a multimodal archive of 1,000+ audio, …
The Ethics Of Occultic Communication: An Invocation Of Joshua Gunn And Sissela Bok, James Thomas Begley Jr.
The Ethics Of Occultic Communication: An Invocation Of Joshua Gunn And Sissela Bok, James Thomas Begley Jr.
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Occultic rhetoric, according to Joshua Gunn, is a genre of discourse concerned with the study and practice of secret communications. The strategic sharing of secret messages involves a host of methods and conventions designed for the selective disclosure of hidden knowledge, thus controlling the boundaries of (and accessibility to power between) insider and outsider groups. Occultic rhetoric has its uses in everyday encounters, but the abuse of such manipulative strategies, especially by those in the academy and other positions of power and trust, calls for an ethical response. This dissertation submits occultic rhetoric to moral investigation by incorporating the works …
A Rhetorical Analysis Of Opening Statements In Trial: Reconsidering The Classical Canon Of Invention, Andrew Chandler
A Rhetorical Analysis Of Opening Statements In Trial: Reconsidering The Classical Canon Of Invention, Andrew Chandler
Undergraduate Theses
This analysis of 21 opening statements probes at current persuasive practices employed by trial attorneys through the lens of mainstream legal advice and an expanded definition of rhetorical invention – one which includes both discovery and creation. An evaluation of such practice reveals the utility, and furthermore the duty of the advocate, to draw upon an expanded realm of available arguments.
Rhetoric And Ethics: A Burkean Analysis Of Modern Cult (And Anti-Cult) Tactics, Lydia Erickson
Rhetoric And Ethics: A Burkean Analysis Of Modern Cult (And Anti-Cult) Tactics, Lydia Erickson
Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019
Cults are a unique aspect of modern and past society, and their study is driven by questions of persuasion and communication. One of the key critiques against cults is their use of coercion and persuasive messaging to recruit new members. This study examines the rhetorical methods used by two groups labeled as cults, the Twelve Tribes and Full Circle, and the Cult Information Centre, an anti-cult group, on their public website domains. These specific groups were chosen because they are understudied and lesser-known with few publications about their practices. This study uses a traditional Burkean analysis of rhetorical methods through …
Rhetoric Of The Far Right: A Rhetorical Analysis Of Donald Trump And Viktor Orbán, Hannah Batten
Rhetoric Of The Far Right: A Rhetorical Analysis Of Donald Trump And Viktor Orbán, Hannah Batten
The Review: A Journal of Undergraduate Student Research
This research consists of a rhetorical analysis of two world leaders: Donald Trump, president of the United States, and Viktor Orban, Prime Minister of Hungary. The particular lens of this rhetoric is that of the political far-right. This research works to compare the rhetorical devise and strategies used by two different world leaders that possess some overlapping elements in terms of their political agendas. While this work involves political elements by nature, it does not intend to promote or refute any form of political ideology, rather it is a purely rhetorical analysis.
A Rhetorical Analysis Of President Bill Clinton's First Term Presidential Rhetoric, Ireland Hill
A Rhetorical Analysis Of President Bill Clinton's First Term Presidential Rhetoric, Ireland Hill
Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects
Bill Clinton was the United States of America’s (U.S.) 42nd President, and his rhetoric set the tone of U.S. political climate for years following his presidency. Due to the power that a president possesses, a president’s presence and statements are frequently analyzed. It is clear, however, that there is a lack of research completed on presidential rhetoric. Upon this realization, I reflected on my previous areas of research; one of those areas was the first term presidential rhetoric of Clinton. As a result, I decided that a rhetorical analysis of some of the major rhetoric that contributed to Clinton’s first …
The Myth Of Southern Atonement: Constructed Forgiveness In Public Spaces, Elizabeth Ashley Clayborn
The Myth Of Southern Atonement: Constructed Forgiveness In Public Spaces, Elizabeth Ashley Clayborn
Graduate Theses and Dissertations
This thesis provides a rhetorical analysis of public space in Arkansas and examines the ways in which the myth of Southern Atonement is constructed within those spaces. Three formal elements characterize Southern Atonement: absolution from the past, distinctiveness in constructed authenticity, and hope for a post-racial future. The analysis develops over three case studies which I argue contribute to the construction, engagement, and actualization of this cultural myth. The first chapter looks at Fort Smith, Arkansas, and The Unexpected art project as a source of identity construction and place attachment. Then I examine The Billgrimage, or the monuments and museums …
The New Sexy: A Rhetorical Analysis Of Sherlock, Krystal A. Fogle, Toni Maisano
The New Sexy: A Rhetorical Analysis Of Sherlock, Krystal A. Fogle, Toni Maisano
Conversations: A Graduate Student Journal of the Humanities, Social Sciences, and Theology
In recent history, there have been movements advocating for conversation and change regarding traditional gender roles. As a central part of culture, British television has not escaped this scrutiny. BBC's crime drama Sherlock directed by Steven Moffat has received both critical acclaim and attention from the general public for its portrayal of women. In this essay, we venture into this conversation, and explore portrayals of existing gender roles and how the writers of the show choose to dissent with the audience's expectations of gender portrayal. We examine connections between past and present portrayals of the classic character, Sherlock Holmes, and …
Prisoner Of Context: The Truman Doctrine Speech And J. Edgar Hoover’S Rhetorical Realism, Stephen Underhill
Prisoner Of Context: The Truman Doctrine Speech And J. Edgar Hoover’S Rhetorical Realism, Stephen Underhill
Communications Faculty Research
In this project, I argue that J. Edgar Hoover’s style of political realism should be studied by critics because it long preceded that of President Harry S. Truman. Thestyle belonged to a stockpile of anti-Communist imagery that helped to shape how the Truman Doctrine speech was drafted and how audiences interpreted its meanings in more local domestic politics. When Truman fınally announced that the Soviet Union had challenged international protocol, I argue that he confırmed the vision that his Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) director and other detractors had developed throughout the New Deal to discredit reformers who challenged issues …
Grassroots Diplomacy And Vernacular Law: The Discourse Of Food Sovereignty In Maine, John Welton
Grassroots Diplomacy And Vernacular Law: The Discourse Of Food Sovereignty In Maine, John Welton
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This thesis studies the discourse of food sovereignty in Maine, a coalition of small-scale farmers, consumers, and citizens building an alternative food system based on a distributed form of production, processing, selling, purchasing, and consumption. This distribution occurs at the municipal level through the enactment of ordinances. Using critical-rhetorical field methods, I argue that the discourse of food sovereignty in Maine develops a ‘constitutive’ rhetoric that composes rural society through affective relationships. Advocates engage the industrial food system to both expose its systemic bias against small-scale farming and construct their own discourse of belonging. Based upon agrarian values such as …
The Making Of A Virtual Monster: Ideological Criticism On The Isis Hate And Extremism, Md Shah Jahan
The Making Of A Virtual Monster: Ideological Criticism On The Isis Hate And Extremism, Md Shah Jahan
All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects
The 9/11 incident and its subsequent terrorism specifically the rise of radical Islamist groups like ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria), and al-Qaeda astounds the world. ISIS’s propaganda technique using digital media helps the terrorist group motivate and recruit a large group of people from around the world. Terrorist incidents like the Dhaka café in 2016 and France soccer game attack in 2015 provide a glimpse of ISIS ferocity and barbarism with its subsequent series of attacks. This research examines the kind of rhetorical language that ISIS leaders and followers use to support their ideologies. And, how the internet …
The State House And The White House: Gubernatorial Rhetoric During The Obama Administration, Austin Peyton Trantham
The State House And The White House: Gubernatorial Rhetoric During The Obama Administration, Austin Peyton Trantham
Theses and Dissertations--Political Science
What is the importance of political speechmaking? Do state governors discuss presidential priorities? This study addresses these questions by analyzing the contents of annual State of the State addresses given by governors from 2012 to 2014 during the presidency of Barack Obama. A descriptive paper provides evidence that governors primarily discuss employment and economic issues in their addresses, are discussing greater number of policy issues than in previous decades, and are delivering their address before the presidential State of the Union message. Examining health care and immigration policy in separate empirical papers, I theorize that contextual factors, including legislative partisanship, …
Language, Rhetoric, And Politics In A Global Context: A Decolonial Critical Discourse Perspective On Nigeria’S 2015 Presidential Campaign, Yunana Ahmed
Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports
In this dissertation, I conceptualize a rhetorical and linguistic analysis of politics from a decolonial framework (Mignolo, 2011; Smith, 2012). My analysis draws on classical rhetoric (Aristotle, 2007), cultural rhetoric (Mao, 2014; Powell, et al., 2014; Yankah, 1995), and linguistics (Chilton, 2004) to reveal the different ways ideological and hegemonic struggles are discursively constructed in Nigerian political campaign discourse. The data for this study come from two speeches delivered by former President of Nigeria Goodluck Jonathan during the 2015 electoral campaign. This includes his declaration-of-intent speech and his speech marking the commencement of his formal campaign activities. My …
Communicating Mobility And Technology: A Material Rhetoric For Persuasive Transportation (Book Review), Daniel L. Hocutt
Communicating Mobility And Technology: A Material Rhetoric For Persuasive Transportation (Book Review), Daniel L. Hocutt
School of Professional and Continuing Studies Faculty Publications
Humans are so enmeshed in mobility systems that they identify with themselves through those systems. In Communicating Mobility and Technology: A Material Rhetoric for Persuasive Transportation, Ehren Pflugfelder (2017) uses the term "automobility" to describe both "the specific kinds of mobility afforded by independent, automobile-related movement technologies" and "the complex cultural, bodily, technological, and ecological ramifications of our dependence on separate mobility technologies" (p. 4). Given identities enmeshed in ecologies of systems involving human and nonhuman actors through which transportation emerges, automobility is described as a "wicked problem" to be solved, in part, by technical communicators and communication designers naming …
Enchanting Memes: Memetic Politics In The Face Of Technocratic Control, Jonathan Carter
Enchanting Memes: Memetic Politics In The Face Of Technocratic Control, Jonathan Carter
Department of Communication Studies: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research
This dissertation examines emerging trends in networked politics through an analysis of the rhetorical forms and functions of internet memes as a unique response to the increasing force of technocratic rhetorics. Frequently dismissed as mere trivialities of networked discourses, memes have increasingly been mobilized to articulate new positions and structures of feeling around the significant issues of the day. As new iterations of memes are rapidly developed and circulated across networked public spheres, these rhetorical technologies provide new opportunities for amateur participation in the development of symbolic content. Such participation is particularly important as the intensification of control society has …