Speech and Rhetorical Studies Commons^™

Enhancing The Epistemological Project In The Rhetoric Of Science: Information Infrastructure As Tool For Identifying Epistemological Commitments In Scientific And Technical Communities., Nathan Johnson

Nathan R. Johnson

Enhancing the Epistemological Project in the Rhetoric of Science: Information Infrastructure as Tool for Identifying Epistemological Commitments in Scientific and Technical Communities. Article discusses how the STS concept of infrastructural provides a mesolayer approach to understand global issues in science with rhetorical methodology.

Abstinence Cinema: Virginity And The Rhetoric Of Sexual Purity In Contemporary Film, Casey R. Kelly

Casey R. Kelly

Lifestyle Drugs And The Neoliberal Family, Kristin Swenson

Kristin Swenson

Since 1997, advertisements for lifestyle drugs have saturated the U.S. airwaves, print media, and the Internet. Viewers are asked to see their children’s difficulty in school as attention deficit disorder, their worry as anxiety, and their flagging sex life as dysfunction. And for each disorder, there is a corresponding pharmaceutical solution. Through the lens of these advertisements, Lifestyle Drugs and the Neoliberal Family unpacks our contemporary obsession with obtaining easy solutions for difficult problems. The ads’ discourse illuminates the experience of living within a society increasingly affected by the policies of neoliberalism, one that requires us to invest and manage …

Habermas In The African E-Village: Deliberative Practices Of Diasporan Nigerians On The Internet, Farooq A. Kperogi

Farooq A. Kperogi

This chapter examines a many-to-many, collaborative, transnational, diasporic sphere of public discourse called the Nigerian Village Square, which over the years has functioned as an arena for the vigorous exchange of ideas among Nigerians both at home and in the diaspora and as a veritable locus for the initiation of online petition drives to change or influence state policies in the homeland. It is the reinvention, in an electronic form, of the deliberative content of the “village square” in the pre-colonial African social formation where “people from all corners [met] at the Village Square after a hard day's work to …

His Final Homily: Pope John Paul Ii's Death As An Affirmation Of His Life's Message, Joesph M. Valenzano

Joseph M. Valenzano III

Every Sunday morning, a member of the Roman Catholic clergy addresses his flock after a reading from one of the Gospels. These homilies ordinarily last between 10 and 20 minutes and allow the priest an opportunity to interpret the Gospel message from that day's reading, as well as discuss how that message relates to contemporary events and issues. During the final two months of his life, Pope John Paul II provided a longer, more powerful symbolic homily to the world. The message summarized his positions on freedom, suffering, and the dignity of human life.

Molding Messages: Analyzing The Reworking Of ‘Sleeping Beauty’ In Grimm’S Fairy Tale Classics And Dollhouse, Jeana Jorgensen, Brittany Warman

Jeana Jorgensen

The story of “Sleeping Beauty” (ATU 410) is one of the most consistently captivating fairy tales. It tells of a cursed princess dreaming in a tower, waiting patiently for her prince to rescue her. Those who recreate the tale for contemporary audiences spin the story anew, reconstructing again and again what it means both to sleep and to awaken. This chapter analyzes two modern television versions of the tale, one for children and one for adults, comparing their incorporation of feminist messages and parallel ideas about shaping narratives and shaping lives. The children’s cartoon Grimm’s Fairy Tale Classics (also called …

“We Are Not Free”: The Meaning Of In American Indian Resistance To President Johnson's War On Poverty, Casey R. Kelly

Casey R. Kelly

This essay examines how the ideograph was crafted through dialectical struggles between Euro-Americans and American Indians over federal Indian policy between 1964 and 1968. For policymakers, was historically sutured to the belief that assimilation was the only pathway to American Indian liberation. I explore the American Indian youth movement's response to President Johnson's War on Poverty to demonstrate how activists rhetorically realigned in Indian policy with the Great Society's rhetoric of “community empowerment.” I illustrate how American Indians orchestrated counterhegemonic resistance by reframing the “Great Society” as an argument for a “Greater Indian American.” This analysis evinces the rhetorical significance …

Exoticizing Poverty In Bizarre Foods America, Casey R. Kelly

Casey R. Kelly

No abstract provided.

Détournement, Decolonization, And The American Indian Occupation Of Alcatraz Island (1969–1971), Casey R. Kelly

Casey R. Kelly

On November 20, 1969, eighty-nine American Indians calling themselves the “Indians of All Tribes” (IOAT) invaded Alcatraz Island. The group’s founding proclamation was addressed to “the Great White Father and All His People,” and declared “We, the Native Americans, reclaim the land known as Alcatraz Island in the name of all American Indians by right of discovery” (2). Tongue-in-cheek, the IOAT offered to purchase Alcatraz Island for “twenty-four dollars in glass beads and red clothe.” In this essay, I illustrate how the IOAT engaged in a rhetoric of détournement, or a subversive misappropriation of dominant discourse that disassembles and imitates …

Bizarre Foods: White Privilege And The Neocolonial Palate, Casey R. Kelly

Casey R. Kelly

No abstract provided.

Neocolonialism And The Global Prison In National Geographic's Locked Up Abroad, Casey R. Kelly

Casey R. Kelly

This essay examines the reformulation of colonial ideologies in National Geographic Channel's Locked Up Abroad, a documentary program that chronicles the narratives of Westerner travelers incarcerated in foreign nations. An analysis of Locked Up Abroad evinces neocolonialism in contemporary media culture, including: the historic association between dark-skin and savagery, the backwardness of the non-Western world, and the Western imperative to civilize it. The program's documentary techniques and framing devises sustain an Otherizing gaze toward non-Western societies, and its portrayals elide a critical analysis of colonialism in its present forms. I advocate for neocolonial criticism to trace how NatGeo remains haunted …

Shaved Or Saved? Disciplining Women’S Bodies, Casey R. Kelly, Kristen Hoerl

Casey R. Kelly

Proponents of sexual liberation and abstinence-until-marriage advocates appear to be on opposing ends of the sociopolitical spectrum; however, both are invested in the regulation of women’s vaginas. We argue that the rhetoric of both communities produces the same disciplinary configuration for the control of women’s bodies. Both communities instruct women that the appearance of a prepubescent and pure vagina is essential to sexual appeal and self-care. Whether sex positive or sex negative, both communities articulate a model of sexual health that negates women’s status as active, desiring subjects. Ultimately, we argue that public scrutiny of women’s vaginas implicitly and overtly …

Remembering Radical Black Dissent: Traumatic Counter-Memories In Contemporary Documentaries About The Black Power Movement, Kristen Hoerl

Kristen Hoerl

Contemporary rhetoric about race and racism has been shaped, in part, by popular films. Since the late 1980s and 1990s, Hollywood has provided a variety of what Kelly Madison refers to as "anti-racist-white-hero" films.1 Movies including Amistad, Cry Freedom, The Long Walk Home, Mississippi Burning, and Ghosts of Mississippi have routinely positioned white protagonists as civil rights heroes who win justice for the black community by punishing or humiliating white antagonists. Each film frames racial injustice as the consequence of closed-minded individuals, rather than as the outcome of the U.S. economic and political system. More recently, the motion pictures The …

Shaved Or Saved? Disciplining Women’S Bodies, Casey R. Kelly, Kristen Hoerl

Kristen Hoerl

Proponents of sexual liberation and abstinence-until-marriage advocates appear to be on opposing ends of the sociopolitical spectrum; however, both are invested in the regulation of women’s vaginas. We argue that the rhetoric of both communities produces the same disciplinary configuration for the control of women’s bodies. Both communities instruct women that the appearance of a prepubescent and pure vagina is essential to sexual appeal and self-care. Whether sex positive or sex negative, both communities articulate a model of sexual health that negates women’s status as active, desiring subjects. Ultimately, we argue that public scrutiny of women’s vaginas implicitly and overtly …

Monstrous Youth In Suburbia: Disruption And Recovery Of The American Dream, Kristen Hoerl

Kristen Hoerl

Although the American Dream myth idealizes youth who grow up in suburbia as culturetypes of imminent success, the Columbine High School shootings demonstrated that all not suburban youth will grow up to succeed. The extensive news media coverage of the tragedy reflects broader anxieties about the declining status of the suburbs in American society. In the wake of the shootings, the news media created a myth of monstrous youth in suburbia that functioned to repair suburbanites’ waning faith in the myth of the American Dream.

Turning Points In Relationships With Disliked Co-Workers, Jon A. Hess, Becky Lynn Omdahl, Janie M. Harden Fritz

Jonathan A. Hess

Although most people begin their employment with the education and on-the-job training to handle the tasks their jobs entail, few long-term employees boast that they feel competent in dealing with all the difficult people they encounter in the workplace. Unpleasant coworkers range from annoying nuisances to major sources of job frustration and career roadblocks. Given that periodic preoccupation with unlovable coworkers is nearly a universal feature of organizational life, it is not surprising that such relationships are given due attention in the media and popular press (e.g., Bramson, 1989; Topchik, 2000). What is surprising is how little scholarly attention has …

Managed Convictions: Debate And The Limits Of Electoral Politics, Ronald Walter Greene, Darrin Hicks

Ronald Walter Greene

In response to Kathleen Hall Jamieson’s proposed agenda for future Presidential debate research, we recall the troubled relation between debate and conviction, which has fueled disciplinary and public controversy throughout the last century. Following a brief genealogy of three such controversies, we describe four models of debate as a cultural technology for managing the economy of moral conviction: debate as critical deliberation, debate as civic virtue, debate as social justice, and debate as game. We claim that reading Jamieson’s proposal in light of these technologies reveals a potentially disturbing fault line: if we fail to distance the aims and methods …

Cold War Ii: Those Evil Russkie He-Men Are Making Us Frack Ourselves,, Michael I. Niman Ph.D.

Michael I Niman Ph.D.

You have to admit, the timing is convenient, both for us handsome free Americans and for the cursed Russians. If you’re Russian, forget about the regular jailing of protesters and musicians, your he-man government and its bizarre hatred of gay folks, the degradation of your environment and rape of your natural resources, and the rise of a billionaire mafioso class. You now have rude hubristic Americans to monopolize your hate and fear. Ditto for Americans. Forget every issue we were fretting about the day before masked, Russian-speaking troops swarmed over the border and “did not invade” Crimea, annexing it and …

Struggle For The Commons: Communicative Labor, Control Economics, And The Rhetorical Marketplace, Ronald Walter Greene, Sara Holiday Nelson

Ronald Walter Greene

No abstract provided.

Aune's Leadership: Hegemony And The Rhetorical Perspective On Argumentation, Ronald Walter Greene, Alexander Hiland

Ronald Walter Greene

No abstract provided.

Industrial Apocalyptic: Neoliberalism, Coal, And The Burlesque Frame, Jennifer Peeples, Pete Bsumek, Steve Schwarze, Jen Schneider

Jen Schneider

Rhetorical scholarship and cultural commentary have demonstrated that environmentalist voices are consistently associated with apocalyptic rhetoric. However, this association deflects attention from the apocalyptic rhetoric that comes from industry and countermovements to environmentalism. This essay seeks to remedy that oversight by proposing the concept of "industrial apocalyptic" as a significant rhetorical form in environmental controversy. Based on analysis of the rhetoric of the U.S. coal industry, we find that these industrial apocalyptic narratives rely on a burlesque frame to disrupt the categories of establishment and outsider and thus thwart environmental regulation. Ultimately, we argue that industrial apocalyptic co-opts environmentalist appeals …

Corporate Ventriloquism: Corporate Advocacy, The Coal Industry, And The Appropriation Of Voice, Peter K. Bsumek, Jen Schneider, Steve Schwarze, Jennifer Peeples

Jen Schneider

In the second decade of the 21st century, the U.S. coal industry is facing unprecedented challenges. While for many years coal provided nearly half of the U.S. electricity, in the spring of 2012 that share dropped to below 40% and is expected to continue falling (Energy Information Administration, 2012).¹ Coal production is increasing not in Appalachia, the primary U.S. source for coal historically, but in Wyoming's Powder River Basin (Goodell, 2006). Market competition from the natural gas industry combined with well organized climate and anti-nountaintop removal (MTR) campagins have significantly curtailed the production of new coal-fired power plants in …

From Freedom Rides To Justice Rides: Analogizing Social Movement Rhetoric In A Post-Identity America., Michelle Kearl

Michelle Kelsey Kearl

This presentation explores the rhetorical strategies, specifically the use of analogy, used in the rhetoric of the Created Equal organization. Created Equal, an anti-abortion activist organization, argues that it is a social movement in the vein of the Civil Rights Movement. The rhetoric employed by the organization is remarkable in its pedestrian attempt to veil its religious ideology, as well as its attempt to closely associate itself with the traditional Civil Rights agenda. Specifically, the tactics, images, and promotional material used and produced by the organization both explicitly and implicitly equivocate their commitments to stopping abortion to the demands of …

The Politics Media Equation:Exposing Two Faces Of Old Nexus Through Study Of General Elections,Wikileaks And Radia Tapes, Ratnesh Dwivedi Mr

Ratnesh Dwivedi

The important identity of a responsible media is playing an unbiased role in reporting a matter without giving unnecessary hype to attract the attention of the gullible public with the object of making money and money only.After reporting properly the media can educate the public to form their own opinion in the matters of public interest. Throughout the centuries, the world has never existed without information and communication, hence the inexhaustible essence of mass media. The government has the power to either make or reject whatever that will exist within its environment. It also determines how free the mass media …

Recapturing Our Minds, Reclaiming Higher Learning: A Review Of R. P. Keeling’S And R. H. Hersh’S “We’Re Losing Our Minds: Rethinking American Higher Education”, Brandon Hensley

Brandon O. Hensley

Situating their conversation within a growing weltanschauung that the world is becoming “flat" and intellectual capital is integral to a changing globalized marketplace with emerging superpowers, Keeling and Hersh (2012) lay forth a bold claim in We’re Losing Our Minds: undergraduate education in the U.S. is sapping minds because learning is no longer the primary focus or essence of colleges and universities. “Intoxicated by magazine and college guide rankings, most colleges and universities have lost track of learning as the only educational outcome that really matters” (p. 13). The authors advance that this systemic crisis, though well documented (even before …

Webs Of Faith As A Source Of Reasonable Disagreement, Gregory Brazeal

Gregory Brazeal

Contemporary political theorists and philosophers of epistemology and religion have often drawn attention to the problem of reasonable disagreement. The idea that deliberators may reasonably persist in a disagreement even under ideal deliberative conditions and even over the long term poses a challenge to the common assumption that rationality should lead to consensus. This essay proposes a previously unrecognized source of reasonable disagreement, based on the notion that an individual's beliefs are rationally related to one another in a fabric of sentences or web of beliefs. The essay argues that an individual's beliefs may not form a single, seamless web, …

Rhetorical Materialism: The Cognitive Division Of Labor And The Social Dimensions Of Argument, Ronald Walter Greene, Heather Ashley Hayes

Ronald Walter Greene

No abstract provided.

Lessons From The Ymca: The Material Rhetoric Of Criticism, Rhetorical Interpretation, And Pastoral Power, Ronald Walter Greene

Ronald Walter Greene

No abstract provided.

Wiki Leaks Revelations In Global Context—The War Between ‘Right To Publish’ And ‘Ethical Code Of Conduct, Ratnesh Dwivedi Mr

Ratnesh Dwivedi

WikiLeaks is an international non-profit organisation that publishes submissions of private, secret, and classified media from anonymous news sources, news leaks, and whistleblowers. Its website, launched in 2006 under The Sunshine Press organisation claimed a database of more than 1.2 million documents within a year of its launch. WikiLeaks describes its founders as a mix of Chinese dissidents, journalists, mathematicians, and start-up company technologists from the United States, Taiwan, Europe, Australia, and South Africa. Julian Assange, an Australian Internet activist, is generally described as its director. The site was originally launched as a user-editable wiki, but has progressively moved towards …

A Critical Study Of Organizational Communication And Organizational Communication Theories- A Historical Perspective, Ratnesh Dwivedi Mr

Ratnesh Dwivedi

Organizational Communication is the study that looks at human communication within and outside the organization. Conrad and Poole (1998) break the definition of organizational communication in parts, by first defining communication and then analyses the organization. These researchers define communication as “a process through which people, acting together, create, sustain, and manage meanings through the use of verbal and nonverbal signs and symbols within a particular context” (Conrad and Poole, 1998, p. 5). In the context of this book, Kenyans and their leaders are communicating their views and final decision through the ballot box to elect their third president, during …