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Full-Text Articles in Speech and Rhetorical Studies

Owning A Virus: The Rhetoric Of Scientific Discovery Accounts, Carol Reeves Aug 2015

Owning A Virus: The Rhetoric Of Scientific Discovery Accounts, Carol Reeves

Carol Reeves

No Abstract Available


"I Knew There Was Something Wrong With That Paper": Scientific Rhetorical Styles And Scientific Misunderstandings, Carol Reeves Aug 2015

"I Knew There Was Something Wrong With That Paper": Scientific Rhetorical Styles And Scientific Misunderstandings, Carol Reeves

Carol Reeves

This selection unpacks scientific prose and claim substantiation for Nobel Prize winner, Stan Prusiner, in the transmissible spongiform encephlopathies field (i.e., mad cow disease). Applying linguistic strategies such as M. A. K. Halliday's "favorite clause type," the author examines argumentative strategies in dense scientific prose both in bold and cautious rhetorical styles and invented lexical changes in new scientific development.


Visual Rhetoric And The Promotion Of Scientific Ideas: The Strange Case Of The Prion, Carol Reeves Aug 2015

Visual Rhetoric And The Promotion Of Scientific Ideas: The Strange Case Of The Prion, Carol Reeves

Carol Reeves

In the field that investigates infectious brain diseases such as mad cow disease, the verbal and visual packaging of scientific visuals associated with identifying the agent, prion, its processes, and structure served the community ritual of establishing belief in a highly unorthodox phenomenon. Visual promotion fed into cultural expectations of single agents and simple processes, even though the actual agency and disease process have proven highly complex and perhaps unknowable.


An Orthodox Heresy: Scientific Rhetoric And The Science Of Prions., Carol Reeves Aug 2015

An Orthodox Heresy: Scientific Rhetoric And The Science Of Prions., Carol Reeves

Carol Reeves

A significant theoretical shift in the research community examining a class of terminal, infectious neurological disorders that includes Mad Cow Disease, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, and Kuru was assisted by rhetorical production. The local rhetoric of one laboratory, that of Professor Stanley B. Prusiner, involved first situating an heretical hypothesis within the framework of the orthodox narrative and then audaciously promoting that heresy. Another aspect of rhetorical production in this case involved situating a new language associated with the heretical hypothesis. To promote their new lexicon, the Prusiner team evoked orthodox values of consistency, efficiency, and collective ratification. Eventually, what was once …


Rhetoric And The Aids Virus Hunt, Carol Reeves Aug 2015

Rhetoric And The Aids Virus Hunt, Carol Reeves

Carol Reeves

By comparing the papers produced by the laboratory teams of Robert Gallo and Jean Luc Montagnier during the AIDS virus hunt, we have an opportunity to discern the fine line between a bold, explicit rhetoric that may convince as well as offend and a bald, reserved rhetoric that may actually conceal important implications. Going too far in either direction may create misunderstandings and ethical dilemmas as will be demonstrated in a textual analysis deepened by an exploration of historical context and interviews with key participants. Since a public health crisis calls upon communication that thwarts misunderstandings, scientists should understand the …


Establishing The Phenomenon: The Rhetoric Of Early Research Reports On Aids, Carol Reeves Aug 2015

Establishing The Phenomenon: The Rhetoric Of Early Research Reports On Aids, Carol Reeves

Carol Reeves

In the first three medical reports on AIDS which were published in 1981 in the New England Journal of Medicine, the writers' primary rhetorical agenda was to argue that a new medical discovery had been made. A secondary agenda was to offer etiological explanations for the new problem. To establish the new disease entity as deserving serious attention, the writers built a sense of mystery by confronting established medical knowledge about immunodeficiency and emphasizing the inability of modern medicine to diagnose and treat the problem. When they explained the phenomenon in etiological terms, rather than confronting the disciplinary matrix, the …


Exploring The Invocation Of Emotion In Presidential Speeches, Cengiz Erisen, José D. Villalobos Nov 2014

Exploring The Invocation Of Emotion In Presidential Speeches, Cengiz Erisen, José D. Villalobos

José D. Villalobos

Scholars have long explored why presidential rhetoric is important and how it matters for public leadership and policy-making. However, relatively few works have considered the role that emotion plays in leadership communication and no research has conducted a thorough examination of the various types of emotions invoked in presidential rhetoric, their frequency, or how they have shaped presidential discourse over time. In this study, presidential speeches across 13 administrations (1933–2011) are examined to provide a first assessment of the extent to which US presidents have invoked fear, anger, and hope across policy domains and key types of speeches.


Agency Input As A Policy Making Tool: Analyzing The Influence Of Agency Input On Presidential Policy Success In Congress, José Villalobos Aug 2013

Agency Input As A Policy Making Tool: Analyzing The Influence Of Agency Input On Presidential Policy Success In Congress, José Villalobos

José D. Villalobos

This study posits a theoretical framework for understanding the role and value of agency input in presidential legislative policy making. I assert that by employing agency input for policy development, presidents instill their proposals with a degree of bureaucratic objectivity, expertise, process transparency, and agency support, which aids their legislative passage while lowering the extent of changes made to policy substance in the process. To test my hypotheses, I conduct binary and ordered logistic regression analyses using pooled cross-sectional data across twelve administrations from 1949-2010. I find that agency input serves as a key component for increased presidential legislative success.


Manager-In-Chief: Applying Public Management Theory To Examine White House Chief Of Staff Performance, David B. Cohen, Justin S. Vaughn, José D. Villalobos Nov 2012

Manager-In-Chief: Applying Public Management Theory To Examine White House Chief Of Staff Performance, David B. Cohen, Justin S. Vaughn, José D. Villalobos

José D. Villalobos

In an effort to examine the causal determinants of performance dynamics for the administrative presidency, we apply empirical public management theory to White House administration to explain managerial performance. Utilizing original survey data that measures the perceptions of former officials from the Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and Clinton administrations, we conduct quantitative analyses to determine the extent to which a chief of staff’s background, relationship with the president, and internal as well as external management approaches shape overall perceptions of White House administrative efforts. We find that managerial dimensions matter considerably when explaining the dynamics of White House organizational performance.


Politics Or Policy? How Rhetoric Matters To Presidential Leadership Of Congress, José Villalobos, Justin Vaughn, Julia Azari Aug 2012

Politics Or Policy? How Rhetoric Matters To Presidential Leadership Of Congress, José Villalobos, Justin Vaughn, Julia Azari

José D. Villalobos

In this study, we examine the linkage between presidential policy proposal messages and legislative success. Employing a dataset on presidential legislative proposals that covers the years 1949-2010, we find that politics matters less than policy. Purely political messages that reference the electoral logic of mandates or appeal to a sense of bipartisanship appear to have no impact on presidential legislative success, nor does policy signaling, though highlighting the role of agency-based policy experts in crafting legislation does. From these results, we conclude that although the way presidents communicate their messages to Congress represents an important component of presidential-legislative relations, it …


Agenda Setting From The Oval Office: An Experimental Examination Of Presidential Influence Over The Public Agenda, José D. Villalobos, Cigdem V. Sirin Jan 2012

Agenda Setting From The Oval Office: An Experimental Examination Of Presidential Influence Over The Public Agenda, José D. Villalobos, Cigdem V. Sirin

José D. Villalobos

This study employs an experimental approach to isolate and directly test the extent to which presidents can affect public perceptions of issue importance and support for policy action, taking into consideration key factors that condition such effects. Our findings provide new empirical evidence that presidents can, in fact, positively influence public opinion through agenda setting, particularly by increasing the perceptual importance of low salience foreign policy issues. However, the results also indicate that such positive effects do not translate into public support for policy action; instead, presidential appeals actually decrease support. Last, our study offers new evidence that employing bipartisan …


Staff Of The People? Assessing Progress In Descriptive Representation Under The Obama Administration, José D. Villalobos Nov 2011

Staff Of The People? Assessing Progress In Descriptive Representation Under The Obama Administration, José D. Villalobos

José D. Villalobos

Over the past few decades, presidents have made some increasingly noticeable efforts to fill their administrations with a higher number of minorities. Though not yet fully representative of the general public, such advances in descriptive representation are a sign of progressive change occurring within the executive branch, with positive potential implications for the state of representative democracy and public policy. In this article, I survey the current state of descriptive representation under the Obama presidency and the extent to which the president’s policy agenda has substantively addressed the needs of historically underrepresented groups. Descriptively, I find that President Barack Obama …


Where Does The Buck Stop? Applying Attribution Theory To Examine Public Appraisals Of The President, Cigdem V. Sirin, José D. Villalobos May 2011

Where Does The Buck Stop? Applying Attribution Theory To Examine Public Appraisals Of The President, Cigdem V. Sirin, José D. Villalobos

José D. Villalobos

This study applies attribution theory to examine public appraisals of the president. To date, most political science research on attribution theory has focused on domestic policy and no work has considered both domestic and foreign policy domains in tandem. To fill this gap, we formulate and experimentally test a series of hypotheses regarding the level of responsibility and credit/blame that individuals attribute to the president in both policy domains across varying policy conditions. We also consider how party compatibility affects people’s attribution judgments. Our findings provide a new contribution to the literature on political attributions, executive accountability, and public perceptions …


Where Does The Buck Stop? Applying Attribution Theory To Examine Public Appraisals Of The President, Cigdem V. Sirin, José D. Villalobos May 2011

Where Does The Buck Stop? Applying Attribution Theory To Examine Public Appraisals Of The President, Cigdem V. Sirin, José D. Villalobos

Cigdem V. Sirin

This study applies attribution theory to examine public appraisals of the president. To date, most political science research on attribution theory has focused on domestic policy and no work has considered both domestic and foreign policy domains in tandem. To fill this gap, we formulate and experimentally test a series of hypotheses regarding the level of responsibility and credit/blame that individuals attribute to the president in both policy domains across varying policy conditions. We also consider how party compatibility affects people’s attribution judgments. Our findings provide a new contribution to the literature on political attributions, executive accountability, and public perceptions …


Flag Waving As Visual Argument: 2006 Immigration Demonstrations And Cultural Citizenship, Richard D. Pineda Jan 2007

Flag Waving As Visual Argument: 2006 Immigration Demonstrations And Cultural Citizenship, Richard D. Pineda

Richard D. Pineda

During the 2006 immigration rallies and demonstrations, hundreds of thousands of immigrants and their supporters tumed out to protest proposed immigration legislation. Flag waving was a key element of these demonstrations, in which participants employed both the U.S. flag and other national flags, most prominently Mexican flags. In this essay, we examine how flag waving functions as a visual argument that offers possibilities for establishing cultural and national citizenship and creating a visual form of refutation. Specifically, we argue that anti-immigration advocates see foreign flags as visual ideographs that represent recent immigrants' failure to assimilate, immigrants' deviant cultural practices, and …


Cultura Cyber: Commodifying Latina/O Nationalism And Rhetoric On The Internet, Richard D. Pineda Jan 2005

Cultura Cyber: Commodifying Latina/O Nationalism And Rhetoric On The Internet, Richard D. Pineda

Richard D. Pineda

No abstract provided.