Rhetoric Commons^™

The Storytelling Of Public Spaces: Rhetoric, Community, And Social Change, Lindsay Kathryn Hamilton

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This Dissertation examines how public art, broadly defined, contributes to the dialogue of public places. It assumes that public places are filled with rhetoric--from commercial, governmental, private, and other sources. This rhetoric is mainly concerned with the public as audience, receivers of information who are then expected to act in certain ways - following the directions of street signs or entering shops when a window display attracts their attention, for example. Public art, particularly community-based art, can be used to make public places more democratic, providing platforms for people and communities to talk back and reassert their identities. The case …

Translingual Practice & Identity Performance: A Study Of Mongolian Youth On Facebook, Sara Bartlett Large

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This study explores the translingual practices and identity performances of five participants on the social networking site, Facebook. The participants in this study are five young adults from Mongolia who participated in the U.S. State Department sponsored English Access Microscholarship program, an intensive English language program for disadvantaged youth in developing countries, from 2009 - 2011. Using a qualitative methodology based on constructivist grounded theory and relying on interviews, questionnaires, and observations of the participants' Facebook pages, this study considers the participants' use of translingual practices to build and maintain capital - linguistic, cultural, and social - as they develop …

Video Composition: Tracing Multimodal Assemblages, Zachary Aaron Warzecka

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Video Composition: Tracing Multimodal Assemblages questions and complicates current approaches to integrating digital videography, and new media at large, within academic environments. Given the field of Rhetoric and Writing Studies' persistent desire, if not struggle, to take on alternative modes of composing, the project provides an exploration of the distinct affordances, composing practices and rhetorical principles of digital videography. In particular, the Dissertation traces how videographic composing processes are taught, taken up, and even paved over within two distinct first year-writing classrooms.

In conducting grounded case studies of multimodal classrooms, the Dissertation draws disciplinary and pedagogical commonplaces into conversation with …

Public Subjects: Wayne State, Institutional Texts, And Public Rhetoric, Michael Mcginnis

Wayne State University Dissertations

Applying a public sphere approach to Wayne State, I argue that the university has defined itself as a public subject within public debates about race, educational access, and economic development in the city of Detroit, even when such commitments to its local urban public sphere have existed uneasily alongside its ambition to function as a research university with a primary research mission within a wider public sphere of peer research universities. I focus on Wayne State University’s urban mission and open for consideration the ways the university has both expanded and contracted its relationships to its local and academic public …

Interactive Security: The Rhetorical Constitution Of Algorithmic Citizenship In War On Terror Discourse, Avery Henry

Wayne State University Dissertations

This dissertation traces algorithmic citizenship as it is constituted through war on terror discourse. Utilizing Ron Greene’s rhetorical materialism, this project analyzes corporate discourse along with presidential address and policy to map how they interpellate citizens’ subjectivity. Specifically, the dissertation follows George Bush’s presidential rhetoric as he defines the war on terror and invites the public to participate. Then the dissertation examines how the political discourse associated with government 2.0 is also an economic discourse that works to articulate citizenship alongside consumerism. The next chapter follows the presidential rhetoric of Barack Obama as he intensifies the surveillance and war fighting …

The Role Of Enculturation In Student Writing-Related Beliefs, Values, And The Potential For Transfer, Joseph Paszek

Wayne State University Dissertations

This qualitative research project examines the relationship between students’ perception of their disciplinary identities, epistemologies, and writing and learning to write in an Intermediate Composition course. More specifically, this study investigates the impact of these “enculturative influences” on students’ perception of the writing classroom, uptake of writing studies skills and strategies, and eventual transfer of these skills and strategies to future writing contexts.

Politics And Pedagogy: Recuperating Rhetoric And Composition's Native Ethical Tradition, Derek Risse

Wayne State University Dissertations

Over the past decade, scholars in Rhetoric and Composition have shown renewed interest in the topic of ethics, prompting what some have described as an ethical turn in the discipline. Spurred by a deep-seated concern for the legacies of humanism, scholars have turned increasingly to extra-disciplinary referents in continental philosophy. This dissertation works to recuperate the discipline’s native ethical tradition via a critical rereading of the often-implicit treatment of ethics in Composition scholarship of the 1980s and 1990s. Returning to this “critical” moment and emphasizing the rich thinking around the question of ethics provides fuller and more disciplinary-specific resources for …

Michael Moore And The Rhetoric Of Documentary Ed. By Thomas W. Benson And Brian J. Snee (Review), Teresa Bergman

College of the Pacific Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

Emerging Genres Of Online Technical Communciation, Luke Anthony Thominet

Wayne State University Dissertations

Emerging Genres of Online Technical Communication is a study of how the proliferation of non-professional participation has the potential to significantly change the shape of technical communication. More specifically, I use a genre analysis methodology to investigate three forms of user-generated content: crowdsourced documentation wikis, video games user reviews, and video game open development. In the first study, I analyze five crowdsourced documentation wikis and find systemic inconsistency in the workflow and content quality of the documentation. Subsequently, I argue that practitioners should use minimalist documentation theory to design more effective user-centered author support for the wikis. My second chapter …

Memes, Args And Viral Videos: Spreadable Media, Participatory Culture, And Composition Pedagogy, Mary Karcher

Wayne State University Dissertations

This project argues that spreadable media texts motivate people to engage in compositional activities advocated in First Year Composition (FYC). Drawing on Henry Jenkins’ assertion that participatory culture offers potential for learning, I use his list of eleven participatory culture skills that he believed necessary for all students. After showing how well the Participatory Culture Abilities (PCAs) align with the WPA Outcomes Statement (WPA OS), I put forth the WPA OS and the PCAs combined as a lens through which to view three spreadable media case studies: Spreadable Media Events, Fan Labor, and Alternate Reality Games. Based on my findings, …

The Affective Presidency, John Patrick Koch

Wayne State University Dissertations

This dissertation explores the relationship between affect, political emotions, and presidential rhetoric. In examining the political philosophy and presidency of Woodrow Wilson, this dissertation explores how presidential rhetoric captures, channels, and/or directs the passions of the people. Drawing on research by Sarah Ahmed and Brian Masummi, this dissertation argues that presidential rhetoric intervenes into the affective process by directing the passions of citizens towards promises of happiness and investment in presidential power. Two case studies, one focusing on Wilson’s tour in support of the League of Nations and the other on presidential museums, highlight the affective function of presidential rhetoric. …

Clusivity In Presidential Discourse: A Rhetorical Discourse Analysis Of State-Of-The-Nation Addresses In Ghana And The United States, Stephen K. Dadugblor

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

This thesis examines the ways in which rhetors in presidential discourse simultaneously associate with and dissociate from their audiences in an attempt to consolidate power while subtly masking their actions. Drawing on comparative rhetoric and Andrus’ (2013) Rhetorical Discourse Analysis (RDA) that combines rhetoric and (critical) discourse analysis, I analyze the expressive values of selected lexical items, and the inclusive and exclusive uses of “we” in selected State of the Nation/Union Addresses in Ghana and the United States. I argue that presidents’ unique position during these speeches as both heads of nations and heads of their political parties presents a …

Attitudes Toward Execution: The Tragic And Grotesque Framing Of Capital Punishment In The News, Katherine Shuy

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This essay undertakes a detailed frame analysis of print and electronic media coverage of three nationally publicized death penalty cases between the years of 2014 and 2015. Drawing specifically from the work of Kenneth Burke (1984), this research argues that tragically framed death penalty cases reify victim/perpetrator discourses and cause the actual act of execution to be a fitting resolution within a narrative. Burke’s (1984) grotesque-mystical frame and Bakhtin’s (1984) theory of the grotesque body are used to argue that the media’s portrayal of botched executions help highlight the incongruities with the system of capital punishment, and cause audiences to …

Shorts

Harlot: A Revealing Look at the Arts of Persuasion

This is the entirety of the WordPress blog that accompanied Harlot: A Revealing Look at the Arts of Persuasion. SHORTS was a blog that began July 7, 2007 and ended December 21, 2015.

The Rhetoric Of Law And The Epistle To The Hebrews, Theodore A. Holt Iv

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Epistle to the Hebrews demonstrates a complex of what scholars label technical legal terms. Enlisting a series of word studies, this thesis attempts to uncover where the author learned the terminology in order to understand more about the anonymous author and the theology of the Epistle to the Hebrews. This thesis examines terms in Heb 2:2-4; 6:13-18; 7:11-19; 8:13; 9:15-18; 10:9.

Knowing Your Place: The Impact Of Public Sphere Rhetoric On Face-To-Face Communities, And The Rhetorics That Support Racial Equality, Laura Hanson Ells

Master’s Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

#Networkedglobe: Making The Connection Between Social Media And Intercultural Technical Communication, Laura Anne Ewing

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Preparing students of technical communication in the twenty-first century means training them to rhetorically utilize a wide variety of online tools. Technical communicators are now required to employ social media applications on a daily basis to communicate with clients, consumers, colleagues, and other organizations. These online modes have also opened the door to global communication wider and continue to present opportunities and challenges to technical communicators worldwide. Using Japan as a model, this dissertation sought to demonstrate a rhetorical exigency for teaching intercultural social media communication strategies to future technical communicators in the United States. The goal of this dissertation …

A More Perfect European Union?: The Transnational Networks Of The European Union’S Embassy Open House In Washington, D.C., Timothy Barney

Rhetoric and Communication Studies Faculty Publications

Annually, the Delegation of the European Union (EU) in Washington, D.C., holds an embassy open house day for its 27 member nations to celebrate European culture and educate tourists on the functions of EU politics and international relations. Amidst an ongoing debt crisis and a continuing exploration of its identity as a supranational entity, “Embassy Day” affords an opportunity to see the EU as a spatial network uneasily caught in the tensions between the often nostalgic nationalism of its constituent countries and the future-oriented technocratic transnationalism of its composite alliance. By analyzing the cultural artifacts of Embassy Day from its …

"Carried Away": Love, Bly, And Secrecy In Henry James' The Turn Of The Screw 2015, Natalie G. El-Eid

Master's Theses

The function of the prologue in Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw is decidedly ambiguous, as the characters in the prologue, much like the uncle of the main text, are seemingly never seen again. For this reason, the purpose of this prologue is much debated.1 As Rolf Lundén states in his article “‘Not in any literal, vulgar way’: The Encoded Love Story of Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw,” “The openness of Henry James' The Turn of the Screw has invited more analytical attempts, and more critical controversy, than most literary texts” (30). Lundén summarizes four schools of …

On Rage, Shame, "Realness," And Accountability To Survivors, Kathleen Ann Livingston

Harlot: A Revealing Look at the Arts of Persuasion

This essay examines the rhetorical moves made on all sides of the recent conversation on trigger warnings. Calling for accountability to survivors, it positions trigger warnings as one practice of consent. Though in practice trigger warnings bring up issues of censorship, they can be understood as a way for survivors to take their power back by telling a bit of their trauma narrative and requesting accommodations and accountability. Unpacking the histories and the language of trigger warnings reveals how our culture thinks of survivors and how far anti-violence movements have to go.