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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Comedy In Unfunny Times: News Parody And Carnival After 9/11, Paul Achter
Comedy In Unfunny Times: News Parody And Carnival After 9/11, Paul Achter
Rhetoric and Communication Studies Faculty Publications
Comedy has a special role in helping societies manage crisis moments, and the U.S. media paid considerable attention to the proper role of comedy in public culture after the 9/11 tragedies. As has been well documented, many popular U.S. comic voices were paralyzed in trying to respond to 9/11 or disciplined by audiences when they did. Starting with these obstacles in mind, this essay analyzes early comic responses to 9/11, and particularly those of the print and online news parody The Onion, as an example of how “fake” news discourse could surmount the rhetorical chill that fell over public …
Crisis Rhetoric : A Theory Of Communication In Times Of Crisis, Eric D. Loepp
Crisis Rhetoric : A Theory Of Communication In Times Of Crisis, Eric D. Loepp
Honors Theses
We conducted an experiment to assess the effect of presidential rhetoric in a time of crisis. Our study was based in part on terror management theory, which posits that subtle reminders of death (mortality salience) lead to increased support of leaders an authority figures. Subjects were randomly placed in either a mortality salient condition or control condition. We also composed two speeches - one charismatic and one non-charismatic - and subjects were randomly assigned to hear one of the two. Based on elements of terror management theory, we hypothesized that in a time of crisis the charismatic speech would be …