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A Rhetorical Analysis Of Messages To America By Osama Bin Laden, Meredith Taylor Jun 2013

A Rhetorical Analysis Of Messages To America By Osama Bin Laden, Meredith Taylor

Honors Projects

The purpose of this paper is to analyze bin Laden’s argumentation and rhetorical techniques in three speeches addressed to the American population. Persuasive techniques that were used will be described as well as the historical context surrounding the timing of each speech’s release. These speeches will be examined using Campbell and Burkholder’s “Three Stages of Rhetorical Criticism” as outlined in the second edition of Critiques of Contemporary Rhetoric.


The Politicization Of Popular Culture: A Case Study In Reagan And Star Wars, Nathan A. Wingert Jan 2013

The Politicization Of Popular Culture: A Case Study In Reagan And Star Wars, Nathan A. Wingert

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

This project examined the use of Ronald Reagan’s rhetoric, specifically the “Star Wars,” “Zero Option” and “Evil Empire” speeches. It answers the question: Why do we know SDI as Star Wars? It also The rationale for the study came from myriad sources, including the historical and political undertones of the Star Wars films and rhetorical criticism of other Reagan speeches. G. Thomas Goodnight’s analysis linked all three speeches together as a reformulation of wartime rhetoric, so that was the rationale for analyzing three speeches. After performing a rhetorical criticism using Burkean identification as the lens, there are several results: Reagan …