Speech and Rhetorical Studies Commons^™

Interviewing To Understand Strengths, Michael R. Hass

Education Faculty Articles and Research

Interviewing clients about their strengths is an important part of developing a complete understanding of their lives and has several advantages over simply focusing on problems and pathology. Prerequisites for skillfully interviewing for strengths include the communication skills that emerge from a stance of not knowing, developing a vocabulary of strengths that allows practitioners to identify and name them, and having a “ear for strengths.” Building on this, Saleebey (2008) offers a framework of eight types of questions that allow us to explore strengths in depth with clients.

Toward A Theology Of Transformation, Hannah Kathleen Griggs

Eddie Mabry Diversity Award

Black liberation theologians come to terms with white supremacy by collectively remembering the story of the Exodus and Jesus' crucifixion--affirming God's preference for freedom and in-the-world salvation. The particular history of white American Christianity requires a different story to provide the foundation for our social memory. As white American Christians, we have certain blind spots—blind spots created by historical and social privileges that have given white people unequal access to power and resources. The story of Zacchaeus has the potential to help reframe white Christianity’s conception of race relations in the United States, shifting from a reconciliation paradigm to a …

Girl Of Color-Power: Resisting The Neoliberal Girl Power Agent, Raisa Fernanda Alvarado

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Girl power is a complex and multi-dimensional phrase. It is a term that celebrates the positive development of girls' self-esteem, while simultaneously recognizing the shifting social positioning of girlhood in the late twentieth century. It is a call to re-write girls' passivity but simultaneously a discourse that encourages consumerism via entertainment, artifacts, and merchandise. A social movement, a catch phrase, a motto: girl power is a representative caricature of evolving conceptualizations of girlhood. This dissertation is critical of the homogeneity implicit in girl power as its hailing disproportionately centers white, middle and upper class girls. As such, this project examines …

The Phenomenon Of Rome: On Roads, Refugees, And Teilhard De Chardin, Jon Radwan

CHDCM Publications

Teilhard de Chardin’s understanding of creation as an evolutionary process is used as a lens for studying Roman roads and refugees. A shorter version of this essay was published in Seton Hall University 2018 Core Trip, pages 28-33. This draft has been submitted for potential publication in Writing Rome: A Spiritual Journey, Kelly Shea ed.

Ua37/42 Faculty Personal Papers Nina Hammer, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Personal papers of Nina Hammer, Bowling Green Business University Registrar 1938-1963; WKU Registrar 1963-1969.

Ua1c6/1 Demonstration / Protest Photos, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Images of student / faculty demonstrations and protests of various types.

My Experience In Public Speech, Camillia Mbo Ngubani

A with Honors Projects

This essay is a reflection on the student's experiences giving a speech as a nonnative English speaker in a communications class at Parkland College.

The Potential Electoral Influence Of Internet Memes, Sierra K. Hatfield

Oswald Research and Creativity Competition

The rising popularity of social media has affected the communication methods of political candidates within the United States. Given the online presence of candidates in recent years, this paper argues that it’s time to consider internet memes – one of the many facets most commonly found on social media – as political rhetoric. This paper seeks to discern which components of an internet meme are most effective in persuading a young voter, using a visually rhetorical approach to understand which characteristics make it most effective. The study also seeks to find which demographics are most likely to be influenced, using …

Budweiser In The 2017 Super Bowl: Dialectic Values Advocacy And The Rhetorical Stakeholder, Benjamin P. Windholz

Theses and Dissertations--Communication

Organizational-public relations discourse is changing given the advent of social media, and corporate statements are evaluated under different criteria in the digital age. Grounding Budweiser’s response to controversy over their 2017 Super Bowl advertisement in terms of consumer expectations for corporate social responsibility provides a new perspective for approaching Bostdorff and Vibbert’s (1994) conceptualization of values advocacy. This study recognizes the power of the rhetorical stakeholder, a discursively created public, and demands re-evaluation of the values common to society from a co-creational OPR perspective. Conceptualizing dialectic values advocacy outlines the changing values among contemporary, common stakeholders as well as the …

Presidential Campaign Talk: Question-Answering In ‘Neutral Informational Interviews’, Angela Cora Garcia

Natural & Applied Sciences Faculty Publications

This article is a dual-case analysis of presidential campaign interviews conducted with former President George HW Bush when he was campaigning for the Republican presidential nomination in 1980, and former President William J. Clinton when he was campaigning for the presidency in 1991. Both interviews were conducted at high schools in New Hampshire and are publicly available on the C-SPAN website. The purpose of this analysis is to investigate how the success or failure of political campaigns may be tied to candidates’ interactional competence and pragmatic skills. This will be done through an examination of the strengths and weaknesses of …

Talking Sports: Rhetorical Benefits Of Blogging Sports Journalism, Lucas Green

Online Theses and Dissertations

The introduction of new publishing platforms like blogs into the world of sports journalism has forced journalists to modify their technique and approach to writing. This paper addresses that shift through examination of rhetorical theory, in-depth first-person research, and a culmination of rhetorical advantages for digitally publishing sports journalists. In the first section of this thesis, the author establishes the rhetorical act of blogging through the theoretical lenses of Mikhail Bakhtin and Mary Hocks while analyzing the sports blog, SB Nation. Then, the author conducts survey-driven research with actual blogging sports journalists to understand their opinions and viewpoints about blogging. …

Manipulating Diversity: A Rhetorical Analysis Of Annalise Keating’S Intersectional Portrayal Of Race And Sexuality On The Primetime Television Show How To Get Away With Murder, Melany Le

Senior Independent Study Theses

The purpose of this study was to examine the intersectional portrayal of the character Annalise Keating as a black queer woman, navigating complex interracial relationships and highly institutionalized environments of legal and higher education systems throughout the first two seasons of How to Get Away with Murder. Utilizing ideological criticism, this research found that despite her marginalized identities, Keating carefully constructs her image to resemble a white, heterosexual woman in order to alleviate, or completely avoid oppression from the major institutions that govern her life and work. Additionally, Keating’s experiences and actions are unique within the world of How …

When Free Speech Disrupts Diversity Initiatives: What We Value And What We Do Not, Reshmi Dutt-Ballerstadt

Faculty Publications

In this essay, I argue that the debate on free speech as pushed by the conservative right is a strategic apparatus to undermine the various diversity initiatives on college and university campuses. While supporters of the right wing extremists around the globe have pushed for various modes of exclusions (social, racial, ethnic, cultural, religious and sexual), here in the United States, such exclusions are most evident in the collapse of academic freedom and the rise of civility codes as students and educators use the platform of free speech to promote various forms of injustices and exclusions. Our neoliberal college and …

The Use Of Zingari/Nomadi/Rom In Italian Crime Discourse, Theresa Catalano

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

This study examines the use of the metonymies zingari/nomadi/rom [Gypsies/Nomads/Roma] in Italian media discourse, in order to critically reflect on their relation to the perception of Roma. The author analyses the frequency of these terms in general discourse and crime discourse, as well as the way they are used in context. The findings reveal that nomadi and rom are used to directly and indirectly index Roma, and have a sig­nificant impact on their ethnicization and criminalization. In addition, the episodic framing of crime events, combined with the use of these metony­mies, erases the Italian government’s responsibility for the conditions of …

Wildlife As Pets: Reshaping Public Perceptions Through Targeted Communication, Rosanna M. Vail

Human–Wildlife Interactions

No abstract provided.

Wonder Woman: A Case Study For Critical Media Literacy, Adriana N. Fehrs

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

To better grasp the messages Wonder Woman is sending to its audience, a Critical Media Literacy (CML), ideological, and feminist framework is used to examine whether, and if so how, Wonder Woman succumbs to stereotypes that are often portrayed in the media. These theories will be used in the ensuing project to build a curriculum aimed at high school students.The curriculum positions students to examine the hegemonic ideologies that are represented in pop culture, specifically Wonder Woman.

The Horse's Ass: A Survey Of Comediology, William M. Fisk

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

What is comedy? Can someone learn to be funny? Are there rules or guidelines for the production of laughter, the universal language? This paper, which outlines an investigation of successful comedians and the production of a short film, determines to aggregate as many of the relevant prerequisites of inducing giggles as possible, especially as they relate to the audiovisual medium of cinema.

Texas Children's Hospital: Design As Therapy, Kaitlin Puckett

Conversations: A Graduate Student Journal of the Humanities, Social Sciences, and Theology

Texas Children’s Hospital (TCH) is a world-renowned children’s hospital facility “located in Houston, Texas, [and] is a not-for-profit organization committed to creating a community of healthy children through excellence in patient care, education and research. [They] are proud to be consistently ranked among the top children’s hospitals in the nation.” Texas Children’s Hospital commits to daily caring for their patients with a quality that is unlike any other hospital. While this dedication to quality health care is essential, the hospital makes other efforts to maximize quality and experience that should not be overlooked.

Texas Children’s Hospital works tirelessly to ensure …

Prayers, Sex, Islam, And Electric Guitars: A Rhetorical Criticism Of The Taqwacores, Margaret Moore

Conversations: A Graduate Student Journal of the Humanities, Social Sciences, and Theology

Punk rock Islam may not a common phrase to hear in society, but it is quickly expanding in popularity and in effectiveness. A fiction book entitled "The Taqwacores" tells the story of faithful Muslims practicing punk rock Islam in their own way. The novel utilizes constittive rhetoric, a concept popularized by Maurice Charland, to create a social movement that is sweeping the world. This paper analyzes the novel using the tenets of constitutive rhetoric and uses social movement theory to understand the implications that a simple book is having upon the world. Punk rock Islam may not be such an …

The New Sexy: A Rhetorical Analysis Of Sherlock, Krystal A. Fogle, Toni Maisano

Conversations: A Graduate Student Journal of the Humanities, Social Sciences, and Theology

In recent history, there have been movements advocating for conversation and change regarding traditional gender roles. As a central part of culture, British television has not escaped this scrutiny. BBC's crime drama Sherlock directed by Steven Moffat has received both critical acclaim and attention from the general public for its portrayal of women. In this essay, we venture into this conversation, and explore portrayals of existing gender roles and how the writers of the show choose to dissent with the audience's expectations of gender portrayal. We examine connections between past and present portrayals of the classic character, Sherlock Holmes, and …