Research

In the aftermath of the Civil War, Republicans and Democrats who advocated conflicting visions of American citizenship could agree on one thing: the rhetorical power of Abraham Lincoln’s life. This volume examines the debates over his legacy and their impact on America’s future.

In the thirty-five years following Lincoln’s assassination, acquaintances of Lincoln published their memories of him in newspapers, biographies, and edited collections in order to gain fame, promote partisan aims, champion his hardscrabble past and exalted rise, and define his legacy. Shawn Parry-Giles and David Kaufer explore how style, class, and character affected these reminiscences. They also analyze the ways people used these writings to reinforce their beliefs about citizenship and presidential leadership in the United States, with specific attention to the fissure between republicanism and democracy that still exists today. Their study employs rhetorical and corpus research methods to assess more than five hundred reminiscences.

A novel look at how memories of Lincoln became an important form of political rhetoric, this book sheds light on how divergent schools of U.S. political thought came to recruit Lincoln as their standard-bearer.

In Networked Media, Networked Rhetorics, Damien Pfister explores communicative practices in networked media environments, analyzing, in particular, how the blogosphere has changed the conduct and coverage of public debate. Pfister shows how the late modern imaginary was susceptible to “deliberation traps” related to invention, emotion, and expertise, and how bloggers have played a role in helping contemporary public deliberation evade these traps. Three case studies at the heart of Networked Media, Networked Rhetorics show how new intermediaries, including bloggers, generate publicity, solidarity, and translation in the networked public sphere. Bloggers “flooding the zone” in the wake of Trent Lott’s controversial toast to Strom Thurmond in 2002 demonstrated their ability to invent and circulate novel arguments; the pre-2003 invasion reports from the “Baghdad blogger” illustrated how solidarity is built through affective connections; and the science blog RealClimate continues to serve as a rapid-response site for the translation of expert claims for public audiences. Networked Media, Networked Rhetorics concludes with a bold outline for rhetorical studies after the internet.

The charge of inauthenticity has trailed Hillary Clinton from the moment she entered the national spotlight and stood in front of television cameras. Hillary Clinton in the News: Gender and Authenticity in American Politics shows how the U.S. media created their own news frames of Clinton's political authenticity and image-making, from her participation in Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign through her own 2008 presidential bid.

Using theories of nationalism, feminism, and authenticity, Parry-Giles tracks the evolving ways the major networks and cable news programs framed Clinton's image as she assumed roles ranging from surrogate campaigner, legislative advocate, and financial investor to international emissary, scorned wife, and political candidate. This study magnifies how the coverage that preceded Clinton's entry into electoral politics was grounded in her earliest presence in the national spotlight, and in long-standing nationalistic beliefs about the boundaries of authentic womanhood and first lady comportment. Once Clinton dared to cross those gender boundaries and vie for office in her own right, the news exuded a rhetoric of sexual violence. These portrayals served as a warning to other women who dared to enter the political arena and violate the protocols of authentic womanhood.

Communicating introduces the basic principles of communication and applies them to interpersonal, group, interviewing, and public speaking contexts.  The book stresses communication competence through boxed material, “Learn by Doing” skill-building activities, thought-provoking questions and self-assessment questionnaires. The new edition features an increased emphasis on electronically-mediated communication and the impact of technology on our daily communication, a significantly updated research base and a reorganization of the public speaking chapters.

This book sheds light on the growing phenomenon of cyberactivism in the Arab world, with a special focus on the Egyptian political blogosphere and its role in paving the way to democratization and socio-political change in Egypt, which culminated in Egypt's historical popular revolution.

For decades, American popular media have instructed audiences about their roles and significance in the public sphere. In The Faithful Citizen, rhetorical critic Kristy Maddux argues that popular Christian media not only communicate avenues for civic engagement but do so in profoundly gendered terms. Her detailed interrogation of popular Christian movies, books, and television shows—the Left Behind series, Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, Amazing Grace, 7th Heaven, and the blockbuster The Da Vinci Code—exposes five competing models of how Christians should behave in the civic sphere as their gendered selves. What emerges is a typology that insightfully reveals how these varying faith-based models of engagement uniquely shape public discourse and influence the larger picture of contemporary politics.

The Handbook of Rhetoric and Public Address is a state-of-the-art companion to the field that showcases both the historical traditions and the future possibilities for public address scholarship in the twenty-first century.

• Focuses on public address as both a subject matter and a critical perspective
• Mindful of the connections between the study of public address and the history of ideas
• Provides an historical overview of public address research and pedagogy, as well as a reassessment of contemporary public address scholarship by those most engaged in its practice
• Includes in-depth discussions of basic issues and controversies public address scholarship
• Explores the relationship between the study of public address and contemporary issues of civic engagement and democratic citizenship
• Reflects the diversity of views among public address scholars, advancing on-going discussions and debates over the goals and character of rhetorical scholarship

Bringing together top listening scholars from a range of disciplines and real world perspectives, Listening and Human Communication in the 21st Century offers a state-of-the-art overview of what we know and think about listening behavior in the 21st century.

• Introduces students to the core issues listening theory and practice

• Includes student friendly features such as editorial introductions to each section and questions for further reflection at the end of each chapter

• Discussion ranges from historical perspectives to present theory, to teaching and performing listening in the classroom, in health care, and in corporate settings

Public Address and Moral Judgment offers a critical look at the ways in which public address can enact moral codes, articulate moral judgments, and manifest ethical tensions. Each chapter carefully examines specific examples of public address for their moral dimensions, exploring how public address functions to articulate and express the ethical tensions of its time and context. The contributors highlight important and often different ways that public address works to expose problematics in ethical tensions—problematics of language and imagery, metaphor and character, genre and definition. The authors are also mindful of the tenuous relationship that exists between rhetoric and morality, between situated public address and a society's ethical foundations.

The essays in Public Address and Moral Judgment, on topics ranging from WWII propaganda to the civil rights rhetoric of President George H. W. Bush to the photographs from the Abu Ghraib prison, consider the powerful role of public discourse in the constitution of a moral code for the American people.

This book analyzes the discourses and deliberations in the discussion forums of three of the most visited Islamic websites and investigates the extent to which they have provided a venue for Muslims to freely engage in discussion among themselves and with non-Muslims about political, economic, religious and social issues.