October 1, 2008
John Murphy’s blog, Oratorical Animal, critiques contemporary public address, political rhetoric, and media coverage of politics. John is Associate Professor of Communication, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
No Caption Needed provides critical analysis of photojournalism and documentary photography, and speaks to issues of political communication both broad and narrow. Robert Hariman is Professor of Rhetoric and Public Culture in the Department of Communication Studies at Northwestern University; John Louis Lucaites is Professor of Rhetoric and Public Culture in the Department of Communication and Culture at Indiana University.
Dr. Lisa Burns’ Political Communication class at Quinnipiac University is following the campaign in their blog QU’s Take on Campaign ’08. Students are relating current media examples to their class readings, but welcome comments from anyone interested in media and politics.
New Series, Vol. 3, No. 1 Discussing social justice issues in college classrooms can be challenging for educators, especially in the current sociopolitical climate. Moreover, not all educators are equipped with the skills, knowledge, and confidence to facilitate such discussions effectively. They may also be wary about handling disagreements among students from different cultural backgrounds, especially considering that...
New Series, Vol. 2, No. 23 This study investigates the rhetorical strategy of white victimhood and how such rhetoric evades moderation on social media (i.e., X, formerly Twitter) to spread bigoted, white nationalist content. The authors focus on everyday social media activity and explore how individuals posting engage in “white...
New Series, Vol. 2, No. 21 Community participation is an essential component of democracy, yet gaps in participation persist due to unequal distribution of resources that disenfranchise historically marginalized groups and in turn weaken the community’s overall representativeness. This study applied sensemaking, specifically constructs of sensegiving and sensebreaking to understand...
New Series, Vol. 2, No. 20 In 2022, U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) decided to not run for a third term. Then-Lt. Gov. John Fetterman ran and easily won the Democratic primary against young Congressman Conor Lamb and other candidates. Among Republican primary candidates, Dr. Mehmet Oz, a famous physician...
New Series, Vol. 2, No. 19 Student journalism in secondary schools has many documented benefits for participating students, including voice empowerment, improved academic performance, vocational training, and encouraging civic participation. However, when discouraged from pursuing topics that they are passionate about and/or benefit their communities because those topics may be...
New Series, Vol. 2, No. 16 Historically, US Supreme Court justices “off-bench” speech (their communications other than in judicial opinions) typically was limited in quantity, even while its content ranged from educational (justices teaching law school courses or seminars) to the personal (interviews, memoirs, etc.). Justices typically framed the Court...
New Series, Vol. 2, No. 9 Recent and historical efforts to control expression—despite constitutional protection of free speech in the First Amendment—increase the salience of free speech issues for many Americans. Although most people in the U.S. support free speech conceptually, the application of this belief seems to vary depending...
New Series, Vol. 2, No. 8 Metaphors, which this article defines (from Richard Gregg) as “a thoroughly rhetorical cognitive process” that “encourage us to adopt some particular perspective” and “culminates in a point of view,” have been used historically in politics, literature, religion, and beyond. This article concerns the metaphor,...
New Series, Vol. 2, No. 7 There is a long legacy of anti-literacy laws targeting Black communities in the U.S., with anti-woke legislation being only a recent iteration of these far right attacks on public education. In the piece, the author discusses the experiences and challenges of being a public...