Browsing by Subject "Rhetoric"

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Antisocialite: Presidential Tweets and the mobilization of Stop the Steal on January 6th
(2024-08-01) Dausch, Alexander
The January 6th, 2021, insurrection ushered in a new realm of possibilities around American presidential election results. Guided by Donald Trump’s tweets and rhetoric that day, the violence against the Capitol threatened the peaceful transition of power between presidential administrations. This study investigates how Trump’s tweets on January 6th created a worldview for his followers that made the violent acts against the Capitol that day reasonable and necessary for them to commit. While there have been extensive studies of the insurrection events, this paper presents a rhetorical frame analysis of Trump’s tweets and other rhetoric that day, while aligning the timing and content of his communications with the actions of those who committed the insurrection. This analysis and alignment bears examining because it provides insight into the real effects rhetoric and social media can have on the mobilization of social movements. The rhetorical frame analysis categorizes every Trump tweet from January 6th, demonstrating a progression from diagnostic, to prognostic, and finally to motivational framing in his rhetoric. The analysis also displays an alignment between Trump’s rhetorical frame progression and the violence on the Capitol. This particular type of frame analysis on this topic, coupled with the alignment shown with the insurrection actions fills a gap in this type of research. The implications of this research are that rhetoric has enough power to mobilize social movements into violent action, therefore making it necessary to analyze and understand the rhetorical tactics that were used to do so.
Baseball in the Black Public Sphere: Curt Flood and the disappearance of race.
(2010-09) Khan, Abraham
At the end of the 1969 Major League Baseball season, the St. Louis Cardinals traded their all-star centerfielder, Curt Flood, to the Philadelphia Phillies. Refusing the trade and seeking his unconditional release, Flood filed a lawsuit suit in federal court accusing baseball owners of exercising a collusive labor restriction - the "reserve clause" - in violation of federal antitrust statues. Flood's lawsuit was heard by the Supreme Court in 1972, and even though he lost, many observers have credited his case with transforming sport into its present form as high-salaried spectacle; Curt Flood inspired "free agency." In January 1970, weeks after filing suit, Flood appeared on national television and described himself as a "well-paid slave." At the time, some observers saw this as a fair analogy to his working conditions, and others saw it as an indecorous, racially motivated attack on the national pastime. With the remark, Flood initiated a public discussion of sport's labor practices that threatened not only baseball's sacrosanct pastoral image, but also its status, established through Jackie Robinson, as a cultural referent of racial progress. In the context of contemporary anxieties regarding the disappearance of the black activist athlete, Curt Flood is commended by many contemporary critics for having fought a lonely battle against the sports establishment. This nostalgic impulse, I assert, contains a paradox: Flood is martyred as the hero who made athletes rich, but it is the wealth of black athletes that is often blamed for their tragic disengagement from politics. By refusing to sell-out, Flood seems to have created a generation of sell-outs. This project investigates what many believe to be his only consistent source of support: the black press. In both Flood's historical moment and in the annals of public memory, Flood's blackness figures into his case prominently but ambivalently. As he is often remembered, Flood's racial experiences as a minor-leaguer in the south "sensitized" him to injustice which, in turn, motivated him to sacrifice his career in defense of a universal, "colorblind" principle. I argue that such a position overlooks the ways in which the protean appearance of Flood's racial identity helped the black press construct a liberal political imagination, one that is currently faced with a crisis of representation over the meaning of the activist-athlete. Unlike other athletes of his era taking principled stands on matters of racial justice, Curt Flood's challenge required the formation of an interracial coalition with white players. As such, the public discourse surrounding his case offered black newspapers the rhetorical resources necessary to elaborate the ostensibly universal premises of liberal integrationism. Consonant with the ways in which they awkwardly imagined their own institutional existence, black newspapers presented Flood as the black embodiment of a universal principle. In short, I argue that as sport and liberalism found convenient articulations in the black public sphere through Flood, the problem of race disappeared from view. Consequently, sport was preserved as a cultural space in which the success and wealth of black athletes indexed liberalism's progressive character.
Beyond the classroom: rhetorical constructions of "Service Learning".
(2009-08) Skillin, Kelley Marie
This study examines definitional controversies over the use of the term “service learning.” Using historical description and argument analysis, I examine formal and informal definitions of service learning from the inception of the term in 1969 to the present, and the arguments that are proposed for or against particular definitions. Studying how interlocutors use argumentation strategies for definitions, by definition, and about definitions can help explicate whose interests are served through service learning. Recognizing that all definitions are political and historically situated, I suggest a return to one of the philosophical roots of service learning – John Dewey’s philosophies on experience and education. Rather than approaching definitions as an argument about what service learning “is” or looking for an essence of service learning, I follow Edward Schiappa’s “pragmatic turn” of looking at which definitions of service learning ought to apply in particular contexts. This study concludes with an argument for multiple definitions of the term: service learning as philosophies about education, service learning as a program description, and service learning as a field of study. It is only when service learning advocates, practitioners, and scholars begin to critically reflect on their definitional disputes that the impacts of service learning will extend beyond the classroom.
Body burden in umbilical cord blood: a rhetorical analysis of how experts communicate risk to public audiences.
(2011-01) VanNorman, Maggie Lynn
The purpose of this dissertation is to examine the rhetorical strategies used by experts to communicate prenatal exposure to chemical pollution. This dissertation uses a case study approach to analyze how prenatal exposure to chemical pollutants is communicated to public audiences by non-traditional scientific experts through an examination of specific reports and briefings. The non-traditional experts that are the subject of this dissertation are the Environmental Working Group, an environmental activist group, and the American Chemistry Council, an industry lobby group. These non-traditional scientific experts use a variety of rhetorical strategies to communicate meaning about exposure data. Following Ulrich Beck, risk is understood to be both socially constructed through discursive practices as well as materially real through its physical impacts. By analyzing the discursive and material representations of risk found in the EWG and ACC's reports through a variety of rhetorical strategies, this dissertation represents an initial attempt by a rhetorician to understand biomonitoring data as persuasive elements in public policies related to environmental and regulatory issues.
Comic Fans and Convergence Culture: Community of Readers in The Master of Kung Fu
(Harlot of the Arts, 2009) Beard, David; Vo Thi-Beard, Kate
As a member of several fan cultures, I have an interest in the processes that fan audiences use to construct and reconstruct the texts they consume. Additionally, I think of the way (written, oral, and musical) texts construct the individuals who constitute their audiences. Examining Master of Kung Fu provided the perfect combination of these two interests. —David My fascination with representations of Asians in the media began with The Destroyer book series that I read as a teen. While the character Remo at first resisted his fate, he quickly embraced his identity as the next Master of Sinanju. As a Vietnamese American growing up in a small Midwestern town, I have slowly come to my identity as an Asian American. I owe a lot of that to my current life as a Ph.D. student. My research has centered around cultural identity and representations in comics, children's literature, and Asian American magazines. These have fueled my desire to learn more about my own identity. —Kate
Composing the Gulf Coast: Narratives of Environmental Toxicity, Racial Injustice, and Carbon Energy Across Modalities
(2019-05) Lapeyrouse-Cherry, Juliette
This dissertation examines Gulf Coast-centered environmental nonfiction narratives in texts across multiple genres, including nonfiction books, documentary films, and web-based interactives. These texts construct the region at the nexus of the negative geological, ecological, and human health impacts of oil extraction and petrochemical production. In the first body chapter, I analyze three nonfiction texts by journalists and academics who travel to south Louisiana and offer an outsiders’ perspective on the place, all of which I argue represent an emerging genre of elegiac travelogue. I then rhetorically analyze three documentaries on the BP spill, reading them rhetorically for oil’s visibility and invisibility, and arguing that all three films audiovisually construct, sometimes through the invocation of other senses, petroleum’s social-material impacts on the Gulf Coast through representations of sickness and toxicity, in alignment with environmental justice concerns. The final chapter begins with an analysis of two interactive maps focused on petrochemical industry-related environmental impacts along the Gulf Coast. I then place these maps within the context of scholarship and pedagogy in Writing Studies and Environmental and Energy Humanities, and conclude with teaching materials that aim to address these issues presented throughout this dissertation in an advanced undergraduate classroom, placing the issues faced by the Gulf Coast in broader national and international contexts.
Composition's Terms of Use: The Pedagogical Implications of Learning Management Systems
(2023-05) Brenden, Mark
This dissertation is a critical study of the contemporary relationship between education and technology. It develops a philosophy on technology that both tries to make sense of the specific technologies our universities have chosen to embrace and imagines ways of making critical use of them. The intersection of this treatment of technology and education is Composition and Rhetoric, a pedagogical field. The application of this intersection, then, is a study of a particular, prominent technology of composition pedagogy, which is the Learning Management System. This pedagogical technology is explored in three main ways: narrative-based analysis of three case studies of student writing on the platform, rhetorical analysis of one LMS company’s public discourse, and content analysis of one LMS’s internal architecture. The dissertation finds that LMS companies rely on neoliberal rhetorical syllogisms which bypass public deliberation over enthymemes concerning the purposes of higher education, and thus join an assemblage of rhetorical projects that unite higher education with neoliberal interests. These enthymemes are the “terms of use” teachers and students accept. Finally, new terms of use are forwarded based on an updated method of critical literacy.
Conflict on The Washington Mall: The Right of Free Speech and the Responsibility to Listen in the Age of Demagoguery
(Listening: A Journal of Communication Ethics, Religion, and Culture, 2021) Beard, David
Creating Instructions for a Cross-Cultural Audience: A Collaboration with Students in Trieste, Italy
(2018-04-23) Kratzke, Megan
The core principles of technical writing and communication (TWC) and web design are critical when creating online materials for a cross-cultural audience. The purpose of this document is to explain the process of creating an effective online instruction set for use and translation by students in Italy. This project was completed in the WRIT 3562W class at the University of Minnesota, under the instruction of Professor Brandi Fuglsby. As the technical communicator in this project, I was able to apply the TWC principles I’ve learned throughout my coursework to a real-life situation, and for an audience that lives amongst a different culture, and for whom English is not their first language.
“Democratizing” clinical research? efficiency and inclusiveness in an electronic primary care research network
(2010-06) Hudson, Brenda L.
This dissertation is a critical ethnography and rhetorical study of the development of an electronic network designed to advance medical research and improve health. Specifically, this study focuses on the network's social and technological affordances of efficiency and inclusiveness to connect communities of primary care providers and clinical researchers to both expand participation in and expedite the research process. By examining the network's technical elements aligned with its social context, the assumptions that influence the choice of technologies, and the network's subsequent design, Brenda L. Hudson explores the network's hierarchical structure and potential democratizing capabilities in clinical research. Through field notes, interviews, and textual analysis, Hudson provides a micro-level examination of the electronic network's development and technical affordances during the program's three-year funded contract. An ethnographic narrative describes how the group functions as a "community of practice" to create a network linking primary care practices with clinical research. Further, Hudson provides a macro-level examination that draws on critical theories of technology and explores to what extent the network might serve as a "democratic" technology through its involvement of previously unprivileged populations in clinical research--primary care providers and patients. Results indicate that assumptions of efficiency and inclusiveness in clinical research--and specifically in the network's technical affordances--provide potential benefits to patients' health by widening the pool of researchers and participants and streamlining the recruitment process. However, manifest in this electronic network, these assumptions also pose potential risks and ethical challenges surrounding private health information and "therapeutic misconception," whereby a research participant believes that enrolling in a research study will provide direct therapeutic benefit. Further results indicate that although the development team has done much to assure a "democratic" development of use of technology by operating as a "community of practice," there exist unintentional asymmetrical hierarchies of who controls and uses the network, favoring primary care providers and practices that already exist in clinical research.
Disciplined by democracy: moral framing and the rhetoric of Red Letter Christians.
(2010-03) Boerboom, Samuel Isaac
In this dissertation I study both the textual reception and rhetorical production strategies of the Red Letter Christians, a discourse community whose identity is linked to these very same strategies. I contend that the Red Letter Christians engage in biblical reading strategies that make them distinct from other politically liberal or progressive religious groups. The Red Letter Christians employ a moral frame based on their particular reading of the Bible. Embedded in the notion of "conservative radicalism," such a moral frame asserts a dedication to timeless principles and truths authenticated by the gospel accounts of Jesus while it simultaneously upholds a passionate defense of social justice and the activist need to engage in political action in the present. Such a moral frame is biconceptual, expressing both conservative and progressive dimensions of moral social action. Due to the biconceptuality of the Red Letter Christian moral frame, Red Letter Christians often stress the importance of humility and non-partisan dialogue. Critics of the Red Letter Christians from both the political left and the right argue that such discourse is often incomprehensible and obfuscates the political positions the group defends in their rhetoric. I assert that in spite of their common reception as a religiously liberal group, the Red Letter Christians offer a model of discourse that at its best authenticates and otherwise justifies a model of post-partisan discourse that re-imagines religion's role in public political discourse.
Editor's Introduction to Special Issue on the Works of Alan Gross
(POROI, University of Iowa, 2014-12) Beard, David; Newman, Sara
Ethics of Public Intellectual Work
(Palgrave Macmillan, 2012) Beard, David
Exploring the Gap Between a Morally Valid and a Legally Adequate Consent; Investigating Latino Understanding of an Informed Consent Conference
(2015-06) Pigozzi, Laura
Abstract Enrollment of members of minority communities in clinical trials is an important step towards the elimination of health disparities and increases the generalizability of research results. Latinos are disproportionally affected by a number of health issues such as diabetes. Having Latinos participate in research is essential since limited participation leads to limited data specific for this population. Furthermore, for some patients, inclusion in clinical trials represents an opportunity to receive new therapies not otherwise available. This project explores Latinos’ understanding of the informed consent conference considered on a broad level, including oral, textual, and visual components. Grounded theory is used as the analytic methodology. This bioethics question is explored by situating the theory within relevant literature in bioethics, rhetoric, scientific and technical communication, and intercultural communication. Data was gathered in three studies using the methodology of analogue participants. A simulation of a healthy patient consent conference was used in Study 1 and Study 2, while a simulation of a multi-arm diabetes trial was used in Study 3. The analogue participants were recruited from urban Catholic parishes that serve a large immigrant Latino population. In order to secure a moral consent and honor the autonomy of members of this community during trial enrollment, the researcher must thoroughly understand the social context that forms the identity of the Latino community member. Although the level of autonomy varies with each individual, the social context shaped by this data suggests a compromised autonomy. The social context of this community is complex and dynamic. Latino immigrants in this study live in a closely-knit community, sharing a culture, language, faith, for the most part their country of origin, and the immigrant experience. These community members demonstrate care and concern for one another in their shared struggles to acculturate while living with a steady sense of disquietude surrounding the immigration status of themselves, family members, or friends. An undocumented status affects all areas of an immigrant’s life, limiting many potential opportunities. The grounded theory resulting from the data gathered in Study 1, Study 2, and Study 3 suggests a culturally specific way to present trial information to members of this community, describes how that information might be understood, and illustrates the community’s social context. Understanding the social context is necessary to understand how to present trial information and to understand the autonomy of community members.
Finitude after after finitude
(2014-06) Frank, Jay Alexander
This work represents my efforts to rethink the relationship between philosophical materialism and contemporary rhetorical studies along the lines of Quentin Meillassoux's speculative materialism. Cast as an allegory to Michael Calvin McGee's essay "A Materialist's Conception of Rhetoric," the first portion of this work examines the historical evolution of theories of materialist rhetoric as a response to an antecedent turn towards hermeneutics in rhetorical criticism. I claim that, although they represent complex institutional responses to the "hermeneutic" tradition in rhetoric, what have been called "materialist" theories of rhetoric do not fundamentally escape that tradition, and therefore have little to do with materialism. In part two, I examine Slavoj Zizek's speech at Zucotti Park on October 9, 2011. In doing so I uncover some analytical difficulties the "human microphone" poses for both "hermeneutic" and "materialist" rhetoric, and offer alternative connections to philosophy as new ways for rhetoricians to discuss proletarian organization.
From traditional to digital: understanding remediation of the postcard through the case of PostSecret.com
(2013-08) Armfield, Dawn Maurie
PostSecret has been credited with blurring the lines between private and public information and traditional media formats and digital media formats. In 2004, what began as one man's art project became a worldwide phenomenon that has continued past the publishing of this dissertation, a lifetime in online lifespans. This dissertation examines a rhetoric of remediation, the dynamics and rhetorical aims of ethos, habitus, and materiality that construct, support, and complicate a traditional to digital remediation of postcards that furthers our understanding of what it means to meet audience expectations and needs in multiple spaces.
Gendered voices: rhetorical agency and the political career of Hillary Rodham Clinton.
(2012-08) Killian, Justin Lee
Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton‟s public life represents a specific moment when a generation of women started to materially symbolize the progress made by feminist activists. Because of the struggles of previous reformers, Rodham Clinton was able to serve as a corporate lawyer, a First Lady of the United States, a health care reformer, a foreign diplomat, a candidate, a U.S. Senator, and a presidential front-runner. She is also the third woman to hold the post of U.S. Secretary of State. Rodham Clinton has a public resume unmatched by any political woman, but her success has also made her the victim of misogynistic symbolic violence. She is the most (mis)interpreted figure in U.S. politics. This project analyzes significant moments of public address in the life of Rodham Clinton. Her career presents transitional spaces from which to understand rhetorical agency, voice, and gender. The chapters cover: (1) Rodham Clinton‟s speeches promoting the 1993 Clinton healthcare reform, (2) Rodham Clinton‟s U.N. address in Beijing China, (3) Rodham Clinton‟s 1996 Democratic National Convention Address, (4) a collection of speeches that Rodham Clinton offered on the 2002 Iraq conflict, (5) Rodham Clinton‟s presidential campaign rhetoric, and (6) Rodham Clinton‟s 2008 Democratic National Convention Address.
Graduate Student Handbook, 2002-2003
(University of Minnesota, 2003-02) Department of Writing Studies; Department of Rhetoric
Graduate Student Handbook, 2005-2006
(University of Minnesota, 2005) Department of Writing Studies; Department of Rhetoric
Graduate Student Handbook, 2006-2007
(University of Minnesota, 2006) Department of Writing Studies; Department of Rhetoric

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