Rhetorical Dimensions Of Popular Culture

The main argument of this book is that most rhetorical theory defines rhetoric as its manifestations - speeches, essays, poems and so forth. It proposes that rhetoric be regarded as the social function that manages meaning - a function with many complex manifestations. The author develops a theoretical scheme to explain this concept and details principles for critical and pedagogical application of his theory. In the second part of the book, the author applies theory and critical principles to the complex and fragmented texts of popular culture - television programmes, science fiction, horror films, popular periodicals and novels - and to the arena of urban race relations.

Rhetoric in Popular Culture, Fifth Edition, shows readers how to apply growing and cutting-edge methods of critical studies to a full spectrum of contemporary issues seen in daily life. Exploring a wide range of mass media including current movies, magazines, advertisements, social networking sites, music videos, and television shows, Barry Brummett uses critical analysis to apply key rhetorical concepts to a variety of exciting examples drawn from popular culture. Readers are guided from theory to practice in an easy-to-understand manner, providing them with a foundational understanding of the definition and history of rhetoric as well as new approaches to the rhetorical tradition. Ideal for courses in rhetorical criticism, the highly anticipated Fifth Edition includes new critical essays and case studies that demonstrate for readers how the critical methods discussed can be used to study the hidden rhetoric of popular culture.

Can television shows like Modern Family, popular music by performers like Taylor Swift, advertisements for products like Samuel Adams beer, and films such as The Hunger Games help us understand rhetorical theory and criticism? The Third Edition of The Rhetorical Power of Popular Culture offers students a step-by-step introduction to rhetorical theory and criticism by focusing on the powerful role popular culture plays in persuading us as to what to believe and how to behave. In every chapter, students are introduced to rhetorical theories, presented with current examples from popular culture that relate to the theory, and guided through demonstrations about how to describe, interpret, and evaluate popular culture texts through rhetorical analysis. Author Deanna Sellnow also provides sample student essays in every chapter to demonstrate rhetorical criticism in practice. This edition’s easy-to-understand approach and range of popular culture examples help students apply rhetorical theory and criticism to their own lives and assigned work.

Joins together two vital scholarly traditions: rhetorical criticism and critical studies. This title includes material on Marxist, psychoanalytic, feminist, media-centered, and culture-centered criticism. It also enables students to apply several methodologies of critical studies to the study of rhetoric.

Rhetoric is widely regarded as a kind of antithesis to reason. Here, Farrell restores rhetoric as an art of practical reason and enlightened civic participation, grounding it in its classical tradition - particularly in the rhetoric of Aristotle.

This introductory textbook unites the study of rhetoric with the persuasive potential of today's 'texts' in popular culture. By providing students with a means by which to understand why popular texts are important to study-as well as how to examine these texts' underlying messages from a variety of rhetorical perspectives-Deanna Sellnow helps readers become critical consumers of the many popular culture texts that influence them in their daily lives.Features &BAD:amp; Benefits:This textbook unites rhetorical criticism with mediated popular cultural texts (e.g., film, television, rap music) in ways that relate directly to the experiences of people in society today. Each chapter is devoted to one theoretical perspective (e.g., narrative, dramatistic, Marxist, feminist, illusion of life, visual pleasure, media effects) Each chapter provides (a) an explana¡tion of a particular rhetorical theory, (b) examples of messages the theory reveals when applied to vari¡ous contemporary popular culture texts, (c) embedded ôapplying what youÆve learnedö opportuni¡ties for students to practice examining a specific film, television program, song, or adver¡tisement using the theory, (d) one or two scholarly articles that use the theory to examine a popular culture text, (e) one or two sample student papers that use the theory to examine a popu¡lar culture text, and (f) an end-of-chapter challenge posed to students to examine in depth a contempo¡rary artifact using the concepts described in the chapter Each chapter opens with reflective questions to guide students to about specific examples as read the chapter.

This anlaysis of popular culture and the uses of rhetoric as a methodological tool begins with a brief theoretical introduction. Root applies rhetorical analysis to the fields of advertising, advocacy, and entertainment, with examples that focus on the written, verbal, and visual aspects of rhetoric. ISBN 0-313-24403-0:

The rhetorical power of camp in American popular culture Making Camp examines the rhetoric and conventions of “camp” in contemporary popular culture and the ways it both subverts and is co-opted by mainstream ideology and discourse, especially as it pertains to issues of gender and sexuality. Camp has long been aligned with gay male culture and performance. Helene Shugart and Catherine Waggoner contend that camp in the popular media—whether visual, dramatic, or musical—is equally pervasive. While aesthetic and performative in nature, the authors argue that camp—female camp in particular—is also highly political and that conventions of femininity and female sexuality are negotiated, if not always resisted, in female camp performances. The authors draw on a wide range of references and figures representative of camp, both historical and contemporary, in presenting the evolution of female camp and its negotiation of gender, political, and identity issues. Antecedents such as Joan Crawford, Wonder Woman, Marilyn Monroe, and Pam Grier are discussed as archetypes for contemporary popular culture figures—Macy Gray, Gwen Stefani, and the characters of Xena from Xena: Warrior Princess and Karen Walker from Will & Grace. Shugart and Waggoner find that these and other female camp performances are liminal, occupying a space between conformity and resistance. The result is a study that demonstrates the prevalence of camp as a historical and evolving phenomenon in popular culture, its role as a site for the rupture of conventional notions of gender and sexuality, and how camp is configured in mainstream culture and in ways that resist its being reduced to merely a style.

“Just as rhetoric is founded in culture, culture is founded in rhetoric” - the first half of this central statement from the International Rhetoric Culture Project is abundantly evidenced. It is the latter half that this volume explores: how does culture emerge out of rhetorical action, out of seemingly dispersed individual actions and interactions? The contributors do not rely on rhetorical “text” alone but engage the situational, bodily, and often antagonistic character of cultural and communicative practices. The social situation itself is argued to be the fundamental site of cultural creation, as will-driven social processes are shaped by cognitive dispositions and shape them in turn. Drawing on expertise in a variety of disciplines and regions, the contributors critically engage dialogical approaches in their emphasis on how a view from rhetoric changes our perception of people's intersubjective and conjoint creation of culture.

This book examines the relationship between rhetoric and public culture. Barry Brummett explores homologies between very different orders of experience and texts, such as battlefield experiences that are homologous to those at a dining room table. What these common patterns mean, why they are interesting, and why homology is rhetorical are the subjects of this study. ""Rhetorical Homologies " is an exceptionally well-crafted and -written work. Highly imaginative as well as at times provocative. . . . The individual studies in this text stand on their own as refined and sophisticated analyses of the relationship between rhetoric and public culture."--Raymie McKerrow, coeditor of "Principles and Types of Pubic Speaking "