This article outlines a three-part pedagogy capable of responding to the risks, rewards, and headaches associated with public rhetoric and writing. To demonstrate the purchase of this pedagogy, I revisit one of the oldest and most misunderstood public rhetoric and writing assignments: the letter-to-the-editor assignment.

ABSTRACTReason, religion, and public culture have been of significant interest recently, with critics reevaluating modernity's conception of secularism and calling for a “postsecular” public discourse. Simultaneously, one sees rising religious fundamentalisms and a growing style of antirationalism in public debate. These conditions make a reconceptualization of public reason necessary. The main goals of this article are to establish agnostic public reason as the conceptual guide and normative ethic for public debate in liberal democracies by considering the secular/religious reason boundary explicitly and to argue that this ethic of public reason requires a commitment to reason giving and a particular epistemic attitude but that it does not, nor should it, take precedence over first-order judgments. An ethics of citizenship based on the process of reason giving with the appropriate epistemic stance might be one step toward rectifying the problem of an increasing separation between enclave publics, even if, by design, it cannot solve fundamental disagreement.

Abstract On March 2, 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court determined in Snyder v. Phelps that protests by members of Westboro Baptist Church, a small group of religious fundamentalists committed to communicating their beliefs publicly in spectacular fashion, were protected under the First Amendment based on a dual standard of “public concern”; that is, their speech dealt with sociopolitical issues and their speech attracted media attention. This rhetorical conflation of sociopolitical issues with subjects of media interest provides legal encouragement for the creation of media spectacles on the part of hate groups and other ideologues and discourages the development of the very public reason taken for granted by the Court. To defend this claim, we first provide a brief history of the Westboro Baptist Church and its strategic manipulation of the mass media and free speech law, situated within competing traditions of public sphere theory. After next providing a history of the judicial evolution of Snyder v. Phelps, we engage in a close reading of the majority and dissenting Supreme Court opinions to reveal the rhetorical conflation of “public issues” and “public concern,” and we conclude with reflections on the relationships among that conflation, the role of different forms of spectacle in advanced capitalist societies, and the possibilities for more informed democratic citizenship.

Book Review| December 01 2013 Public Discourse in America: Conversation and Community in the Twenty-First Century Public Discourse in America: Conversation and Community in the Twenty-First Century. Edited by Judith Rodin and Stephen P. Steinberg. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003; pp. xv + 336. $24.95 paper. Samuel McCormick Samuel McCormick San Francisco State University Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Rhetoric and Public Affairs (2013) 16 (4): 801–806. https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.16.4.0801 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Samuel McCormick; Public Discourse in America: Conversation and Community in the Twenty-First Century. Rhetoric and Public Affairs 1 December 2013; 16 (4): 801–806. doi: https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.16.4.0801 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectiveMichigan State University PressRhetoric and Public Affairs Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. © 2013 Michigan State University Board of Trustees2013 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Abstract Following a democratic uprising in 1998, the Muslim-majority nation of Indonesia embarked on a transition from four decades of authoritarian rule to become the world's third largest democracy. A recent surge in religious intolerance, however, has sparked concern over an apparent backlash against the political and religious pluralism of the new democratic era. As the world looks to this vast country of 237 million as a model for other Muslim nations now rebelling against their own dictatorships, it is important to understand this political turn marked by a growing incapacity to deal with otherness. This article examines public discourse surrounding accelerating attacks on religious minorities in Indonesia to provide insight into a similar rise in intolerance worldwide, and to address a pressing question for many rhetoric scholars: how does religion work to legitimate or eliminate violence?

Since 1984, academic essays addressing the public rhetorics of science and technology have embodied at least four purposes: theory-building, discounting scientific representations, deprecating scientific influence, and strategizing to improve the efficacy of scientific rhetorics. Some of these purposes are in conflict with each other, but there has been little explicit discussion about the purposes for ARST studies. This essay argues in favor of a synthetic vision that places humanistic, social scientific, and natural science endeavors as part of an over-lapping set of practices, each of which demonstrably makes distinctive positive contributions to globalizing human consciousness. The essay argues that the few existing studies illustrate how increased internationalism in ARST studies is not only important in its own right, but also could provide one academic route for expanding the imagined relational possibilities among humanistic "critics," the natural or social sciences, and broader societies.

ABSTRACTThe rhetorical tradition has long been concerned with how to negotiate the discursive juncture between mass and elite audiences. Such a concern has contributed to what might be characterized as the rhetorical tradition's anxiety with regard to its own status. In this article I suggest that this anxiety parallels an ontological conception of the elite as second-order in relation to the first-order mass. I use the standoff between novelist Jonathan Franzen and Oprah Winfrey in 2001 as a running example of status tensions in the public sphere, arguing for a theory of vernacular as language that talks and of specialized language as language that talks about. Finally, I suggest that the separate claims to status of vernacular and specialized language might be resolved by thinking further about Bakhtin's theory of heteroglossia.

Within a Technical Communication classroom, policywork has been used to teach students the vital discursive and conceptual skills valued by technical fields. However, given the move of technical communicators into the public sphere, these skills can and should be expanded to include diverse practices and modes of thought. As such, this article suggests that storytelling can be used as a pedagogical tool to help students think more critically about the (sometimes hidden) relationships that policywork inheres. This article articulates relational work as a target skills set for students and suggests specific activities and handouts for developing these skills.

This article involves an examination of public discourse surrounding Ayers v. Fordice, one of the most prominent desegregation cases in higher education, in an attempt to explore how such discourse affects our understandings of basic writing programming in the state of Mississippi, but also more globally. Archived local newspaper articles and letters to state government officials from private citizens suggest that the public overwhelmingly adheres to concepts of standards-based education. This research is meant to further stimulate conversations in the field about how we define basic writers and how to provide these students with the opportunity to define themselves.

Research Article| December 01 2012 Democratic Circulation: Jacksonian Lithographs in U.S. Public Discourse Brandon Inabinet Brandon Inabinet Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Rhetoric and Public Affairs (2012) 15 (4): 659–666. https://doi.org/10.2307/41940628 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Brandon Inabinet; Democratic Circulation: Jacksonian Lithographs in U.S. Public Discourse. Rhetoric and Public Affairs 1 December 2012; 15 (4): 659–666. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/41940628 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectiveMichigan State University PressRhetoric and Public Affairs Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. © 2012 Michigan State University Board of Trustees2012 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Women's rhetoric in the Middle Ages reflects their participation in the deliberative rhetorical genre inherited from classical antiquity. The deliberative tradition, which was often theorized by medieval rhetoricians as existing in consular practice, can thus serve as an example of women's rhetoric which, as Christine Mason Sutherland has noted, could take place in sermo. Women's letters were often hortatory, civic, and sometimes agonistic in tone. These rhetorical artifacts demonstrate that women operated in the rhetorical tradition as eloquent, powerful agents of persuasion in the civic arena, and they also show that, although unmoored from traditional spaces and practices associated with deliberation in antiquity, deliberative rhetoric was a more viable form of rhetoric in the Middle Ages than previously believed.

AbstractThis article examines the critique of deliberative democracy leveled by William Connolly. Drawing on both recent findings in cognitive science as well on Gilles Deleuze's cosmological pluralism, Connolly argues that deliberative democracy, and the contemporary left more generally, is guilty of intellectualism for overlooking the embodied, visceral register of political judgment. Going back to Deleuze and Guattari's A Thousand Plateaus, this article reconstructs the working assumptions of Connolly's critique and argues that it unwittingly leads to an indefensible embrace of manipulation. Against his micropolitics of visceral manipulation, I propose an alternative route for realizing Connolly's politics of agonistic negotiation in the form of a critical theory of the public sphere.

Over the past two decades, critical discourse analysis has emerged as a major new multidisciplinary approach to the study of texts and contexts in the public sphere.Developed in Europe, CDA has lately become increasingly popular in North America, where it is proving especially congenial to new directions in rhetoric and composition.This essay surveys much of this recent literature, noting how rhet/comp has incorporated CDA methodology in a variety of studies of inequality, ethics, higher education,critical pedagogy, news media, and institutional practices. CDA uses rigorous, empirical methods that are sensitive to both context and theory, making it ideal for the demandsof a range of projects being developed in our field.

Abstract The American Colonization Society emerged at a time when some Americans believed that a "moderate" solution to the problem of slavery could be achieved by removing free blacks to Africa. Upon announcing its formation in 1816, the society received a public rejoinder: the Counter Memorial against African Colonization. This essay explores multiple interpretations of the Counter Memorial to demonstrate the instability of colonizationists moderate rhetorical position. More specifically, this essay argues that the Counter Memorial suspends colonization within the uneasy and unresolved tensions manifested by competing depictions of blackness, or black personae, in American public discourse at the time.

Book Review| June 01 2012 Speechwright: An Insider’s Take on Political Rhetoric Speechwright: An Insider’s Take on Political Rhetoric. William F. Gavin. Craig R. Smith Craig R. Smith Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Rhetoric and Public Affairs (2012) 15 (2): 372–374. https://doi.org/10.2307/41940578 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Craig R. Smith; Speechwright: An Insider’s Take on Political Rhetoric. Rhetoric and Public Affairs 1 June 2012; 15 (2): 372–374. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/41940578 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectiveMichigan State University PressRhetoric and Public Affairs Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. © 2012 Michigan State University Board of Trustees2012 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

The International Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge, recently established by the National Science Foundation (NSF), is an alleged attempt at public outreach. The NSF encourages scientists to submit visualizations that would appeal to non-expert audiences by displaying their work in an annual “special feature” in Science magazine, and each year they present the winning image on the cover of Science as the ultimate reward. Although the NSF advertizes the competition as an attempt to educate non-scientists, the visualizations lack sufficient textual explanation in the Science special feature articles and do not demonstrate clear significance for current issues in science. This article assesses the actual motivations behind the NSF's “Visualization Challenge,” given the lack of accompanying textual information, and it explores the consequences of allowing “scientific” visualizations to float into the public sphere unexplained. It will be shown that the spirit of this competition exemplifies the current shift from “public understanding of science” to “public appreciation of science” in the growing field of Science Communication, particularly through the technique of “framing” devices. This shift in objective, accentuated in the realm of visual communication, reinforces the public's view of science as a mythic authority.

Abstract This essay analyzes one moment that has forced a reconsideration of the historical public sphere: the debate between John Stubbs and Queen Elizabeth I of England over her proposed marriage to the French Duke of Alençon. Stubbs adopted an argumentative strategy in which scripture served as a source of universal truth on which to base arguments about politics. Unable to allow such a strategy to undermine her own authority, Elizabeth's response asserted the communicative, rather than transcendent, nature of argument. Reading the debate in this way, in turn, calls into question a historical, developmental model of rationality and the public sphere. Ultimately, I argue, the public sphere does not develop as a radical emergence to be documented, but instead operates as a rearticulation of argumentative positions that are consistently and always available. Notes 1There are a number of discussions of the political possibility of the public sphere specific to the field of rhetoric; a review essay by Tanni Hass, and a special issue of Communication Theory edited by Michael Huspek, give a good indication of the directions of these discussions. Gerard Hauser is explicit in describing the possibility of reforming politics through rethinking the public sphere, while David G. Levassuer and Diana B. Carlin exemplify the assumption of the “public sphere” as a thing with a real historical existence that can be measured and examined. 2Other scholars have discussed the controversy between Elizabeth and Stubbs in terms of more thematic strategies without directly discussing questions of contemporary rhetorical theory. Jacqueline Vanhoutte considers this debate as demonstrating the emergence of a rhetoric of nationalism by both Stubbs and Elizabeth, while Debra Barrett-Graves sees Elizabeth and other politicians as employing a rhetoric focused specifically on the concept of honor. Illona Bell's argument is that the queen “was less outraged by Stubbs’ militant Protestantism … than by his overt paternalism and barely concealed antifeminism” (101). Peter Mack, Janet M. Green, and Allison Heisch have treated Elizabeth's rhetoric in terms of contemporary formal practice, such as her handling of schemes and tropes, while Cheryl Glenn and Janel Mueller have discussed how Elizabeth adapted her rhetoric in light of her position as a woman monarch. 3Although he had already become Duke of Anjou by the time of his courtship with Elizabeth, I follow the scholarly convention of referring to him by his first title, Duke of Alençon, though Elizabeth refers to him at times as Anjou. 4All of these scholars were connected with what has been variously called the Leicester faction or the Sidney circle—that group of political and literary figures associated with Leicester and the Sidney family, and with the reformist Protestantism (among other reforms) generated out of Cambridge University throughout the sjxteenth century. 5As defined by Dudley Fenner in 1584: “Methode is the judgement of more axioms, whereby many and divers axioms being framed according to the properties of an axiome perfectly or exactly judged, are so ordered as the easiest and most generall be set downe first, the harder are less generall next, until the whole matter be covered, as all the partes may best agree with themselves & be best kept in memorie. For as we consider in an axiome truth or falsehood, in a sillogisme, necessary following or not following, so in Methode the best and perfectest, the worst and troublesomest way to handle a matter” (Fenner 167). 6He commissioned Abraham Fraunce's Ramist Lawier's Logike, for example. 7Although it should be pointed out that this is in practice only—in theory scriptural understanding was available to all. But divines such as Knox, because of their training and study, were often better equipped, so the thinking went, to help people come to an understanding of the truth of scripture. 8Wallace MacCaffrey sums up both the views of faction and of Stubbs's pamphlet as produced at the bidding of others: “Its central arguments were shrewdly considered, comprehensive, and very knowledgeable. Indeed, they were so well informed—and so close in content to the actual council debates—that the Queen had some ground for her suspicion that someone in the Council was behind Stubbs” (Making 256). 9It is impossible to say in fact that Elizabeth authored this proclamation; however, a number of factors suggest authorship, while the nature of proclamations themselves is such that to discuss them as belonging to the monarch is not erroneous. Frederic A. Youngs has noted this proclamation is one of the lengthiest issued under Elizabeth; it is also one of her only proclamations to do more than simply issue an agenda or reiterate a legal ruling, but actually engage an opponent. The exact legal nature of proclamations under the Tudors has been the source of much debate, in their day and in our own, but it seems most likely that under Elizabeth they were issued primarily to call attention to an existing law, and as such served mainly, due to their widespread distribution, as an educational or, in a different sense, propagandistic tool. These would be sent to local authorities throughout the country and in cities, and their contents would be disseminated and enforced by those officials—so that their effectiveness in implementation depended on the crown's relationship to the particular localities. In other words, while their legal status was uncertain, they are effective gauges of the intentions of the monarchy. More than this, these proclamations can be seen as attempts to intervene into public discourse by setting the terms of that discourse—they are efforts to shape the ways in which the world under the monarch is thought of—both in the sense that they serve as reminders of the presence and authority of the monarch, as well as in the sense that they connect a particular understanding of the world to that authority. In considering this as an expression of Elizabeth's political will that is fully implicated in her rhetoric, it is useful to point to Paul L. Hughes and James F. Larkin, who collected the proclamations into the definitive anthology. They define a Tudor royal proclamation as “a public ordinance issued by the sovereign in virtue of the royal prerogative, with the advice of the Privy Council, under the Great Seal, by royal writ” (xvii). Whether or not they were in fact authored by a monarch's hand, proclamations were definitely authored as though by intention of the monarch, and always reflective of the monarch's interests; so Hughes calls the proclamation (vol 1, p. xxvii): “a literary form psychologically gauged to elicit from the subject an obedient response, favorable to the will and interests of the crown.” Given the personal nature of this particular proclamation, and given its unique features, to call the proclamation Elizabeth's seems to me warranted.

Abstract President Obama’s commencement address on the University of Notre Dame campus evoked substantial controversy, providing public demonstration of rhetorical differences and demands generated by differing provincial and cosmopolitan positions. Icontend that public civic rhetoric, in an era of narrative and virtue contention, must address the creative interplay of both provincial and cosmopolitan perspectives. In this essay I examine reactions to the Obama address from news sources connected with the local Catholic diocese, as well as the South Bend and University of Notre Dame newspapers. I argue that Obamas address is an example of a public civic speech that openly engaged the interplay of provincial and cosmopolitan understandings of a controversial communal common center. Obamas Notre Dame speech framed discourse that walks within a world of tension and difference on the public stage, highlighting the communal rhetorical constitution of a speech moment shaped through the interplay of provincial and cosmopolitan commitments.

Public rhetoric pedagogy can benefit from an ecological perspective that sees change as advocated not through a single document but through multiple mundane and monumental texts. This article summarizes various approaches to rhetorical ecology, offers an ecological read of the Montgomery bus boycotts, and concludes with pedagogical insights on a first-year composition project emphasizing rhetorical ecologies.

“I ask what kind of citizen is invited to participate in the collective fantasy that is invoked in current immigration law. What kind of imaginary does such a fantasy produce and in what ways does it echo through public discourses?”

Research Article| September 01 2011 The Prudential Public Sphere David Randall David Randall Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Philosophy & Rhetoric (2011) 44 (3): 205–226. https://doi.org/10.5325/philrhet.44.3.0205 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Twitter Permissions Search Site Citation David Randall; The Prudential Public Sphere. Philosophy & Rhetoric 1 September 2011; 44 (3): 205–226. doi: https://doi.org/10.5325/philrhet.44.3.0205 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectivePenn State University PressPhilosophy & Rhetoric Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Copyright © 2011 by The Pennsylvania State University. All rights reserved.2011The Pennsylvania State University Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

The nuclear power industry is undergoing a renaissance, led by initiatives from the Obama administration and several states. In light of this development and the growing information economy, it is crucial that the public be well-informed, effective, and responsible regarding important technological issues. For this reason, undergraduate education, whether for technical or non-technical majors, must include an awareness of the complexity, ambiguity, and interestedness of the use of technical language and information. This is particularly important in communication involving public discourse and perceptions. I discuss here how I foster such awareness in my junior-level technical writing course for non-majors. We focus on the concept “safe” in relation to radiation and nuclear power. This is done in the overall context of making a recommendation for nuclear power as an energy source for the state of Florida for the next two decades, a realistic and urgent technical communication situation. Students see that standards and even the definitions of crucial terms shift depending on context and social circumstances, and that real-world choices involve trade-offs and balances between advantages and disadvantages.

Phonographic or verbatim reports, in claiming to replicate extemporaneous speeches, offer a version of interactions that occurred in public settings. The "technology" of record represented the dialogic nature of abolitionist oratory, creating a discursive space for identification for attending and reading publics. Authorized by an appeal to accuracy, full-text reproductions of speeches were both a reflection and a performance of publicness. Full-text records represented abolitionists as truthful (offering an alternative to proslavery designations of "fanatic"), while also facilitating the circulation of the sounds of abolitionist events, using the means of mass production. The rhetorical force of these records depended on their assertions of accuracy, as well as the aural and embodied public presence that they implied. The narrative created by the phonographer, operating in the transitional space between fixed and unfixed text, emphasizes the rational, inclusive nature of abolitionist public discourse, simultaneously creating and representing an abolitionist public sphere.

Abstract More than ten years after his death, Matthew Shepard is still remembered prominently in LGBT discourse. This discourse has been used to defy heteronormative characterizations of violence, confirm gay and lesbian identity, and to "queer" rigid notions of community. Tracing Shepard s memory through three contested memory frames, I argue for an expanded perspective of queer counterpublic memories and the strategic use of public memories by counterpublics.

Abstract This essay argues for a reprivileging of the object of speech in the study of public address. To this end, public discourse concerning the tonal qualities of male and female speech, particularly in moments of affective transgression, is examined to better discern our deeply gendered, cultural norms of eloquence. The primary case study analyzes reactions to the oratory ofBarack Obama and Hillary Clinton to show how their respective vocal tones played a significant role in the 2008 presidential election.

Abstract We live in a world of risks that lurk everywhere, in the food and water we consume, in the viruses and bacteria we encounter, and in the global political scene that seems more and more volatile. This article pursues two lines of inquiry: first, I use the concept of risk, and specifically the work of Ulrich Beck, to show how the relationship between science, politics, and rhetoric is being transformed from earlier, politically progressive, twentieth-century conceptions of the role of science in public culture. Second, I try to explain how the concept of risk has altered political culture and requires a different form of prudence for political rhetoric. These two lines of inquiry work to demonstrate how uncertainty and contingency are now the products of techno-scientific rationality. This way of thinking about contingency changes how we understand the practices of political rhetoric and the constitution of public culture. Additional informationNotes on contributorsRobert Danisch Robert Danisch is Assistant Professor in the General Studies Unit at Concordia University, 1455 De Maisonneuve West EV-6.233, Montreal, Quebec H2S 2E3, Canada.

Nineteenth-century presses delighted in reporting on the “spectacle” of the Amana Society, playing up the contrast between this pious communistic community of German immigrants and its “ambitious” individualistic American counterparts. These accounts employed a rhetoric of containment, a form of rhetorical imagining that contains the threat of a non-normative community. Three characteristics of this rhetoric are evident in the Amana descriptions: (1) a particular gaze that views the community as a picture; (2) a degree of praise that is simultaneously undermined by a nostalgic attitude toward the community; and (3) an assertion that the benefits of this lifestyle require an unthinkable sacrifice incompatible with the imagining audience's nature or values. Containment rhetoric neutralizes the threat of the imagined group—often by circulating its tropes and images to more public, powerful venues—and implicitly defines the group as peripheral to the larger public.

Abstract Communication scholars interested in presidential rhetoric on public policy are very familiar with the rhetorical presidency, but there is another paradigm worth our consideration: the unitary executive. This model emphasizes the institutional reasons why presidents might not use public discourse to promote theirpolicies, relying instead on the expanding powers of the executive branch. Although there is relatively little discussion of one model within scholarship dedicated to the other, this essay argues for the benefits of considering both models simultaneously. As changes occur within the executive office’s capacity for creating and enforcing public policy, so too must our critical orientation to the study of presidential rhetoric.

Reviewed are Making Writing Matter: Composition in the Engaged University by Ann Feldman; City of Rhetoric: Revitalizing the Public Sphere in Metropolitan America by David Fleming; and Living Room: Teaching Public Writing in a Privatized World by Nancy Welch.

In the post-Civil War United States, several historically black colleges gave a central role to classical rhetoric in their curricula, and many of their students used its concepts to develop a distinctly black, oppositional public sphere.

I have been looking forward to the publication of City of Rhetoric since I first heard David Fleming present his research on the rhetoric of gentrification several years ago. My anticipation was a ...

Our article seeks to integrate alternative voices into traditional rhetorical study by turning to Bitch and BUST, two mainstream zines that serve as dynamic examples of young women’s rhetoric in action. We believe these zines are shaping the present and future of women’s rhetoric. Their most significant contribution to the understanding of women’s rhetoric is located in the way they accommodate ethotic constructions that are at once contradictory and complementary. While these texts can seem abrasive and perhaps even outrageous, the ways in which the writers shape their ethe can teach rhetoricians and teachers of rhetoric and writing about the modes of argumentation practiced by this subculture of the current feminist movement, one which is firmly grounded in the larger public sphere.

This article argues that the teaching of public writing should not neglect issues of circulation and local need. In a series of case studies involving small press papers and homeless advocacy, the authors seek to extend recent work begun by Susan Wells, John Trimbur, and Nancy Welch, which raises crucial questions about public rhetoric in the writing classroom.

This article uses theories of space and findability to analyze a public information center as an example of multi-modal risk communication. The Yucca Mountain Information Center is an informational space created by the Department of Energy to inform the public about the proposed nuclear waste repository planned for Yucca Mountain, Nevada. As a public space, the Center uses fact sheets, posters, and three-dimensional displays to make arguments about the storage of nuclear waste; we argue that the physical space, text, displays, and online space are all elements of risk communication. We offer a new way to read these elements of risk communication and suggest potential opportunities for public agency.

This article examines the characteristics of collaborative work and overlapping activity systems in the popular online game World of Warcraft. Using genre theory and activity theory as frames to work out the genre ecology of gameplay, the article focuses on how players coordinate ad hoc grouping activity across and through genres. It articulates the related development of open systems in online gaming in a discussion of interface modifications (AddOns) and online information databases that players generate, drawing on De Certeau's formulation of strategies and tactics and Warner's discussion of publics and counterpublics. The article concludes by discussing implications of online gaming for an open-systems approach to information design in professional communication and for professional communication in general.

David Fleming's City of Rhetoric: Revitalizing the Public Sphere in Metropolitan America is a timely monograph in at least three respects. In the wake of the election of Barack Obama, City of Rheto...

Research Article| January 01 2009 Publics, Counterpublics, and the Promise of Democracy Melanie Loehwing; Melanie Loehwing Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Jeff Motter Jeff Motter Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Philosophy & Rhetoric (2009) 42 (3): 220–241. https://doi.org/10.2307/25655356 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Twitter Permissions Search Site Citation Melanie Loehwing, Jeff Motter; Publics, Counterpublics, and the Promise of Democracy. Philosophy & Rhetoric 1 January 2009; 42 (3): 220–241. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/25655356 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectivePenn State University PressPhilosophy & Rhetoric Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Copyright © 2009 The Pennsylvania State University2009The Pennsylvania State University Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

In situations of potential business change, the cooperation of various direct and indirect stakeholders (i.e., employees, customers, shareholders, neighbors) is crucial. The alternative policy courses may all be reasonable, and yet none of them may be clearly best for all stakeholders; support for an option must be cultivated through public rhetoric. Loci communes and Burkean transcendence are two potent rhetorical strategies that can help business leaders publicly weigh and civilly advocate a policy position relative to competing alternatives. This article develops and illustrates that argument by analyzing the public rhetoric involved in AirTran's attempt to build support for its hostile takeover of Midwest Airlines and Midwest's successful resistance to that attempt. Midwest's deft development of the transcendent term value helped it circumvent the initial deadlock between its preferred loci communes (i.e., the existent and quality) and AirTran's (i.e., the possible and quantity). The article advances a rationale and call for rhetorical scholarship to adopt more situated, social practice views of loci communes and transcendence.

This article employs theories of counterpublics to investigate the Arab-American press before and after 9/11 as a counterpublic to the American war on terror. We use Squires's categorization of counterpublics as (1) assimilative enclaves, (2) satellites seeking separation, or (3) resistant counterpublics, actively dissenting. Using a corpus of 113 articles from Arab American News, we argue that the Arab-American press circulated stories consistent with (1) and (2) but not (3). We conclude that a strategy of active resistance required greater standing of the Arab-American point of view in mainstream American thought than Arab-Americans enjoyed.

This article analyzes the Web interfaces of two well-known national civic action groups, both related to genetics research: the Genetic Alliance and the Innocence Project. These two sites are excellent examples of interface design and information retrieval, and they also attempt to translate complex science to the general public, even those traditionally most underrepresented and marginalized by the complexities of science and technology. The Genetic Alliance and Innocence Project provide excellent case studies for technical communication courses about the necessity to marry factual scientific knowledge with cultural and emotional rhetorics while providing an interface for multiple stakeholders in public policy change.

The Rate My Professors (RMP) online student discourse community shapes and defines current public rhetorics of pedagogy. RMP is a cultural phenomenon indicative of a larger movement in extra-institutional discourse toward ranking and assessing people and products. More important than the postings on RMP, however, or their measurable accuracy, is how RMP reflects the increasingly convergent interests of consumer culture and academic culture, shaping the ways that pedagogy is valued and assessed by students within the public domain. Faculty therefore must consider RMP's effect on public discourse about pedagogy in order to help students understand evaluation as a tool for civic exchange.

This essay reports on a university-school oral history project at an elementary school in Brooklyn, New York. It theorizes the dialectic of place and history as expressed in the voices of the school community and goes on to suggest some tenets for a public sphere pedagogy rooted in material rhetoric and economic geography.

The spaces in which public deliberation most often takes place are institutionally, technologically, and scientifically complex. In this article, we argue that in order to participate, citizens must be able to invent valued knowledge. This invention requires using complex information technologies to access, assemble, and analyze information in order to produce the professional and technical performances expected in contemporary civic forums. We argue for a civic rhetoric that expands to research the complicated nature of interface technologies, the inventional practices of citizens as they use these technologies, and the pedagogical approaches to encourage the type of collaborative and coordinated work these invention strategies require.