Unit II: Political Change
Week 2 (5 February)
Preparation Guide
Reading:
- McGee, Michael Calvin. "Text, Context, and the Fragmentation of Contemporary
Culture." Western Journal of Speech Communication 54 (1990): 274-289.
- Edelman, Murray. Constructing the Political Spectacle. Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1988.
Viewing:
Notes on reading the Edelman perspective
Edelman is not written sequentially. Edelman is a contextualist.
Thus, each chapter is a foray through the same material from a different direction.
To use a cachet term, he vectors political change. Read him that way,
each chapter giving you a different perspective and a different way through.
I have generated the following questions to help orient you to how to read
Edelman. They are not a comprehensive list of questions you might find
answered there. In fact, they concentrate on sensitizing you to Edelman's
perspective rather than to the things you should take from Edelman as you go
to our example of political change.
- Edelman says he treats problems, people, leaders, and lots of other things
as constructions. What does this mean? How does it influence
how we study communication? Are there differences from a neo-Aristotelian
or persuasion model?
- One interpretation of Edelman is that he shifts the action in communication
from attitudes to meanings. Do you agree? Why is
this significant? Is it significant?
- Where are meanings for Edelman? Who shapes them? Who is the
rhetor?
- Is social change in meanings? Or do meanings shape change? If the latter,
how?
- Edelman identifies himself with relativist ideas. What is Edelman's
brand of relativism? Is there material fact for Edelman? If so,
how does material fact reach political change?
- Where are political institutions in Edelman's perspective? What is
their place in communication?
- What is the logic of problems? What categories are created
with the term "problem"? How do those categories relate to
each other?
- How does Edelman define a leader? What are the important concepts
to him in understanding the power of leadership?
- How do enemies influence social change? What are the rhetorical possibilities
of constructing enemies? How can they be used?
- From Edelman's perspective how does the perspective and intent of the agent
of change differ from the perspective and intent of the news journalist?
Is this difference important? How?
- What are the dimensions of news that influence change from Edelman's perspective?
- What is a political spectacle? How does it shape social change?
How does it influence the way a rhetor thinks about communication in the service
of social change?
- How would an agent of change use Edelman's insights?
Preparing for Discussion in the Seminar
Come with an organized list of questions that stand between you and understanding
Edelman. My suggestion is that you take each of the ways Edelman works through
politics and provide yourself a kind of guide for acquiring that perspective
on a political event including:
- important vocabulary,
- questions that might guide your research,
- even functions that are important in that approach to politics.
Then deploy Edelman in discussing the texture of Wilburforce's efforts to achieve
abolition depicting in the film.
Plan for the Seminar Meeting
Before the break
Introduction to political change. (Klumpp in charge)
- Persuasion versus meaning-centered approaches
- Strategic Communication within social institutions
- Political permenence and change: limiting and channeling change
- Public, political, and technical spheres: legitimacy of action
- Persuasion, public opinion, and the political system
After the break
Working through your questions on Edelman
The political effort for abolition depicted in the film
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Week 3 (12 February)
Preparation Guide
Reading:
- Brock, Bernard L., Mark E. Huglen,
James F. Klumpp, and Sharon Howell, Making Sense of Political Ideology
Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005
Where Edelman provides us a vocabulary
for getting inside how rhetoric shapes power, Brock, et al., put us one step
back: How ideology shapes political dispute? Here the vocabulary and moves you
are mastering permit analysis of the rhetoric that shapes the constructions
outlined by Edelman.
Preparing for Discussion in the Seminar
Prepare your questions on Brock, et al., as you did on Edelman.
To exercise what you have learned answer the following question: Does Obama
represent an effort at political reorientation similar to FDR and Reagan? Be
sure and use the vocaulary and framework of the book to analyze the question.
Plan for the Seminar Meeting
Before the break
Discussion of Brock et. al, and the Obama question.
After the break
Our political research team will organize our study of the Clinton Health Care
Proposal.
View some Health Care rhetoric
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Week 4 (19 February)
Preparation Guide
Reading:
Reading by Groups: Read Lexis-Nexis coverage for the following time periods:
- November 1992-May 1993:( Terri, Karen, Hillary)
- May 1993-November 1993: (Shayna, Tim, Gina)
- December 1993-May 1994: (Heather, Ben, Abbe)
- June 1994-November 1994: (Elizabeth, Jim, Jeannette, Donald)
Optional Reading
- PBS Timeline (emailed to the class)
- 1994 Republican Contract With America
( http://www.house.gov/house/Contract/CONTRACT.html )
- Scarlett, Thomas. "Killing Health Care Reform." Campaigns & Elections (Oct 1994): (no page numbers available, accessible through
Lexis-Nexis)
- Barker, David C. "Rush to Action: Political Talk Radio and Health Care (un)Reform." Political Communication 15 (1998): 83-97.
Viewing:
- William J. Clinton, Address to Congress on Health Care, September 22, 1993
- William J. Clinton, Town Hall Meeting, Tampa FL, September 23, 1993
- Hillary R. Clinton, Testimony to Congress, September 28, 1993
- Harry and Louise commercials
Preparing for Discussion in the Seminar
TBA
Plan for the Seminar Meeting
Before the break
TBA
After the break
TBA
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Week 5 (26 FebruarySeptember)
Prepare Class Presentations
Political research group prepares their 15 minute studies of Clinton Health
Care proposal
Plan for the Seminar Meeting
Presentations
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Additional Optional Bibliography
Basic Reading:
- Murray Edelman. Politics as Symbolic Action: Mass Arousal
and Quiescence. Chicago: Markham, 1971.
- Kenneth M. Dolbeare. Political Change in the United States: A Framework
for Analysis. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1974.
- Murray Edelman. Political Language: Words that Succeed and
Policies that Fail. New York: Academic Press, 1977.
Illustrative Studies:
- David Zarefsky. President Johnson's War on Poverty: Rhetoric and History.
University: University of Alabama Press, 1986.
- Joseph Gusfield. The Culture of Public Problems : Drinking-Driving and
the Symbolic Order. Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 1981.
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