Matching Items (3)
Filtering by
- All Subjects: Arizona--Emigration and immigration--Press coverage.
- All Subjects: deliberation
- All Subjects: Radicalization
- All Subjects: Terrorism--Religious aspects--Islam--Social aspects.
- Genre: Doctoral Dissertation
- Creators: Miller, Keith
- Creators: Salihu, Flurije
- Member of: ASU Electronic Theses and Dissertations
- Resource Type: Text
Description
This dissertation explores the various online radicalization and recruitment practices of groups like al-Qaeda and Hezbollah, as well as Salafi Jihadists in general. I will also outline the inadequacies of the federal government's engagement with terrorist / Islamist ideologies and explore the ways in which early 20th century foundational Islamist theorists like Hasan al-Banna, Sayyid Qutb, and Abul ala Mawdudi have affected contemporary extremist Islamist groups, while exploring this myth of the ideal caliphate which persists in the ideology of contemporary extremist Islamist groups. In a larger sense, I am arguing that exploitation of the internet (particularly social networking platforms) in the radicalization of new communities of followers is much more dangerous than cyberterrorism (as in attacks on cyber networks within the government and the private sector), which is what is most often considered to be the primary threat that terrorists pose with their presence on the internet. Online radicalization should, I argue, be given more consideration when forming public policy because of the immediate danger that it poses, especially given the rise of microterrorism. Similarly, through the case studies that I am examining, I am bringing the humanities into the discussion of extremist (religious) rhetorics, an area of discourse that those scholars have largely ignored.
ContributorsSalihu, Flurije (Author) / Ali, Souad T. (Thesis advisor) / Miller, Keith (Thesis advisor) / Corman, Steven (Committee member) / Gee, James P (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
Scholars have attended to paradoxes inherent in wider public discourse where subordinated groups most affected by laws and sanctions have the least political, material, and rhetorical capital to speak back to them. Such scholarship often focuses either on the subordinated status of a group or the work of subordinated groups going public as part of a collective mass movement for social change. In doing so, scholarship risks undermining the agency of subordinated rhetors or treating mass-movement rhetoric as somehow both exceptional and yet necessary for enacting cultural citizenship. What is less frequently studied is the agency that local publics demonstrate through their tenacious organizational decision-making in the face of political, material, and rhetorical sanctions.
In response to this gap, this project features the Puente Movement, a mixed-documentation-status grassroots organization in Phoenix, AZ. Specifically, I’ve analyzed this organization’s public efforts from April 23rd, 2010 to September 6th, 2012 to oppose Senate Bill 1070—a state-specific measure to stop undocumented immigration across the Mexico/Arizona border and deport current undocumented residents. I situate the study in the larger context of Latino cultural citizenship. Combining a critical-incident interview technique and a rhetorically informed decision-making framework, I analyze Puente’s active construction and public circulation of argumentative appeals in relation to their decision-making that attempted to leverage Puente’s identity and membership to serve its constituents and to continue to direct wider public attention to SB 1070. Using a five-part framework to assess potential risks and benefits, the study documents the complexity of this decision-making. For instance, the study shows how Puente’s strategy of Barrio Defense Committees negotiated the tension between protecting the identification of local residents and publically protesting the injustices of immigration sanctions. It also highlights how a strategy to use member’s undocumented status as a point of publicity actively engaged tensions between the narratives Puente members wanted to present to the public about undocumented people and the images otherwise circulated. Behind these strategies and others like them is Puente’s persistent effort to re-frame immigration controversy. Findings are relevant to the study of Latino/a social movements, public-spheres scholarship, and action-research with subordinated rhetors.
In response to this gap, this project features the Puente Movement, a mixed-documentation-status grassroots organization in Phoenix, AZ. Specifically, I’ve analyzed this organization’s public efforts from April 23rd, 2010 to September 6th, 2012 to oppose Senate Bill 1070—a state-specific measure to stop undocumented immigration across the Mexico/Arizona border and deport current undocumented residents. I situate the study in the larger context of Latino cultural citizenship. Combining a critical-incident interview technique and a rhetorically informed decision-making framework, I analyze Puente’s active construction and public circulation of argumentative appeals in relation to their decision-making that attempted to leverage Puente’s identity and membership to serve its constituents and to continue to direct wider public attention to SB 1070. Using a five-part framework to assess potential risks and benefits, the study documents the complexity of this decision-making. For instance, the study shows how Puente’s strategy of Barrio Defense Committees negotiated the tension between protecting the identification of local residents and publically protesting the injustices of immigration sanctions. It also highlights how a strategy to use member’s undocumented status as a point of publicity actively engaged tensions between the narratives Puente members wanted to present to the public about undocumented people and the images otherwise circulated. Behind these strategies and others like them is Puente’s persistent effort to re-frame immigration controversy. Findings are relevant to the study of Latino/a social movements, public-spheres scholarship, and action-research with subordinated rhetors.
ContributorsOliver, Veronica (Author) / Long, Elenore (Committee member) / Miller, Keith (Committee member) / Bebout, Lee (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
My dissertation is situated in the speculative—that rhetorical domain of human affairs concerned with conditions we cannot entirely predict or control. Specifically, my research investigates the polarization and unease many of us feel as we imagine a world in which humans are no longer in the driver’s seat. It offers a literate practice of framing to facilitate substantive talk about the possible effects of the impending technology. To pursue this line of inquiry, I draw from Kenneth Burke’s frames of acceptance and rejection. In particular, I developed a computer-based tool and tested the prototype in a pilot project. The study is designed to assess the technai (rhetorical problem-solving tools that transform limits and barriers into possibilities) I fashioned from Burke’s six frames of acceptance and rejection to prompt participants to articulate epic, tragic, comedic, elegiac, satirical and burlesque driving futures. Findings from the study reveal that the practice of framing helps scaffold participants’ thinking beyond the good/bad binary and toward more realistically complex understandings and expectations of the future of driving. For example, one student commented that “the frames guided discussion and added a well-rounded perspective that we individuals may not have otherwise taken into consideration.” Ultimately, this study demonstrates the power of effectively designed deliberative experiences. Technai teach useful practices to teachers, students, scholars – all of whom need opportunities to critically assess the risks and rewards of our technology-laden lives. This research pushes our scholarship to focus on rhetorics that surround speculative public scientific controversies like the driverless car, in order to advocate for our individual and collective well-being.
ContributorsSantana, Christina Jean (Author) / Long, Elenore (Thesis advisor) / Miller, Keith (Committee member) / Hannah, Mark (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016