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- All Subjects: Digital communications
- Creators: Long, Elenore
Description
In this dissertation, I study large-scale civic conversations where technology extends the range of “discourse visibility” beyond what human eyes and ears can meaningfully process without technical assistance. Analyzing government documents on digital innovation in government, emerging data activism practices, and large-scale civic conversations on social media, I advance a rhetoric for productively listening to democratic discourse as it is practiced in 2016. I propose practical strategies for how various governments—from the local to the United Nations international climate talks—might appropriately use technical interventions to assist civic dialogues and make civic decisions. Acknowledging that we must not lose the value that comes from face-to-face civic deliberation, I suggest practical pathways for how and when to use technology to increase democratic engagement from all stakeholders.
ContributorsSutherland, Alison (Author) / Adamson, Joni (Thesis advisor) / Long, Elenore (Committee member) / Simeone, Michael (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
This dissertation discusses how Twitter may function not only as a tool for planning public protest, but also as a discursive site, albeit a virtual one, for staging protest itself. Much debate exists on the value and extent that Twitter (and other social media or social networking sites) can contribute to successful activism for social justice. Previously, scholars' assessments of online activism have tended to turn on a simple binary: either the activity enjoyed complete success for a social movement (for instance, during the Arab Spring an overthrow of a regime) or else the campaign was designated as a failure. In my dissertation, I examine a Twitter public-relations campaign organized by the New York Police Department using the hashtag #MyNYPD. The campaign asked citizens to tweet pictures of themselves with police officers, and the public did, just not in the way the police department envisioned. Instead of positive photos with the police, the public organized online to share pictures of police brutality and harassment. I collected six months of tweets using #MyNYPD, and then analyzed protestors' rhetorical work through three lenses: rhetorical analysis, analysis of literacy practices, and social network analysis. These analyses show, first, the complex rhetorical work required to appropriate the police department's public-service campaign for purposes that subverted its original intent; second, the wide range of literacy practices required to mobilize and to sustain public attention on data exposing police abuse; and third, the networked activity constituting the protest online. Together, these analyses show the important work achieved within this social justice campaign beyond the binary definition of successful activism. This project shows that by increasing our analytical repertoires for studying digital rhetoric and writing, scholars can more accurately acknowledge what it takes for participants to share experiential knowledge, to construct new knowledge, and to mobilize connections when engaging online in public protest.
ContributorsHayes, Tracey (Author) / Hayes, Elisabeth (Thesis advisor) / Long, Elenore (Thesis advisor) / Boyd, Patricia (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
Rhetoric has traditionally enjoyed a close connection with ideals of citizenship. Yet, the rhetorical traditions of the medieval period have generally been described as divorced from civic life, concerned instead with theories of composition in specific genres (such as letters and sermons) and with poetics. This view is the product of historiographical approaches that equate rhetoric either theories and practices of speech and writing intended for state-sponsored civic forums, or alternatively with rules governing future speech or literary production. Consequently, the prevailing view of the medieval period in rhetorical studies is a simplified one that has not evolved with changing practices of analysis in the field of rhetorical studies. This dissertation contends that by employing alternative modes of historiography, historians of rhetoric gain a more accurate conception of medieval rhetoric’s civic roles, revealing the discipline’s role in shaping the individual and their relationship to civic and political institutions.
Organized around an introduction, a broad discussion of later medieval rhetoric and political thought (950-1390), four case studies, and a conclusion, this dissertation begins by identifying historiographical trends that have associated medieval rhetoric with technical treatises, minimizing connections to civic life. Challenging these assessments through a close reading of texts of rhetorical theory, political philosophy, and technical treatises, it contends that medieval rhetoric influenced activities such as grammatical education, didactic art, and political theory to inform practices of citizenship. Focusing specifically on representations of labor, this dissertation show that these venues idealized the political participation of manual laborers within an otherwise discursive theory of civic life that drew from both Aristotelian and Ciceronian sources.
Organized around an introduction, a broad discussion of later medieval rhetoric and political thought (950-1390), four case studies, and a conclusion, this dissertation begins by identifying historiographical trends that have associated medieval rhetoric with technical treatises, minimizing connections to civic life. Challenging these assessments through a close reading of texts of rhetorical theory, political philosophy, and technical treatises, it contends that medieval rhetoric influenced activities such as grammatical education, didactic art, and political theory to inform practices of citizenship. Focusing specifically on representations of labor, this dissertation show that these venues idealized the political participation of manual laborers within an otherwise discursive theory of civic life that drew from both Aristotelian and Ciceronian sources.
ContributorsLoveridge, Jordan Thomas (Author) / Lamp, Kathleen (Thesis advisor) / Long, Elenore (Thesis advisor) / Goggin, Maureen D (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017