Bruce E. Gronbeck

The functions of presidential campaigning

This essay describes a set of instrumental and consummatory functions served by presidential campaigning, and analyzes the objects and acts which manifest those functions.

Media Literacy and Television Criticism: Enabling an Informed and Engaged Citizenry

This article argues that the concept of media literacy is strengthened when it is understood as media criticism. After briefly tracing the development from concerns about television in the early 1950s to the Aspen Institute’s 1992 call for media literacy, the article overviews several types of television criticism to illustrate how criticism embraces and moves beyond mere literacy to provide a vehicle for citizen empowerment and engagement. The conclusion reflects on the ethical impulse in media criticism and on how moral engagement with television by literate and critical citizens can serve to democratize public sphere policy debates over communication in the public sphere.

Rhetorical timing in public communication

Since the writing of Ecclesiastes and since the 5th‐century B.C. Greeks speculated about kairos, to prepon, and rhetoric, men have believed that “timing” is part of that which makes rhetorical discourse appropriate to an occasion and audience. Little systematic study of the subject has led the author to explore the presuppositions for, a definition of, and the social and psychological bases undergirding our sense of “rhetorical timing.”

Rhetorical history and rhetorical criticism: A distinction

The writer argues that, conceptually, rhetorical history (the study of the historical effects of rhetorical discourse) and rhetorical criticism (the analysis of rhetorical discourse and acts for a series of essentially normative or advisory purposes) must pursue different goals, ought to be judged by differing criteria, and usually employ varying sources of evidence. Among other recommendations, he suggests not simply teaching “methods” and “approaches” but teaching much about the personal, aesthetic, normative, predictive, and social functions of rhetorical analysis.

The rhetoric of political corruption: Sociolinguistic, dialectical, and ceremonial processes

Although political corruption has been examined within a political‐institutional context by political scientists and economists, few scholars have investigated the social‐rhetorical roots, manifestations, and functions of the public discourse surrounding such acts. This essay argues that the ritualistic deposition of corrupters is based in a sociolinguistic process of assigning meanings to acts, a dialectical process of contrapositioning competing voices, and a ceremonial process of acting out the drama of purgation before the affected institutions and/or the society at large.

Negative narratives in 1988 presidential campaign ads

Narrative polispots are mini‐stories that participate in two narrative structures simultaneously: the story being told in the ad (enonce,) and the story being told by the ad (enunciation). The relationships existing between those two structures can affect voters’ positive or negative feelings about a campaign. This essay illustrates these ideas from presidential campaign ads used in 1988; conclusions about Campaign ‘88, the rhetorical aspects of negative ads, and the sociocultural dimensions of presidential campaigning generally are drawn.

The Repersonalization of Presidential Campaigning in 2004

This article examines the evolution of presidential campaigning in a digital era. The authors contend that changes in political processes brought on by an extended caucus system, voting initiatives, and advances in communication technology are inspiring the repersonalization of presidential elections. Cyberpolitics draw candidates, parties, and citizens into a tighter web of connections that reinvigorates the personalized style of campaigning popular in earlier times in U.S. political history.

Preference poll stories in the last 2 weeks of Campaign 2000: uses of the massed opinions of numbered citizens

If campaigns are times for political representatives to consult or negotiate with a citizenry, then the ways that a public conversation is conducted matters. In this study, all campaign stories in two national newspapers over the last 2 weeks of Campaign 2000 were sorted by dominant issues and examined for public commentary on those issues. About 60% of the stories featured discussion of candidate images (within narratives of campaigning depicted as races, military campaigns, or dramatic performances), with the remaining stories featuring 1 of 18 other issues. Issues as such all but disappeared. The candidate image stories were dominated by statistical representations of binary—yes-no, good-bad—opinions. The study concludes that the public had no real voice in the electoral conversation at the end of Campaign 2000, only serving to indicate who was ahead or behind. A citizenry can have little effect on political agenda if depicted only as a numerical mass.

Qualitative Communication Theory and Rhetorical Studies in the 1980s.

Recent rhetorical scholarship suggests a new focus on qualitative theories of human communication. This essay explores the implications of three general emphases for future inquiry: (1) rules research, (2) constructivism, and (3) constructionism.

The academic practice of television criticism

AMUSING OURSELVES TO DEATH: PUBLIC DISCOURSE IN THE AGE OF SHOW BUSINESS. By Neil Postman. New York: Viking Penguin, 1986; pp. 184.