Kathryn M. Olson

Entanglements of consumption, cruelty, privacy, and fashion: The social controversy over fur

This essay posits a critical approach to the study of contemporary social controversy so as to initiate inquiry into how these extended rhetorical engagements critique, resituate, and develop communication practices bridging the public and personal spheres. Objections to the use of fur are examined as oppositional argument, that is, as rhetoric that veers from the goal of persuasion in order to block conventional associations and refashion communication norms. Pro‐fur responses illustrate strategies available to bolster, alter, or abandon habits of consumer culture. It is concluded that the fur controversy presages the emerging shape of a contemporary public sphere.

The strategic potential of sequencing apologia stases: President Clinton's self‐defense in the Monica Lewinsky scandal

With todays advanced media capabilities and accessibility, scandal accusations tend to unfold across time and require an apologists response before the accusations themselves are fully formed. Yet theories and critical studies of apologia tend to assume a single major apologetic opportunity to address a reasonably complete kategoria with a single primary audience and also assume that an apologist must choose decisively among the four stases of defense (i.e., fact, definition, jurisdiction, quality) to succeed. This essay proposes the notion of a progressive apologia that maintains options and shifts systematically among stases as kategoria gradually unfold. Using President Bill Clintons response to the evolving Monica Lewinsky scandal across the course of more than a year to illustrate, we argue that featuring the stases in a particular progressive order (fact; then jurisdiction and definition; then finally quality), while maintaining sufficient ambiguity in each stage to preserve the viability of the other stases, explains his success in ways that the current state of rhetorical studies cannot. Critical, theoretical, and pedagogical implications of identifying a progressive apologia model are discussed.

Beyond strategy: a reader‐centered analysis of irony's dual persuasive uses

Ironic texts offer pleasure both as what Burke called “ordinary” and “pure persuasion.” Readers may engage these symbolic dimensions simultaneously, but in different relative proportions. Using the coincidence of the 1986 sentencing of sanctuary movement members and the rededication of the Statue of Liberty, we offer four possible interpretive positions on two ironic political cartoons: optimistic readers interested primarily in the correctives of ordinary persuasion, some of whom politically side with the establishment and others who side with sanctuary; cynical readers interested primarily in the intrinsic symbolic pleasures of pure persuasion; and skeptics who appreciate the appeals of ordinary and pure persuasion in a single text.

Detecting a common interpretive framework for impersonal violence: The homology in participants’ rhetoric on sport hunting, “hate crimes,” and stranger rape

Based on the discourse of sport hunters, “hate criminals, “ and stranger rapists, this essay argues that a common interpretive framework rhetorically informs all three activities. The four features of the homology identified are: (a) the rhetor symbolically constructs and physically initiates an adversarial relationship with non‐consenting victims/prey class members, (b) victims/prey class members are selected opportunistically and constructed impersonally as relatively interchangeable class representatives, (c) rhetors distance and impersonalize victims/prey, without objectifying them or diminishing their presumed potency or the status accompanying conquering them, and (d) rhetors express a desire to physically assert—and take pleasure in exhibiting—dominance and superior hierarchical status. An important finding is that the violent actors studied symbolically construe their victims/prey as “Others,” sensate and worth dominating, not merely as valueless objects, and experience themselves in relationship with these “Others” in some shared hierarchy that the violent actors perceive as significant. The essay argues that this interpretive framework is a variation on, rather than a deviation from, mainstream American societys motivational rhetoric. It concludes by examining one possible alternative framework for symbolically encompassing those same motives without justifying impersonal violence and in a way that promotes more pro‐social impersonal relationships.

Rethinking Loci Communes and Burkean Transcendence Rhetorical Leadership While Contesting Change in the Takeover Struggle Between AirTran and Midwest Airlines

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 AirTrans attempt to build support for its hostile takeover of Midwest Airlines and Midwests successful resistance to that attempt. Midwests 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 AirTrans (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.

Completing the picture: Replacing generic embodiments in the historical flow

Grounded in an analysis of “situation”, this essay examines an approach to generic embodiments that offers unique contributions by rehistoricizing a rhetorical act once it has been identified as an instance of a particular genre. The piece begins with an examination of the varying senses, sources, and distinct functions of “situation” for generic rhetorical criticism. The importance of rehistoricizing a generic embodiment then is defended as a means for better understanding the influence of rhetorical acts on other rhetorical acts across time; the case of subsequent rhetorical acts that do not embody the genre in question, but that recover and revitalize an earlier generic embodiments potential for the later rhetors own purposes is of special interest. Barry Goldwaters 1964 campaign rhetoric, which embodied a jeremiad, and Ronald Reagans subsequent recovery and revaluation of that rhetoric illustrates the arguments.

Rhetorical leadership and transferable lessons for successful social advocacy in Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth

Despite its apparent limitations, the film An Inconvenient Truth was not only an unlikely hit but also a successful instance of social advocacy that galvanized ordinary people. Al Gores rhetorical choices in the film presented a compelling, concrete vision of the stakes to be lost or gained, nurtured hope that change was possible and personal, made mortification an appealing path for coping with guilt over ones contribution to a shared problem, demonstrated dignitas of public character that added weight to his argument, and relationally generated ethos that overcame his history as an unengaging, unmotivating rhetor. Gores argumentative approach is transferable and so offers valuable lessons fir potential rhetorical leaders. The essay also yields a theoretical contribution on mortification.

Exploiting the tension between the news media's “objective” and adversarial roles: The role imbalance attack and its use of the implied audience

Televisions ascent to the position of societys dominant medium precipitated significant changes in news reporting, including information presentations suited to an entertainment “supra‐ideology”; and the erosion of barriers separating public figures’ “backstage”; from their “onstage”; areas. Combined with the need for print and television news to compete for profits, especially since the advent of CNN, these changes promote a tendency toward adversarial reporting. However, to sustain their legitimacy and value to democracy, the news media must appear to respect social norms on when and what kinds of adversarial reporting are appropriate and maintain an acceptable balance between adversarial and “objective “ reporting. In a role imbalance attack (RIA), a rhetor who has been the subject of negative news coverage tries to deflect judgments by arguing that the news media have been inappropriately adversarial and by developing an ideal implied auditor ready to act against the news media. If actual auditors i...

Problems of exclusionary research criteria: The case against the “usable knowledge” litmus test for social justice communication research

In 1996 five Loyola University faculty members proposed limiting the term “social justice communication research” exclusively to studies whose designs focused on “usable knowledge.” For them, that criterion necessitates that a legitimate social justice research project entail immediate action recommendations and direct researcher intervention in the interests of immediate study participants. This essay contends that such a litmus test restricts acceptable research to short‐term case studies aimed at immediately measurable outcomes produced by the researcher him‐ or herself, qualities that do not necessarily match the complex nature of problems of social in(justice) or exclusively yield the type of research outcomes that most powerfully address such problems. Widespread acceptance of their criterion: 1) limits scholarly influence to those few sites of struggle where a researchers location and finite schedule allow extended personal engagement; 2) encourages counter‐productive dependence by lay social justice advocates on Communication researchers; 3) works against discovering and integrating broader, long‐term systemic solutions or effectively empowering advocates in other social justice struggles; 4) discourages the innovation of “the scholarship of discovery” with respect to social (in)justice issues in favor of the safer, predictable strategies of responsible “scholarship of application” (and vice versa) by necessitating the combination of conflicting objectives in a single scholarly project; and 5) promotes dysfunctional isolation and territoriality within the Communication discipline.