Rhetorical Audience Studies and Reception of Rhetoric: Exploring Audiences Empirically (Rhetoric, Politics and Society)

This book examines the reception of rhetoric and the rhetoric of reception. By considering salient rhetorical traits of rhetorical utterances and texts seen in context, and relating this to different kinds of reception and/or audience use and negotiation, the authors explore the connections between rhetoric and reception. In our time, new media and new forms of communication make it harder to distinguish between speaker and audience. The active involvement of users and audiences is more important than ever before. This project is based on the premise that rhetorical research should reconsider the understanding, conceptualization and examination of the rhetorical audience. From mostly understanding audiences as theoretical constructions that are examined textually and speculatively, the contributors give more attention to empirical explorations of actual audiences and users. The book will provide readers with new knowledge on the workings of rhetoric as well as illustrative and guiding examples of new methods of rhetorical studies. Front Matter ....Pages i-ix Audience Analysis and Reception Studies of Rhetoric (Jens E. Kjeldsen)....Pages 1-42 The Argumentative Burdens of Audience Conjectures: Audience Research in Popular Culture Criticism (Reprint) (Jennifer Stromer-Galley, Edward Schiappa)....Pages 43-83 Assessing Audience Reactions to Winston Churchill’s Speeches (Richard Toye)....Pages 85-107 Audience Response to Mediated Authenticity Appeals (Magnus H. Iversen)....Pages 109-134 Focus Group Studies of Social Media Rhetoric (Eirik Vatnøy)....Pages 135-160 Think-Aloud Reading: Selected Audiences’ Concurrent Reaction to the Implied Audience in Political Commentary (Mette Bengtsson)....Pages 161-183 The Semiotics and Rhetoric of Music: A Case Study in Aesthetic Protocol Analysis (Christian Kock)....Pages 185-211 Competing Perspectives: Using Ethnographic Methods to Study Embodied and Emplaced Rhetorics (Aaron Hess)....Pages 213-236 The Audience and the Spectacle: Bodu Bala Sena and the Controversy of Buddhist Political Activism in Sri Lanka (Michael Hertzberg)....Pages 237-259 Pandemic Rhetoric and Public Memory. What People (Don’t) Remember from the 2009 Swine Flu (Kristian Bjørkdahl, Benedicte Carlsen)....Pages 261-283 Icons, Appropriations, and the Co-production of Meaning (Robert Hariman, John Louis Lucaites)....Pages 285-308 The Rhetorical Power of News Photographs: A Triangulatory Reception Approach to the Alan Kurdi Images (Jens E. Kjeldsen, Ida Andersen)....Pages 309-333 Back Matter ....Pages 335-339 Annotation By considering salient rhetorical traits of rhetorical utterances and texts seen in context, and relating this to different kinds of reception and/or audience use and negotiation, this work explores the connections between rhetoric and reception. In our time, new media and new forms of communication make it harder to distinguish between speaker and audience. The active involvement of users and audiences is more important than ever before. This project is based on the premise that rhetorical research should reconsider the understanding, conceptualisation and examination of the rhetorical audience. From mostly understanding audiences as theoretical constructions that are examined textually and speculatively, the contributors give more attention to empirical explorations of actual audiences and users Jens E. Kjeldsen, Editor. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.