A well-made, in-depth story on everything that went into defeating Minnesota’s Marriage Amendment. Although the word “rhetoric” never comes up, anyone doing rhetoric will quickly recognize the forces behind the successful campaign. “Eighteen Months to History: How the Minnesota Marriage Amendment Was Defeated–money, passion, allies” (via Minnesota Public Radio)
Tag archives for media
Rhetoric at Work: the long history of Minnesota’s Marriage Amendment Defeat
category: Things Rhetorical
When words matter (always)
I have my students in ES101 do an assignment in which they follow coverage of national debate/popular issue for instance in which race, class, and/or ethnicity come up in overt or covert ways. The purpose of the assignment is to get them to think about how the words we use shade the ideas we have [...]
category: Things Rhetorical
“Nonthreatning novelty,” or, you know, people
Tom Jacobs over at Salon.com takes note of the rise in roles for South East Asians on film and T.V. Why now? For the answer, Jacobs goes to Shilpa Davé, an assistant prof. of American Studies. She explains it this way: …demography, technology, global politics, and, of course, commerce. She notes that producers and directors are [...]
category: Things Critical, Things Rhetorical
Assignmenting
I am working on a syllabus and lesson plans for the first-year writing course I’m teaching in the fall. I’m excited about asking students to create an audio photo essay as part of their last portfolio. Here is a cool one I’ve been looking at as model: “After the Fall” by Matt Black (via Orion [...]
category: Things General
tags: media, technology
We might still be in Kansas
This from Guernica, which makes one think that, at the very least, someone is paying attention to audience: via ProPublica
category: Things Rhetorical
tags: media, technology
Towards a better answer to the “what do you do” question
Thanks to professors Peter Dreier and Christopher Martin, I now have a good go-to example for the “what do you do” question. Should it come up in an elevator or on a flight, at least I could say, “well, policy, language, effects…for example”: “Job killer.” You don’t have to listen very long to what passes [...]
category: Things Rhetorical