Progressive Politics and the Training of America's Persuaders

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1135669368
Total Pages : 188 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (356 download)

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Book Synopsis Progressive Politics and the Training of America's Persuaders by : Katherine Adams

Download or read book Progressive Politics and the Training of America's Persuaders written by Katherine Adams and published by Routledge. This book was released on 1999 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A historical analysis of writing instruction in the 20th century within the contexts of political and social conditions. Is appropriate for scholars of rhetoric and composition, as well as related areas such as journalism and communication history.

Progressive Politics and the Training of America's Persuaders

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 9780805832372
Total Pages : 169 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (323 download)

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Book Synopsis Progressive Politics and the Training of America's Persuaders by : Katherine H. Adams

Download or read book Progressive Politics and the Training of America's Persuaders written by Katherine H. Adams and published by Routledge. This book was released on 1999-01-01 with total page 169 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the beginning of the 20th century, Progressive reformers set up curricula in journalism, public relations, and creative writing to fulfill their own purposes: well-trained rhetors could convince the United States citizenry to accept Progressive thinking on monopolies and unions and to elect reform candidates. Although Progressive politicians and educators envisioned these courses and majors as forwarding their own goals, they could not control the intentions of the graduates thus trained or the employers who hired them. The period's vast panorama of rhetoric, including Theodore Roosevelt's publicity stunts, muckraker exposés, ad campaigns for patent medicines, and the selling of World War I, revealed the new national power of propaganda and the media, especially when wielded by college-trained experts imbued with the Progressive tradition of serving a cause and ensuring social betterment. In this unique volume, Adams' chronicles the creation of this advanced curriculum in speaking and writing during the Progressive era and examines the impact of that curriculum on public discourse. Unlike other studies of writing instruction, which have concentrated on freshman curriculum or on a specific genre, this book provides a historical and cultural analysis of the advanced composition curriculum and of its impact on public persuasion. Adams surveys American instruction at state and private schools across the country, with special attention given to the influential Progressive universities of the Midwest. She draws on a wide variety of primary data sources including college catalogs, course assignments, departmental minutes, speeches, and journals, and includes an extensive bibliography of research sources concerning advanced composition instruction and American rhetoric before World War II. As a resource offering remarkable historical insights on the history of writing instruction in America, this volume is of great interest to scholars and students in rhetoric, communication, and technical writing.

Writing a Progressive Past

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Author :
Publisher : Parlor Press LLC
ISBN 13 : 1602352607
Total Pages : 189 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (23 download)

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Book Synopsis Writing a Progressive Past by : Lisa Mastrangelo

Download or read book Writing a Progressive Past written by Lisa Mastrangelo and published by Parlor Press LLC. This book was released on 2012-01-23 with total page 189 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Writing a Progressive Past: Women Teaching and Writing in the Progressive Era traces the lineage of writing instruction during the Progressive Era, from the influences of John Dewey, to the graduate program designed and run by Fred Newton Scott. Finally, it explores two sites of writing instruction run by Scott’s graduates: one at Wellesley College and one at Mount Holyoke College.

The Evolution of College English

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Publisher : University of Pittsburgh Pre
ISBN 13 : 082297777X
Total Pages : 346 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (229 download)

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Book Synopsis The Evolution of College English by : Thomas P. Miller

Download or read book The Evolution of College English written by Thomas P. Miller and published by University of Pittsburgh Pre. This book was released on 2011-01-09 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thomas P. Miller defines college English studies as literacy studies and examines how it has evolved in tandem with broader developments in literacy and the literate. He maps out “four corners” of English departments: literature, language studies, teacher education, and writing studies. Miller identifies their development with broader changes in the technologies and economies of literacy that have redefined what students write and read, which careers they enter, and how literature represents their experiences and aspirations. Miller locates the origins of college English studies in the colonial transition from a religious to an oratorical conception of literature. A belletristic model of literature emerged in the nineteenth century in response to the spread of the “penny” press and state-mandated schooling. Since literary studies became a common school subject, professors of literature have distanced themselves from teachers of literacy. In the Progressive era, that distinction came to structure scholarly organizations such as the MLA, while NCTE was established to develop more broadly based teacher coalitions. In the twentieth century New Criticism came to provide the operating assumptions for the rise of English departments, until those assumptions became critically overloaded with the crash of majors and jobs that began in 1970s and continues today. For models that will help the discipline respond to such challenges, Miller looks to comprehensive departments of English that value studies of teaching, writing, and language as well as literature. According to Miller, departments in more broadly based institutions have the potential to redress the historical alienation of English departments from their institutional base in work with literacy. Such departments have a potentially quite expansive articulation apparatus. Many are engaged with writing at work in public life, with schools and public agencies, with access issues, and with media, ethnic, and cultural studies. With the privatization of higher education, such pragmatic engagements become vital to sustaining a civic vision of English studies and the humanities generally.

Understanding Political Public Relations Techniques

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Author :
Publisher : Springer Nature
ISBN 13 : 981197599X
Total Pages : 346 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (119 download)

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Book Synopsis Understanding Political Public Relations Techniques by : Albina Gayoso

Download or read book Understanding Political Public Relations Techniques written by Albina Gayoso and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-01-01 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book focuses on Political Public Relations (PPR) Techniques of both Russian and US Leaderships. It does so by analysing leadership (presidential or otherwise) inaugural addresses from the two countries between 1980 to 2018, using triangulation analysis of verbal, non-verbal language, and emotions of speakers. Given that the Russian perception of Political Public Relations, known as Political Technologies (PT) in Russia, is unique and often misunderstood or misinterpreted in Western scholarship, the book acts as a bridge between these two fields of studies. With that in mind, the study of Political Technologies is explained and applied in a wider sense than is offered by other disciplines, specifically in more meaningful ways than suggested in communications discipline in the West. In doing so, the book not only offers a deep dive into theory, but also provides a unique methodology aiming at extracting and analysing PPR or PT techniques. This triangulation method allows us to investigate a combined effect of audio visual and verbal “effects” on the general public, and offers a way of interpreting such “effects”. Readers would understand more about the research dynamic in PPR discipline, apply the triangulation methodology to expand this research, and more generally find out more about the evidence-based list of PPR techniques and their applications and interpretations.”

Combating Injustice

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Publisher : LSU Press
ISBN 13 : 0807177628
Total Pages : 348 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (71 download)

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Book Synopsis Combating Injustice by : Jon Falsarella Dawson

Download or read book Combating Injustice written by Jon Falsarella Dawson and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 2022-05-04 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Combating Injustice, Jon Falsarella Dawson approaches American literary naturalism as a means of social criticism, exploring the powerful economic arguments and commentaries on labor struggles presented in novels by Frank Norris, Jack London, and John Steinbeck. Making use of extensive archival research, Dawson considers many of the original periodical sources that fueled books from McTeague to The Grapes of Wrath, as Norris, London, and Steinbeck transformed contemporary materials into illustrations of the socioeconomic forces that shape American life. By depicting the operations of powerful individuals and institutions, these naturalist writers offered audiences a greater awareness of the plight of labor so that readers might find the inspiration to become agents of change. Works such as The Octopus, The Iron Heel, Martin Eden, and In Dubious Battle illuminate many of the central economic issues at play in the United States during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, including the rise of commodity culture, labor disputes involving industrial and agricultural workers, widespread poverty, extreme inequality, and the concentration of resources and land ownership. Norris, London, and Steinbeck highlighted the dangers of these developments by charting their impact on central characters whose fates result from the predatory tactics of corporate monopolies, wealthy individuals, and large financial establishments. Dawson’s lucid analysis shows how all three writers, drawing on contemporary events, accentuated the need for reform and stressed the potential for change by human action. Each author took inspiration from notable events in California, ranging from the Mussel Slough tragedy of 1880 to the agricultural strikes in the Central Valley during the 1930s, presenting the state as a microcosm for conditions throughout the nation during a period of tremendous upheaval. Combating Injustice: The Naturalism of Frank Norris, Jack London, and John Steinbeck provides carefully contextualized readings of three major writers whose works express both the necessity for and the possibility of creating a more egalitarian society.

A Feminist Legacy

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Publisher : SIU Press
ISBN 13 : 9780809327485
Total Pages : 280 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (274 download)

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Book Synopsis A Feminist Legacy by : Suzanne Bordelon

Download or read book A Feminist Legacy written by Suzanne Bordelon and published by SIU Press. This book was released on 2007-09-13 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first book-length investigation of a pioneering English professor and theorist at Vassar College, A Feminist Legacy: The Rhetoric and Pedagogy of Gertrude Buck explores Buck’s contribution to the fields of education and rhetoric during the Progressive Era. By contextualizing Buck’s academic and theoretical work within the rise of women’s educational institutions like Vassar College, the social and political movement toward suffrage, and Buck’s own egalitarian political and social ideals, Suzanne Bordelon offers a scholarly and well-informed treatment of Buck’s achievements that elucidates the historical and contemporary impact of her work and life. Bordelon argues that while Buck did not call herself a feminist, she embodied feminist ideals by demanding the full participation of her female students and by challenging power imbalances at every academic, social, and political level. A Feminist Legacy reveals that Vassar College is an undervalued but significant site in the history of women’s argumentation and pedagogy. Drawing on a rich variety of archival sources, including previously unexamined primary material, A Feminist Legacy traces the beginnings of feminist theories of argumentation and pedagogy and their lasting legacy within the fields of education and rhetoric.

World War I, Mass Death, and the Birth of the Modern US Soldier

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Author :
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 1498546889
Total Pages : 343 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (985 download)

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Book Synopsis World War I, Mass Death, and the Birth of the Modern US Soldier by : David W. Seitz

Download or read book World War I, Mass Death, and the Birth of the Modern US Soldier written by David W. Seitz and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2018-06-20 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: World War I, Mass Death, and the Birth of the Modern US Soldier: A Rhetorical History examines the United States government’s postwar ideological and rhetorical project in establishing permanent national military cemeteries abroad. Constructed throughout Europe where citizen-soldiers had fought and perished, and sacralized as American sites, these burial grounds simultaneously linked the nation’s war dead back to American soil and the national purpose rooted there, expressed the nation’s emerging prominent role on the world’s stage, and advanced the burgeoning icon of the “sacrificial, universal” US soldier. It draws upon untapped archival and historical materials from the WWI and interwar periods, as well as original on-site research, to show how the cemeteries came to display and advance the vision of the modern US soldier as “a global force for good.” Ultimately, within the visual display of overseas cemeteries we can detect the birth of “the modern US soldier”—a potent icon in which divergent emotions, memories, beliefs, and arguments of Americans and non-Americans have been expressed for a century.

Weapons of Democracy

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Publisher : JHU Press
ISBN 13 : 1421417375
Total Pages : 233 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (214 download)

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Book Synopsis Weapons of Democracy by : Jonathan Auerbach

Download or read book Weapons of Democracy written by Jonathan Auerbach and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2015-09-29 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How and why did public opinion—long cherished as a foundation of democratic government—become an increasing source of concern for American Progressives? Following World War I, political commentator Walter Lippmann worried that citizens increasingly held inaccurate and misinformed beliefs because of the way information was produced, circulated, and received in a mass-mediated society. Lippmann dubbed this manipulative opinion-making process “the manufacture of consent.” A more familiar term for such large-scale persuasion would be propaganda. In Weapons of Democracy, Jonathan Auerbach explores how Lippmann’s stark critique gave voice to a set of misgivings that had troubled American social reformers since the late nineteenth century. Progressives, social scientists, and muckrakers initially drew on mass persuasion as part of the effort to mobilize sentiment for their own cherished reforms, including regulating monopolies, protecting consumers, and promoting disinterested, efficient government. “Propaganda” was associated with public education and consciousness raising for the good of the whole. By the second decade of the twentieth century, the need to muster support for American involvement in the Great War produced the Committee on Public Information, which zealously spread the gospel of American democracy abroad and worked to stifle dissent at home. After the war, public relations firms—which treated publicity as an end in itself—proliferated. Weapons of Democracy traces the fate of American public opinion in theory and practice from 1884 to 1934 and explains how propaganda continues to shape today’s public sphere. The book closely analyzes the work of prominent political leaders, journalists, intellectuals, novelists, and corporate publicists, including Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt, Mark Twain, George Creel, John Dewey, Julia Lathrop, Ivy Lee, and Edward Bernays. Truly interdisciplinary in both scope and method, this book will appeal to students and scholars in American studies, history, political theory, media and communications, and rhetoric and literary studies.

From Form to Meaning

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Publisher : University of Pittsburgh Pre
ISBN 13 : 0822977818
Total Pages : 290 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (229 download)

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Book Synopsis From Form to Meaning by : David Fleming

Download or read book From Form to Meaning written by David Fleming and published by University of Pittsburgh Pre. This book was released on 2011 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the spring of 1968, the English faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW) voted to remedialize the first semester of its required freshman composition course, English 101. The following year, it eliminated outright the second semester course, English 102. For the next quarter-century, UW had no real campus-wide writing requirement, putting it out of step with its peer institutions and preventing it from fully joining the “composition revolution” of the 1970s. In From Form to Meaning, David Fleming chronicles these events, situating them against the backdrop of late 1960s student radicalism and within the wider changes taking place in U.S. higher education at the time. Fleming begins with the founding of UW in 1848. He examines the rhetorical education provided in the university’s first half-century, the birth of a required, two semester composition course in 1898, faculty experimentation with that course in the 1920s and 1930s, and the rise of a massive “current-traditional” writing program, staffed primarily by graduate teaching assistants (TAs), after World War II. He then reveals how, starting around 1965, tensions between faculty and TAs concerning English 101-102 began to mount. By 1969, as the TAs were trying to take over the committee that supervised the course, the English faculty simply abandoned its long-standing commitment to freshman writing. In telling the story of composition’s demise at UW, Fleming shows how contributing factors—the growing reliance on TAs; the questioning of traditional curricula by young instructors and their students; the disinterest of faculty in teaching and administering general education courses—were part of a larger shift affecting universities nationally. He also connects the events of this period to the long, embattled history of freshman composition in the United States. And he offers his own thoughts on the qualities of the course that have allowed it to survive and regenerate for over 125 years.

Feminist Rhetorical Practices

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Publisher : SIU Press
ISBN 13 : 0809330709
Total Pages : 201 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (93 download)

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Book Synopsis Feminist Rhetorical Practices by : Jacqueline Jones Royster

Download or read book Feminist Rhetorical Practices written by Jacqueline Jones Royster and published by SIU Press. This book was released on 2012-02-10 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From two leading scholars in the field comes this landmark assessment of the shifting terrain of feminist rhetorical practices in recent decades. Jacqueline Jones Royster and Gesa E. Kirsch contend the field of rhetorical studies is being transformed through the work of feminist rhetoricians who have brought about notable changes in who the subjects of rhetorical study can be, how their practices can be critiqued, and how the effectiveness and value of the inquiry frameworks can be articulated. To contextualize a new and changed landscape for narratives in the history of rhetoric, Royster and Kirsch present four critical terms of engagement—critical imagination, strategic contemplation, social circulation, and globalization—as the foundation for a new analytical model for understanding, interpreting, and evaluating feminist rhetorical inquiry and the study and teaching of rhetoric in general. This model draws directly on the wealth of knowledge and understanding gained from feminist rhetorical practices, especially sensitivity toward meaningfully and respectfully rendering the work, lives, cultures, and traditions of historical and contemporary women in rhetorical scholarship. Proposing ambitious new standards for viewing and valuing excellence in feminist rhetorical practice, Royster and Kirsch advocate an ethos of respect and humility in the analysis of communities and specific rhetorical performances neglected in rhetorical history, recasting rhetorical studies as a global phenomenon rather than a western one. They also reflect on their own personal and professional development as researchers as they highlight innovative feminist research over the past thirty years to articulate how feminist work is changing the field and pointing to the active participation of women in various discourse arenas and to the practices and genres they use. Valuable to new and established scholars of rhetoric, Feminist Rhetorical Practice: New Horizons for Rhetoric, Composition, and Literacy Studies is essential for understanding the theoretical, methodological, and ethical impacts of feminist rhetorical studies on the wider field. Winner, 2014 Winifred Bryan Horner Outstanding Book Award

Traditions of Eloquence

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Author :
Publisher : Fordham Univ Press
ISBN 13 : 0823264548
Total Pages : 464 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (232 download)

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Book Synopsis Traditions of Eloquence by : Cinthia Gannett

Download or read book Traditions of Eloquence written by Cinthia Gannett and published by Fordham Univ Press. This book was released on 2016-05-25 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This groundbreaking collection explores the important ways Jesuits have employed rhetoric, the ancient art of persuasion and the current art of communications, from the sixteenth century to the present. Much of the history of how Jesuit traditions contributed to the development of rhetorical theory and pedagogy has been lost, effaced, or dispersed. As a result, those interested in Jesuit education and higher education in the United States, as well as scholars and teachers of rhetoric, are often unaware of this living 450-year-old tradition. Written by highly regarded scholars of rhetoric, composition, education, philosophy, and history, many based at Jesuit colleges and universities, the essays in this volume explore the tradition of Jesuit rhetorical education—that is, constructing “a more usable past” and a viable future for eloquentia perfecta, the Jesuits’ chief aim for the liberal arts. Intended to foster eloquence across the curriculum and into the world beyond, Jesuit rhetoric integrates intellectual rigor, broad knowledge, civic action, and spiritual discernment as the chief goals of the educational experience. Consummate scholars and rhetors, the early Jesuits employed all the intellectual and language arts as “contemplatives in action,” preaching and undertaking missionary, educational, and charitable works in the world. The study, pedagogy, and practice of classical grammar and rhetoric, adapted to Christian humanism, naturally provided a central focus of this powerful educational system as part of the Jesuit commitment to the Ministries of the Word. This book traces the development of Jesuit rhetoric in Renaissance Europe, follows its expansion to the United States, and documents its reemergence on campuses and in scholarly discussions across America in the twenty-first century. Traditions of Eloquence provides a wellspring of insight into the past, present, and future of Jesuit rhetorical traditions. In a period of ongoing reformulations and applications of Jesuit educational mission and identity, this collection of compelling essays helps provide historical context, a sense of continuity in current practice, and a platform for creating future curricula and pedagogy. Moreover it is a valuable resource for anyone interested in understanding a core aspect of the Jesuit educational heritage.

Democracy as Discussion

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Publisher : Lexington Books
ISBN 13 : 0739154028
Total Pages : 377 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (391 download)

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Book Synopsis Democracy as Discussion by : William M. Keith

Download or read book Democracy as Discussion written by William M. Keith and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2007-02-12 with total page 377 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Using primary sources from archives around the country, Democracy as Discussion traces the early history of the Speech field, the development of discussion as an alternative to debate, and the Deweyan, Progressive philosophy of discussion that swept the United States in the early twentieth century.

A Group of Their Own

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Publisher : State University of New York Press
ISBN 13 : 0791490815
Total Pages : 264 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (914 download)

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Book Synopsis A Group of Their Own by : Katherine H. Adams

Download or read book A Group of Their Own written by Katherine H. Adams and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2001-02-22 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Group of Their Own is the fascinating story of the first generations of women who went to college to learn to be writers and then launched their careers writing poetry and prose. This unprecedented group included Elizabeth Bishop, Ruby Black, Pearl Buck, Emma Bugbee, Willa Cather, Zona Gale, Mildred Gilman, Zora Neale Hurston, Mary McCarthy, Marianne Moore, Eudora Welty, and Margaret Walker. This group was all about firsts. These women were among the first to attend college where they took a new array of writing classes in which students worked together in a workshop environment and extended this model of collaboration to campus clubs and publications. When they left college, they continued their new working methods by initiating and joining in a variety of activities such as mentorships, clubs, community theaters, and summer writing workshops. This expanded experience enabled them to move outside the restricted definitions of women's career paths and writing projects, ultimately changing the definition of American writer and American writing.

The Arab Diaspora

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1134186800
Total Pages : 191 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (341 download)

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Book Synopsis The Arab Diaspora by : Zahia Smail Salhi

Download or read book The Arab Diaspora written by Zahia Smail Salhi and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2006-09-27 with total page 191 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Arab Diaspora examines the range of roles the Arab world has played to various audiences on the modern and postmodern stage and the issues which have arisen as a result. The variety of roles explored reflects the diversity of Arab culture. With particular focus placed on political, diplomatic and cultural issues, the book explores the relationship between the Arab world and the West, covering topics including: Islam and its common ancestry and relationship with Christianity the varying forms of Arab civilization and its inability in more modern times to fulfil the dreams of nineteenth and twentieth century reformers continued stereotyping of the Arab world within the media. The Arab Diaspora is essential reading for those with interests in Arabic and Middle East studies, and cultural studies.

Manipulating the Masses

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Publisher : LSU Press
ISBN 13 : 0807174181
Total Pages : 925 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (71 download)

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Book Synopsis Manipulating the Masses by : John Maxwell Hamilton

Download or read book Manipulating the Masses written by John Maxwell Hamilton and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 2020-10-21 with total page 925 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Goldsmith Book Prize by the Harvard Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy Manipulating the Masses tells the story of the enduring threat to American democracy that arose out of World War I: the establishment of pervasive, systematic propaganda as an instrument of the state. During the Great War, the federal government exercised unprecedented power to shape the views and attitudes of American citizens. Its agent for this was the Committee on Public Information (CPI), established by President Woodrow Wilson one week after the United States entered the war in April 1917. Driven by its fiery chief, George Creel, the CPI reached every crevice of the nation, every day, and extended widely abroad. It established the first national newspaper, made prepackaged news a quotidian aspect of governing, and pioneered the concept of public diplomacy. It spread the Wilson administration’s messages through articles, cartoons, books, and advertisements in newspapers and magazines; through feature films and volunteer Four Minute Men who spoke during intermission; through posters plastered on buildings and along highways; and through pamphlets distributed by the millions. It enlisted the nation’s leading progressive journalists, advertising executives, and artists. It harnessed American universities and their professors to create propaganda and add legitimacy to its mission. Even as Creel insisted that the CPI was a conduit for reliable, fact-based information, the office regularly sanitized news, distorted facts, and played on emotions. Creel extolled transparency but established front organizations. Overseas, the CPI secretly subsidized news organs and bribed journalists. At home, it challenged the loyalty of those who occasionally questioned its tactics. Working closely with federal intelligence agencies eager to sniff out subversives and stifle dissent, the CPI was an accomplice to the Wilson administration’s trampling of civil liberties. Until now, the full story of the CPI has never been told. John Maxwell Hamilton consulted over 150 archival collections in the United States and Europe to write this revealing history, which shows the shortcuts to open, honest debate that even well-meaning propagandists take to bend others to their views. Every element of contemporary government propaganda has antecedents in the CPI. It is the ideal vehicle for understanding the rise of propaganda, its methods of operation, and the threat it poses to democracy.

Congress Vs. the Bureaucracy

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Author :
Publisher : University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN 13 : 0806184477
Total Pages : 336 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (61 download)

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Book Synopsis Congress Vs. the Bureaucracy by : Mordecai Lee

Download or read book Congress Vs. the Bureaucracy written by Mordecai Lee and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2012-09-13 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Government bureaucracy is something Americans have long loved to hate. Yet despite this general antipathy, some federal agencies have been wildly successful in cultivating the people’s favor. Take, for instance, the U.S. Forest Service and its still-popular Smokey Bear campaign. The agency early on gained a foothold in the public’s esteem when President Theodore Roosevelt championed its conservation policies and Forest Service press releases led to favorable coverage and further goodwill. Congress has rarely approved of such bureaucratic independence. In Congress vs. the Bureaucracy, political scientist Mordecai Lee—who has served as a legislative assistant on Capitol Hill and as a state senator—explores a century of congressional efforts to prevent government agencies from gaining support for their initiatives by communicating directly with the public. Through detailed case studies, Lee shows how federal agencies have used increasingly sophisticated publicity techniques to muster support for their activities—while Congress has passed laws to counter those PR efforts. The author first traces congressional resistance to Roosevelt’s campaigns to rally popular support for the Panama Canal project, then discusses the Forest Service, the War Department, the Census Bureau, and the Department of Agriculture. Lee’s analysis of more recent legislative bans on agency publicity in the George W. Bush administration reveals that political battles over PR persist to this day. Ultimately, despite Congress’s attempts to muzzle agency public relations, the bureaucracy usually wins. Opponents of agency PR have traditionally condemned it as propaganda, a sign of a mushrooming, self-serving bureaucracy, and a waste of taxpayer dollars. For government agencies, though, communication with the public is crucial to implementing their missions and surviving. In Congress vs. the Bureaucracy, Lee argues these conflicts are in fact healthy for America. They reflect a struggle for autonomy that shows our government’s system of checks and balances to be alive and working well.