Political Communication : Rhetoric, Government, and Citizens Book

This award-winning book presents politics as an essentially rhetorical process, a societal conversation that is the essence of democracy. In this ongoing conversation among citizens, and between citizens and their government, issues are shaped, ideology debated, decisions formed, and public policy created. There have been enormous political and technological changes in the world in recent years, the author notes, yet some things remain the same: for democracy to flourish, citizens must be active, critical participants in the societal conversation. Political Communication: Rhetoric, Government, and Citizens shows how students can rise to the challenge. The book presents a basic framework for understanding major ideologies and shows how those ideologies reflect and are reflected in political argument. It draws on contemporary theory and research to explore the language choices, metaphors, and other rhetorical strategies that shape public discourse--and illustrates them with a rich array of historical and contemporary events, issues, and political commentary. FEATURES --presents political communication as an ongoing societal dialogue about public issues such as education, welfare, war, health care, and taxes, as well as election campaigns --describes politics as a fundamentally rhetorical process, emphasizing language choices and their effects on how issues are defined and public policy shaped --explores the effects of euphemisms, social myths, government secrecy and surveillance, and common metaphors on the democratic process --emphasizes the skills and understandings necessary for citizens to take an active role in the democratic process --provides a conceptual framework for understanding major political ideologies and how they influence perspectives and arguments --draws examples from a broad range of historical and contemporary issues, events, and political commentary --highlights key concepts, societal contexts, and applications by opening each chapter with a pertinent quotation and ending with questions for further consideration FEATURES OF THE NEW EDITION --New, up-to-date examples and analyses reflect current political issues and discourse, showing the continuing importance of concepts and principles. --The rising significance of the Internet in politics, with its potential and limitations, is discussed in a new appendix by Candace Todd and elsewhere in the book. --Some material has been revised to be more accessible to students and more flexible to classroom needs. (See, for example, Chapters 8 and 9, "Sexual Language and Politics" and "The Marriage Metaphor in Politics.")