CA 478: Rhetorical Analysis for Internet Discourse
Schedule
Part I: History and TheoryWeek 1
1/23: Meeting #1, "What Rhetorical Analysis Can do for You (Online)"Week 2
1/31: Meeting #2, "Digital Jesus" a discussion lead by Ashley Hinck
Required Reading: Howard, Robert Glenn. 2011. Digital Jesus: The Making of a New Christian Fundamentalist Community on the Internet. New York: NYU Press.Week 3
1/7: Meeting #3, "Theory Day"
Required Reading: Sassure, Ferdinand de. "The Nature of the Linguistic Sign" and "Variability and Invariability of the Sign." Course in General Linguistics. La Salle, Illinois: Open Court Press, 1983 [1972]; Burke, Kenneth.1962 [1950]"Persuasion," "Identification," "Other Variants of the Rhetorical Motive," "Formal Appeal," and "Rhetorical Form in the Large," in A Rhetoric of Motives. Berkeley: University of California Press. 49-78. Bauman, Richard. 1984 [1977]. "The Emergent Quality of Performance." Verbal Art as Performance. Prospect Heights, Illinois: Waveland Press. 37-45. and Durkheim, Emile, Trans. Joseph Swain. "Conclusion." The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. New York: The Free Press, 1965 [1915]. 462-496.Week 4
2/14: Meeting #4, "Rhetoric, Orality, Technology "
Required Reading: Ong, Walter. 1982. “Introduction,” "Chapter 1," and “Chapter 4,” and “Chapter 5,” in Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word. New York: Methuen. 1-3, 5-15, and 78-117; McKenzie, Donald, and Judy Wajcman. "Introduction" The Social Shaping of Technology. Philadelphia: Open University Press, 1999. 3 - 27; and Winner, Langdon. "Technologies as Forms of Life" and "Do Artifacts Have Politics?" The Whale and the Reactor. A Search for Limits in an Age of High Technology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986. 3 - 18, and 19 - 39.Week 5
2/21: Meeting #5, "Emergence of the Internet "
Required Reading: Geertz, Clifford. 1973. "Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture," The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books. 3-30. Ceruzzi, Paul. 1999. “Inventing Personal Computing” in Donald McKenzie and Judy Wajcman, The Social Shaping of Technology. Philadelphia: Open University Press. 64-86.Abbate, Janet. 1999. “Introduction” and “Chapter 3.” Inventing the Internet. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press. and Turner, Fred. 2006. "Virtuality and Community on the WELL" From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Catalog, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 141-174.Week 6
2/28: Meeting #6,"Rhetoric and the Internet"
Required Reading: Warnick, Barbara. 2007."The Internet and the Public Sphere" and "Online Rhetoric: A Medium Theory Approach" Rhetoric Online: Persuasion and Politics on the World Wide Web. New York: Peter Lange. 1-44. Welsh, Kathleen E. 1999. “Chapter 2” in Electric Rhetoric: Classical Rhetoric, Oralism, and a New Literacy. 29-74. and Welsh, Kathleen E. 1999. “Chapter 4” in Electric Rhetoric: Classical Rhetoric, Oralism, and a New Literacy. 101-136.Week 7
3/6: Meeting #7, "The Value of the Public Forum"
Required Reading: Stones, Rob. "Gidden's Structuration Theory and its Influences," Structuration Theory. New York: Palgrave Press. 12-44. Giddens, Anthony. 1991. "The Contours of High Modernity." Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age. Stanford: Stanford University Press. 10-34, Sunstein, Cass. 2001. “An Analogy and an Ideal.” Republic.com. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 23 - 50. and Hindman, Mathew. 2009. "The Internet and the 'Democratization' of Politics." The Myth of Digital Democracy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Part II: Major Recent Studies
Week 8
3/13: Meeting #8, "The Internet and Social Expression "
Required Reading: Baym, Nancy K. 2010. Personal Connections in the Digital Age. Malden, MA: Polity Press.
Week 9
3/20: Meeting #9, "The Internet and Political Action "
Required Reading: Papacharissi, Zizi A. 2010. A Private Sphere: Democracy in a Digital Age. Malden, MA: Polity Press.
Part III: Documenting Online Communication
Week 10
3/27: Meeting #10, "Documenting Online Communication"Spring Break
March 31 - April 8Week 11
4/10: Meeting #11, Assignment 1 Group Critique
4/10: Assignment One Due at the beginning of class on a USB storage device.Week 12
4/17: Meeting #12, "The Internet in Real Life "
Required Reading: Gray, Mary L. 20009. Out in the Country: Youth,Media, and Queer Visibility in Rural America. New York: NYU Press.
Part IV: Final Presentations
Week 13
4 /24: Meeting #13, Final Presentations
Week 14
5/1: Meeting #14, Final PresentationsWeek 15
5/8: Meeting #15, Final Presentations and Last Thoughts
Week 16
NO COMPREHENSIVE FINAL EXAMINATION.
5/19, by 5:00 PM: A2 dropped off with instructor or in instructor's box on USB storage device.
(Low storage assignments may be emailed or placed in another online location for pickup. Media can be sent via snail mail to campus address. Students are responsible for keeping backups and any lost assignments that are not backed up will result in course failure.)