The Crisis of Rhetoric: Workshop 5 - Media Rhetoric

Today, if people experience a political speech it is most likely not to be live, in real time or as part of a crowd.

Rather, they will come across the speech through print, broadcast or digital media where oratory is often fragmented and incorporated into, for example, Party Political Broadcasts, news reports, documentaries and comedy shows. This has transformed the ways in which political speech is written and delivered. Speechwriters are forced to adapt arguments to the demands or the genres of the media and to find ways to speak to unknown audiences. Political argument is likely to be communicated visually as well as through text and sound. This one-day workshop will promote collective debate and discussion about these and related issues. 

Key questions for this workshop include:

• Do media forms and formats help or hinder the communication of political argument?
• How do media formats shape and reshape debate styles?
• How can we analyse and understand the visual dimensions of political argument?
• Do electronic media undermine ‘traditional’ rhetoric or give rise to new forms?
• How do audiences react to and engage with broadcast rhetoric and debates? 

Speakers: Emily Harmer (Lecturer in Media, in the Department of Communication and Media, University of Liverpool), Jens E. Kjeldsen (Professor of Rhetoric and Visual Communication at the Department of Information Science and Media Studies, University of Bergen (Norway)), and Alan Finlayson (Professor of Political and Social Theory at the University of East Anglia).

• Full programme