Notes from a lecture: The main change since my first time doing this lecture, is the ways in which these concepts now have become commonplace in journalism critique. They did not use to be. But anyway — what is propaganda? And how does it relate to the study of rhetoric? A group of smart MA students meeting tomorrow to discuss the matter. By way of an illustration, here is one of
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Every fall semester I teach one of my classes in English, with about 20-30 foreign students visiting our university for a semester. We had our first meeting yesterday. And as always I wonder before class starts whether there is enough in the chosen lecture theme to get them out there on the floor, debating. They need to. A class with 55-60 students total and where no one talks for an
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What determines news coverage and how does it apply to terrorism? The idea that terrorism is PR and journalism has a dramaturgical quality is an idea with a long history, but also a history made extraordinarily relevant with the attacks in the US on September 11th 2001, resulting in the epic, metaphorical – and also – fall of the Twin Towers on Manhattan, New York. Dramaturgy implies drama, but also
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