Public Address Scholarship and the Effects of Rhetoric

Abstract

In this essay, I argue that public address scholars should reengage with the effects of rhetoric through attention to reception and circulation/re-circulation. Doing so will deepen our understanding of context and agency, and strengthen our scholarship by lending support for the very premise on which our field is based: that rhetoric has consequences. This essay discusses why public address scholars have retreated from effects, the impact of this choice on our understanding of context and agency, and how attention to reception and circulation/re-circulation could amend this state of affairs both in more traditional studies and in field research. I close with some thoughts on what a shift toward examining rhetoric’s consequences more closely could mean for public address scholarship.

Keywords:

• Agency
• Circulation
• Context
• Public Address
• Reception
• Re-Circulation
• Rhetorical Criticism and Effects

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author. This essay was received on February 7, 2019.

Notes

1. Rowland also points out Edwards describes presidential messages as reflecting and intensifying the views of their constituents which, from rhetorical critics’ perspectives, would be an effect (“Purpose, Evidence, and Pedagogy” 62–63).

2. In addition to arguing for the incorporation of critical self-portraiture into rhetorical criticism, Morris endorses opportunities for critics to reflect on how their values and positions influence their critical work in general, such as Rhetoric & Public Affairs’ special issue where critics examined their religious faith’s impact on their work (Morris, “(Self-)Portrait” 33, 37; Medhurst, “Special Issue”).

3. Jasinski and Mercieca further distinguish between circulation and articulation by treating the latter as the means by which the former occurs (320).

4. Rowland also discusses other functions that rhetorical criticism may serve and the role of theory in criticism (64–73).