Rhetoric and Civic Community -- COMM4300
Course Description:
The concept of “the public” is fundamental to the contemporary liberal democratic society. The
constitution, laws, institutions, and traditions of Western liberal democracies emphasize the will of the
people, as expressed by the public, as the source of legitimacy for the state’s policies and as the source of
acceptable social conduct and relations in public life. At the same time, we live in a society of strangers
with whom our sense of community often is fragile and challenged. Some of this fragility comes from the
pursuit of “civic privatism.” Rather than active engagement of strangers, civic privatism emphasizes
intimate relationships, concern for a rich personal life, and acquisition of personal gain over civic
involvement. An accompanying challenge from civic privatism is the abdication of public life to powerful
institutions, interest groups, and individuals who control information and the media, and who have the
authority to make decisions. Civic privatism erodes the capacity of publics to form and exert influence.
On the other hand, people living in complex societies cannot escape relations of mutual dependency with
strangers. Historically the quality of a democratic society has depended on the forms of self-regulation
negotiated through these relations of mutual dependency, or by participation in civil society. An active
civil society in which interdependent strangers engage each other in pursuit of their common interests bears
directly on the possibilities of “civic community”—a community that reflects the commitments of strangers
to address public problems with bearing on their lives, or to act as members of “the public.” Both the
challenges and the need to meet them are directly tied to the character and quality of rhetorical discourse.
Rhetorical discourse is more than persuasion. It is our means to publicize public problems and shape
discursive processes of dialogue, deliberation, community involvement, etc. by which public problems are
addressed. Public communication of this sort—directed toward constituting the opinions, sentiments, and
actions—shapes the bonds of affiliation through which we acquire our communal identity.
This course examines the role of public communication in constituting (creating, molding, shaping, and
even distorting) publics, public decisions, and ultimately public life. We will be concerned with the
relationship of rhetoric to civic community. We will explore how rhetorical discourse influences the
character of civil society, our understanding of and resolutions to public problems, the formation of publics,
the shape and quality of public spheres, and how the characteristics of public spheres reflect power,
influence decisions, and reveal the rhetorical characteristics of public opinion.
This sounds abstract and highly theoretical. And it is. But theories are our way of giving accounts of why
we do the things we do. Ultimately they are of value insofar as they offer insight into what real people
actually do and the consequences of doing things that way. As part of this effort to make our subject
concrete, you will participate in a civically engaged organization (some voluntary, some not) and study the
way its internal and campaign rhetoric participates in the larger civil society and helps or hinders the ideals
of “civic community.” Representatives from various community organizations will make presentations
about their organizations and their current campaigns during the fifth week of classes. You will select
your top choices among these organizations and I will assign you to one as best I can based on your
preferences. Your job will be to work with in the field with a selected organization under the
supervision of an organizational mentor. You will have hands on assignments to help develop
valuable information, communication campaigns, and in socme case assist in getting them off the
ground. Your organizational work during the course of the semester must be for no less than
twenty-four (24) hours. This work is crucial for understanding the theoretical concepts we will address in
class. Also, this work should not be considered “additional” to the class but rather integral to it.
Information gathered from this work will figure prominently in the final paper and presentation you
produce for this class. As such, your work within a voluntary organization will serve as one of the texts for
this class and your final paper and presentation – no library research will be required to complete the final
paper, but rather a thorough reading of the organization’s internal and campaign rhetoric.
TEXTS:
Dewey, J. (1954). The public and its problems. Athens, OH: Swallow Press.
Evans, S.M. & Boyte, H.C. (1992). Free spaces: The sources of democratic change in America. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Gusfield, J.R. (1981). The culture of public problems: Drinking-driving and the symbolic order. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Sennett, R. (1976). The fall of public man. New York: W.W. Norton.
Sophocles. Antigone. New York: Oxford University Press.
Three readings available on the web:
Putnam 1995 (through Chinook) at
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/journal_of_democracy/v006/6.1putnam.html (go to ejournals and type in <journal of democracy>, select v.6, no 1, scroll down to Putnam’s
article.
Madison # 10 at http://memory.loc.gov/const/fed/fed_10.html
Putnam 2002 (through Chinook) at http://www.prospect.org/print/V13/3/putnam-r.html
(“Bowling Together”) (or Google <Putnam Bowling Together>)