Covering a broader range of rhetorical perspectives, The Art of Rhetorical Criticism presents a thorough, accessible introduction to rhetorical criticism. Sample essays, written by experts in the field, throughout the text provide students with models for writing their own criticism. In addition to covering traditional modes of rhetorical criticism, The Art of Rhetorical Criticism presents less commonly-discussed rhetorical perspectives, for example, mythic criticism, framing analysis, and ideographical criticism, exposing students to a broad range of material.

The Art of Rhetorical Criticism

Kuypers, Jim A.

Literature & Fiction

Allyn&Bacon

Kuypers combines rhetorical theory and framing analysis in an examination of the interaction of the press and the president during international crisis situations in the post-Cold War world. Three crises are examined: Bosnia, Haiti, and the North Korean nuclear capability issue. Kuypers effectively demonstrates the changed nature of presidential crisis rhetoric since the end of the Cold War.Kuypers employs a new historical/critical approach to analyze both the press and the Clinton administration's handling of three international crisis situations. Using case studies of Bosnia, Haiti, and the alleged North Korean nuclear buildup in 1993, he examines contemporary presidential crisis communication and the agenda-setting and agenda-extension functions of the press.The importance of this study lies in its timeliness; President Clinton is the first atomic-age president not to have the Cold War meta-narrative to use in legitimating international crises. Prior studies in presidential crisis rhetoric found that the president received broad and consistent support during times of crisis. Kuypers found that the press often advanced an oppositional frame to that used by the Clinton administration. The press frames were found to limit the options of the President, even when the press supported a particular presidential strategy. This is a major study that will be of interest to scholars and researchers of the press, the modern presidency, and American foreign policy.

Presidential Crisis Rhetoric and the Press in the Post-Cold War World (Praeger Series in Political Communication)

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

Praeger

Kuypers charts the potential effects the printed presses and broadcast media have upon the messages of political and social leaders when they discuss controversial issues. Examining over 800 press reports on race and homosexuality from 116 different newspapers, Kuypers meticulously documents a liberal political bias in mainstream news. This book asserts that such a bias hurts the democratic process by ignoring non-mainstream left positions and vilifying many moderate and most right-leaning positions, leaving only a narrow brand of liberal thought supported by the mainstream press.
This book argues that the mainstream press in America is an anti-democratic institution. By comparatively analyzing press reports, as well as the events that occasioned the coverage, Kuypers paints a detailed picture of the politics of the American press. He advances four distinct reportorial practices that inject bias into reporting, offering perspectives of particular interest to scholars, students, and others involved with mass communication, journalism, and politics in the United States.

Press Bias and Politics: How the Media Frame Controversial Issues (Praeger Series in Political Communication)

Media Smackdown: Deconstructing the News and the Future of Journalism

Journalism is in crisis. The rise of the internet through social media and citizen journalism and the financial crisis of 2008 have taken their toll. Thousands of reporters and editors have been laid off; nightly news on the major networks is losing close to one million viewers a year; newspapers have seen declining ad revenues and circulation figures cut in half; and the old business model for newspapers based on advertising and subscriptions appears to be collapsing. Filling the void is commentary, punditry, and even bigotry. It may have an audience, but it’s not journalism in the professional sense: a commitment to objectivity and a separation of news and opinion. At this important juncture in the evolution of journalism, Media Smackdown takes a close look at the history of the news media in America in order to address the historical, legal, economic, theoretical, and political issues that affect the practice as well as the changing face and future of journalism.

Biographies & Memoirs

Wiesinger, Susan

Aamidor, Abe

Arts & Literature

Peter Lang Inc., International Academic Publishers

Partisan Journalism: A History of Media Bias in the United States (Communication, Media, and Politics)

In Partisan Journalism: A History of Media Bias in the United States, Jim A. Kuypers guides readers on a journey through American journalistic history, focusing on the warring notions of objectivity and partisanship. Kuypers shows how the American journalistic tradition grew from partisan roots and, with only a brief period of objectivity in between, has returned to those roots today. The book begins with an overview of newspapers during Colonial times, explaining how those papers openly operated in an expressly partisan way; he then moves through the Jacksonian era’s expansion of both the press and its partisan nature. After detailing the role of the press during the War Between the States, Kuypers demonstrates that it was the telegraph, not professional sentiment, that kicked off the movement toward objective news reporting. The conflict between partisanship and professionalization/objectivity continued through the muckraking years and through World War II, with newspapers in the 1950s often being objective in their reporting even as their editorials leaned to the right. This changed rapidly in the 1960s when newspaper editorials shifted from right to left, and progressive advocacy began to slowly erode objective content. Kuypers follows this trend through the early 1980s, and then turns his attention to demonstrating how new communication technologies have changed the very nature of news writing and delivery. In the final chapters covering the Bush and Obama presidencies, he traces the growth of the progressive and partisan nature of the mainstream news, while at the same time explores the rapid rise of alternative news sources, some partisan, some objective, that are challenging the dominance of the mainstream press. This book steps beyond a simple charge-counter-charge of political bias in the news in that it offers an argument that the press in America, except for a brief period, was essentially partisan from its inception and has returned with a vengeance to its original roots. The final argument presented in the book is that this new development may actually be healthy for American Democracy.

History

Americas

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

In President Trump and the News Media: Moral Foundations, Framing, and the Nature of Press Bias in America, political communication researcher Jim A. Kuypers takes readers on a rhetorical framing tour de force, this time incorporating elements of Moral Foundations Theory to investigate the ideological underpinnings of press reports. Using a rhetorical version of framing analysis, Kuypers analyzes four major speeches by President Trump and compares them with the reporting on those speeches by the mainstream news media. The moral foundations of both Trump and the news media are examined to assess their respective moral/ideological underpinnings. The results turn framing theory on its head by demonstrating how frames do not give rise to moral assessments as previously thought, but rather the presence of moral foundations provide moral substance to frames as they are developed and found throughout news coverage. The results reveal how journalists inject bias consciously and unconsciously into hard news stories, and that their moral foundations act to privilege liberal concerns and denigrate conservative concerns. Kuypers conveys how news media framing acted to treat President Trump not as a source of news, but as a political opponent while at the same time helping the political opposition of the President. By evaluating journalistic practices through the lens of their own published ethical standards, Kuypers argues that contemporary journalistic practices are damaging the American Republic and makes the case for immediate incorporation of viewpoint diversity within news organizations. Scholars of communications, journalism, and political science will find this book particularly interesting.

President Trump and the News Media: Moral Foundations, Framing, and the Nature of Press Bias in America (Lexington Studies in Political Communication)

Lexington Books

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Kuypers, Jim A.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Kuypers, Jim A.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Kuypers, Jim A.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Art of Rhetorical Criticism

Presidential Crisis Rhetoric and the Press in the Post-Cold War World (Praeger Series in Political Communication)

Press Bias and Politics: How the Media Frame Controversial Issues (Praeger Series in Political Communication)

Press Bias and Politics: How the Media Frame Controversial Issues (Praeger Series in Political Communication)

Media Smackdown: Deconstructing the News and the Future of Journalism

Media Smackdown: Deconstructing the News and the Future of Journalism

Partisan Journalism: A History of Media Bias in the United States (Communication, Media, and Politics)

President Trump and the News Media: Moral Foundations, Framing, and the Nature of Press Bias in America (Lexington Studies in Political Communication)