Networking Argument

This edited volume presents selected works from the 20th Biennial Alta Argumentation Conference, sponsored by the National Communication Association and the American Forensics Association and held in 2017. The conference brought together scholars from Europe, Asia, and North America to engage in intensive conversations about how argument functions in our increasingly networked society.

The essays discuss four aspects of networked argument. Some examine arguments occurring in online networks, seeking to both understand and respond more effectively to the acute changes underway in the information age. Others focus on offline networks to identify historical and contemporary resources available to advocates in the modern day. Still others discuss the value-added of including argumentation scholars on interdisciplinary research teams analyzing a diverse range of subjects, including science, education, health, law, economics, history, security, and media. Finally, the remainder network argumentation theories explore how the interactions between and among existing theories offer fruitful ground for new insights for the field of argumentation studies.

The wide range of disciplinary backgrounds and methodological approaches employed in Networking Argument make this volume a unique compilation of perspectives for understanding urgent and sustaining issues facing our society.

Carol Winkler is Professor of Communication Studies at Georgia State University, USA, where she leads the interdisciplinary Transcultural Conflict and Violence Initiative and is a former Associate Dean of Humanities. A former President of the American Forensics Association, she served as Principal Investigator on grants that funded urban debate programs to Atlanta and Milwaukee, including the Computer Assisted Debate Program selected as the signature school program for the 2005 White House’s Helping America’s Youth initiative. She has also served as an invited technical consultant for the U.S. Bureau of Justice Administration to expand the benefits of debate to low-income communities. Her current research program focuses on presidential rhetoric, extremist discourse, and visual arguments related to terrorism. Her book, In the Name of Terrorism (2006), won the National Communication Association’s Outstanding Book Award in Political Communication, and her co-authored article on how certain visual images stand as ideological markers of the culture won that same organization’s Visual Communication Excellence in Research Award. She is currently working as co-principal investigator on a Minerva funded project, ‘Mobilizing Media’, which analyzes the media campaign of violent extremist groups in the Middle East and North Africa.