Propaganda and Rhetoric in Democracy – History, Theory, Analysis

The study of propaganda’s uses in modern democracy highlights important theoretical questions about normative rhetorical practices. Is rhetoric ethically neutral? Is propaganda? How can facticity, accuracy, and truth be determined? Do any circumstances justify misrepresentation? Edited by Gae Lyn Henderson and M. J. Braun, Propaganda and Rhetoric in Democracy: History, Theory, Analysis advances our understanding of propaganda and rhetoric. Essays focus on historical figures—Edward Bernays, Jane Addams, Kenneth Burke, and Elizabeth Bowen—examining the development of the theory of propaganda during the rise of industrialism and the later changes of a mass-mediated society. Modeling a variety of approaches, case studies in the book consider contemporary propaganda and analyze the means and methods of propaganda production and distribution, including broadcast news, rumor production and globalized multimedia, political party manifestos, and university public relations.

Propaganda and Rhetoric in Democracy offers new perspectives on the history of propaganda, explores how it has evolved during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and advances a much more nuanced understanding of what it means to call discourse propaganda.
 

Gae Lyn Henderson, an associate professor at Utah Valley University, has received the Elizabeth A. Flynn Award for her writing. She has published articles in Rhetoric Society Quarterly and Reflections: A Journal of Public Rhetoric, Civic Writing, and Service-Learning. 

M. J. Braun is a retired professor from the University of North Carolina at Pembroke. She is a coeditor of Entertaining Fear: Rhetoric and the Political Economy of Social Control and has authored numerous articles.

Contributors include Laural Lea Adams, Catherine Chaput, Patricia Dunmire, Lanette Grate, Jayson Harsin, Thomas Huckin, Robert Jensen, Sharon J. Kirsch, Meg H. Kunde, John Oddo, Stefania Porcelli, and Gary Thompson.