Communication Criticism

Cohen introduces classical theories of rhetoric at the beginning of each chapter, then expands the discussion with contemporary postmodern theories, touching on concerns with aesthetics and cultural bias as well. Question and answer sections in each chapter and many specific, down-to-earth examples will attract and encourage students to harness the power of communication that shapes who we are, what we know, and what we do. A highly practical resource, Communication Criticism is the ideal for courses in popular culture, media studies, mass communication, and film studies.

This book should be of interest to courses in rhetorical criticism and rhetorical theory.

This book focuses on seven entries in Carl R. Burgchardt’s Readings in Rhetorical Criticism, to which it adds a complementary effort. While maintaining a strategy of ongoing dialogue with both the prospective reader and the texts under scrutiny, the book acknowledges the author’s privileged moment of essential identification and represents a step out of the limiting frame of the inherently political character of inquiry. This allows the book to present personal narrative about guidance by specific critics such as Edwin Black, Forbes Hill, Karlyn Khors Campbell, Kenneth Burke, William Lewis, and Raymie McKerrow through the labyrinth of “that Leviathan, the public mind” (H. Wichelns). The volume mediates a cross-cultural re-conceptualization of academic writing, more adequately inscribed within the symbolic border between the consolidated American and other fragile profiles of the discipline of Communication Studies.

This introduction to criticism teaches students critical skills, whether examining television, fiction, nonfiction, visual arts, or oral and written discourse. Three introductory chapters provide a foundation to explore nine approaches to critical study. The perspectives presented bridge disciplinary boundaries and include: asking questions about how audiences process communication, understanding human symbol systems and social relations as vehicles for comprehending the world, value and narrative analysis, and psychoanalytic and ideological criticism. The discussions of using each approach contain questions critics are most likely to ask, assumptions governing the approach, an exploration of sample analyses that reveal vocabulary most frequently used, and a review of the problems encountered by critics.

Arthur Asa Berger's unique ability to translate difficult theories into accessible language makes this book an ideal introduction to cultural criticism. Berger covers the key theorists, concepts, and subject areas, from literary, sociological and psychoanalytical theories to semiotics and Marxism. Cultural Criticism breathes new life into the discipline by making these theories relevant to students' lives. The author illustrates his explanations with excerpts from classic works giving readers a sense of the important thinkers' styles and helping place them in their context. Berger also provides a comprehensive bibliography on cultural criticism for those who wish to explore the topics at greater length. Cultural Criticism is the perfect undergraduate supplemental text for such courses as media studies, literary criticism, and popular culture.

Now in its second edition, Rhetorical Criticism: Perspectives in Action presents a thorough, accessible, and well-grounded introduction to contemporary rhetorical criticism. Systematic chapters contributed by noted experts introduce the fundamental aspects of a perspective, provide students with an example to model when writing their own criticism, and address the potentials and pitfalls of the approach. In addition to covering traditional modes of rhetorical criticism, the volume presents less commonly discussed rhetorical perspectives, exposing students to a wide cross-section of techniques.

Presents an evidence-based review of the make-or-break factors that determine the efficacy of criticism, praise, and advice. Deals with fundamental processes of feedback; problems with delivering feedback across social divides such as race; feedback in organisational settings, helping professions, and personal relationships. Hornsey, Uni of QLD.

Further developing the line of argument put forward in his Literature as Communication (2000) and Mediating Criticism (2001), Roger D. Sell now suggests that when so-called literary texts stand the test of time and appeal to a large and heterogeneous circle of admirers, this is because they are genuinely dialogical in spirit. Their writers, rather than telling other people what to do or think or feel, invite them to compare notes, and about topics which take on different nuances as seen from different points of view. So while such texts obviously reflect the taste and values of their widely various provenances, they also channel a certain respect for the human other to whom they are addressed. So much so, that they win a reciprocal respect from members of their audience. In Sell's new book, this ethical interplay becomes the focus of a post-postmodern critique, which sees literary dialogicality as a possible catalyst to new, non-hegemonic kinds of globalization. The argument is illustrated with major reassessments of Shakespeare, Pope, Wordsworth, Dickens, Churchill, Orwell, and Pinter, and there are also studies of trauma literature for children, and of ethically oriented criticism itself.