Rhetorical Reception: Exploring the role of the real rhetorical audience
The first audience analysis must have been Aristotle’s description of the various types of human character in the Rhetoric. However, in general rhetorical studies of audiences are rare. With a few exceptions most rhetorical studies are speaker- or text focused.
When rhetoricians actually discuss the audience, they are mostly concerned with the audience as theoretical or textual constructions. They examine the universal audience (C. Perelman), the second persona (E. Black), the audience constituted by the text (M. Charland, M.C. McGee), the ignored or alienated audience (P. Wander), or they theorize about the audience’s cognitive processing of messages (W. Benoit/M.J. Smythe).
Only very rarely, and in very limited way, does rhetorical research study the actual audience reception of rhetoric. However, in our time new media and new forms of communication makes it harder to distinguish between speaker and audience.
The active involvement of users and audiences is more important than ever before. Therefore, the rhetoric group at the department of Information Science and media studies have established a pre-project dealing with rhetoric and reception and the real rhetorical audience.
We believe that rhetorical research should reconsider the understanding, conceptualization and examination of the rhetorical audience. From mostly understanding audience as a theoretical construction that are examined textually and speculatively, we should give more attention to empirical explorations of actual audiences and users.
Project facts
Name
Rhetorical Reception: Exploring the role of the real rhetorical audience
Status
CONCLUDED
Duration
01.10.15 - 31.08.17
