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.

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.

Proto-State Media Systems explores how decisions by contemporary violent extremist groups create, develop, and sustain media systems. Focusing on the cases of al-Qaeda and ISIS, this book showcases how standard media systems theory fails to fully explain the media systems of these organizations as a basis for building a revised theoretical lens that comprehends these emergent systems in the 21st century global media context. Utilizing constitutive and online networking theories, Winkler and El Damanhoury explore how militant proto-states create lasting, adaptable, identity-based systems that work to attract and sustain the attention of followers. The groups' appeals to transhistorical and transpatial identity formations in their media products reveal new insights about community formation and how we analyze media systems in the proto-state context. Recognizing that nation-states no longer exercise monopoly control over online and offline media systems, Proto-State Media Systems investigates how certain violent extremist groups bent on establishing sustained territorial and governing control over populations have revolutionized the media environment of the 21st century.

Proto-State Media Systems explores how decisions by contemporary violent extremist groups create, develop, and sustain media systems. Focusing on the cases of al-Qaeda and ISIS, this book showcases how standard media systems theory fails to fully explain the media systems of these organizations as a basis for building a revised theoretical lens that comprehends these emergent systems in the 21st century global media context. Utilizing constitutive and online networking theories, Winkler and El Damanhoury explore how militant proto-states create lasting, adaptable, identity-based systems that work to attract and sustain the attention of followers. The groups' appeals to transhistorical and transpatial identity formations in their media products reveal new insights about community formation and how we analyze media systems in the proto-state context. Recognizing that nation-states no longer exercise monopoly control over online and offline media systems, Proto-State Media Systems investigates how certain violent extremist groups bent on establishing sustained territorial and governing control over populations have revolutionized the media environment of the 21st century.