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Thinking Critically About Media is a textbook for self-defence
against manipulation by politicians, the media and assorted
propagandists. Its interdisciplinary application of principles of
critical thinking and argumentative rhetoric can be incorporated in
a variety of university courses including the social sciences,
communication, journalism and media studies. The authors identify
the precise political positions of a spectrum of American media and
journalists from left to right, so as to point students toward
sources representing opposed viewpoints, with their typical lines
of argument, in order to reach a comparative analysis. Other
important issues dealt with include the various influences on
political bias as propagated by sources such as lobbies, public
relations agencies, think tanks and political advertising agencies.
This rhetoric-and-reader textbook teaches college students to
develop critical reading, writing, and thinking skills for
self-defense in the contentious arena of American civic rhetoric.
This edition is substantially updated for an era of renewed
tensions over race, gender, and economic inequality-all compounded
by the escalating decibel level and polarization of public
rhetoric. Readings include civil rights advocate Michelle Alexander
on "the new Jim Crow," recent reconsiderations of socialism versus
capitalism, Naomi Wolf's and Christine Hoff Sommers' opposing views
on "the beauty myth," a section on the rhetoric of war, and debates
on identity politics, abortion, and student debt. Designed for
first-year or more advanced composition and critical thinking
courses, the book trains students in a wealth of techniques to
locate fallacies and other weaknesses in argumentation in their
prose and the writings of others. Exercises also help students
understand the ideological positions and rhetorical patterns that
underlie opposing views, from Ann Coulter to Bernie Sanders. Widely
debated issues of whether objectivity is possible and whether there
is a liberal or conservative bias in news and entertainment media,
as well as in education itself, are foregrounded as topics for
rhetorical analysis.
This rhetoric-and-reader textbook teaches college students to
develop critical reading, writing, and thinking skills for
self-defense in the contentious arena of American civic rhetoric.
This edition is substantially updated for an era of renewed
tensions over race, gender, and economic inequality-all compounded
by the escalating decibel level and polarization of public
rhetoric. Readings include civil rights advocate Michelle Alexander
on "the new Jim Crow," recent reconsiderations of socialism versus
capitalism, Naomi Wolf's and Christine Hoff Sommers' opposing views
on "the beauty myth," a section on the rhetoric of war, and debates
on identity politics, abortion, and student debt. Designed for
first-year or more advanced composition and critical thinking
courses, the book trains students in a wealth of techniques to
locate fallacies and other weaknesses in argumentation in their
prose and the writings of others. Exercises also help students
understand the ideological positions and rhetorical patterns that
underlie opposing views, from Ann Coulter to Bernie Sanders. Widely
debated issues of whether objectivity is possible and whether there
is a liberal or conservative bias in news and entertainment media,
as well as in education itself, are foregrounded as topics for
rhetorical analysis.
This book offers a critical introduction to the media as well as a
self defense against the spin of politicians, advertising, and
assorted propagandists. Its interdisciplinary application of
principles of critical thinking and argumentative rhetoric can be
incorporated into a diverse range of college courses, including
communication, journalism, rhetoric, and media criticism. Lazere
offers a basic guide to and critique of the semantic complexities
of terms such as "liberal, conservative, left," and "right," as
well as related words like "democracy, freedom, capitalism," and
"socialism." He provides student guides for understanding opposing
viewpoints between conservative and liberal polemicists on
controversial issues in current politics and media, such as the
nation s wealth gap, including the rhetoric of economic arguments
and the use and interpretation of statistics. His book offers
insights into understanding the positions behind many other
well-publicized debates in American society from women s rights to
racial attitudes to the role of government. Lazere provides
students with tools for understanding and argumentation, showing
how to recognize logical fallacies, verbal slanting, and emotional
appeal through connotative language and how to discern intentions
behind political and other advertisements.In contrast to most
textbooks approach to logical fallacies that assumes they result
only from unintentional lapses in reasoning, this book confronts
the hard truth that real-life arguments frequently are tainted by
deliberate deception. Chapter 3 surveys various influences on
political bias in the media, while Chapter 4 examines special
pleading, conflicts of interest, invective, smearing, and hype as
propagated by sources like lobbies, public relations agencies,
think tanks, advocacy, and political advertising.Key features of
the text: "
This brief edition of a ground-breaking textbook addresses the need
for college students to develop critical reading, writing, and
thinking skills for self-defense in the contentious arena of
American civic rhetoric. Designed for first-year or more advanced
composition and critical thinking courses, it is one-third shorter
than the original edition, more affordable for students, and easier
for teachers to cover in a semester or quarter. It incorporates
up-to-date new readings and analysis of controversies like the
growing inequality of wealth in America and the debates in the 2008
presidential campaign, expressed in opposing viewpoints from the
political left and right. Exercises help students understand the
ideological positions and rhetorical patterns that underlie such
opposing views. Widely debated issues of whether objectivity is
possible and whether there is a liberal or conservative bias in
news and entertainment media, as well as in education itself, are
foregrounded as topics for rhetorical analysis."Online Materials
Available-Steve Brouwer's essay, "If We Decide to Tax the Rich"
with complete footnotes and works cited-Model Student Research
Paper: "From Reagonomics to Obamanomics"-Research
Resources-Glossary of Rhetorical and Critical Thinking Terms-Works
Cited"
On subjects from Superman to rock 'n' roll, from Donald Duck to the
TV news, from soap operas and romance novels to the use of double
speak in advertising, these lively essays offer students of
contemporary media a comprehensive counterstatement to the
conservatism that has been ascendant since the seventies in
American politics and cultural criticism. Donald Lazere brings
together selections from nearly forty of the most prominent
Marxist, feminist, and other leftist critics of American mass
culture-from a dozen academic disciplines and fields of media
activism. The collection will appeal to a wide range of students,
scholars, and general readers.
During the 1970s, the National Council for Teachers of English
issued a series of res olutions calling for the teaching of
"critical reading, listening, viewing, and thinking skills
necessary to enable students to cope with the sophisticated
persuasion tech niques in political statements, advertising,
entertainment, and news." However, in recent decades, under the
sway of multi culturalism and postmodern theory, com position and
rhetoric pedagogies have strayed from these goals. In Political Lit
eracy in Composition and Rhetoric, author and teacher Donald Lazere
issues a call to action for the return to an emphasis on critical
thinking skills and multidisciplinary approaches in the teaching of
composi tion and rhetoric. Lazere also presents a keen
sociocultural observation regarding the majority of the "Middle
Americans" demographic-lower-middle class, rural, white students
with a conservative leaning and an occasional resistance to change-
and their learning behaviors and needs. Finally, Lazere offers a
roadmap for a new kind of curriculum, one that he argues will
enable teachers of composition and rheto ric to foster a sense of
civic literacy in their students and thus, by extension, American
society as a whole.
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