Analyzes postassassination newspaper editorials eulogizing John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy. Argues that they fulfill four rhetorical functions: providing a public space for symbolic catharsis, celebrating individual virtues and mythic constructions of those virtues, attempting to reknit communal bonds, and calling…

Contributes to scholarship advancing the understanding of communication regarding texts containing both hegemonic and emancipatory messages. Finds elements in "The Indian in the Cupboard" that promote emancipatory readings: maturation, overt challenges to hegemonic codes, and proffering of implicit alternatives to those codes. Discusses…

Contributes to scholarship advancing the understanding of human communication. Examines how journalists construct their authority to tell moralizing stories. Shows how journalists construct a discursive strategy asserting their right to serve as moral agents on two levels: as "institutional we," determining the "facts," and as…

Contributes to scholarship advancing the understanding of human communication by examining discourse in the local and national press regarding the Brandon Teena case that reflects public discussions of sex, gender, sexuality, and transgenderism. Investigates public understandings of the "true" meaning of sex. Examines the struggle over…

Illustrates how nostalgic communication invites individuals disenchanted with their lives to make a temporal escape to a secure place of opposition. Analyzes the HBO documentary "When It Was a Game" and identifies how the text invites contemporary United States workers facing loss of workforce identity to effect a temporary escape to a…