Overview

"From Greenpeace protesters confronting whaling ships to activists occupying trees, radical environmentalists increasingly rely on attracting mass media coverage to gain visibility and public support. This book examines the use of ""image events"" as a rhetorical tactic, one that often supplants written or spoken arguments. Widely televised environmentalist actions are analyzed in depth to illustrate how the image event fulfils fundamental rhetorical functions in constructing and transforming identities, discourses, communities, cultures and world views."

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9781572304611

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Blending theoretical perspectives from diverse disciplines...DeLuca crafts a highly useful 'critical rhetorical' approach that allows subtle and complex analysis of relatively underexamined kinds of environmental activism.... Image Politics,. .substantially revises recent traditions in rhetorical studies, which have tended to center on the orator/public speaker rather than the 'image event, ' and to operate from an 'organizational studies' model....Further, Deluca extends the critiques of various cultural theorists and post-structuralist rhetoricians....Ultimately, DeLuca demonstrates how a 'critical rhetorician' might use the critical tools of post-structuralism to understand the political leverage representational rhetorics provide--and thus how environmental activists might shift systems of shared meanings, even against the full cultural weight of industrial capitalism. -- ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment <br>.,. DeLuca makes an easy connection to the reader and minimizes any pretense such an erudite discussion could involve. He offers chapters as 'meditations' that need not be read in order, allowing flexible classroom use....The book is full of interesting and useful information--for instance Abbie Hoffman's realization in the 60s of the power of the televised image and the later 'yippie' connection to Earth First!....Having taught both environmental resource courses in a geography program and environmental reporting classes in journalism schools, I believe this text could be used to challenge students in a wide array of courses. -- Journalism and Mass Communication Educator <br>.,. presents a detailed analysis of the use of video images to advancethe objectives of activist organizations ranging from little-known groups like the Allegheny County Non-violent Action Group to the internationally recognizable Earth First! And Greenpeace....Recommended for libraries serving higher education programs in political science, mass communications, and environmental science. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. -- Choice <br>

Kevin DeLuca sets out on a brave quest to understand the social forces unleashed in the postmodern age, as mediated reality constantly postures as Real Reality. Image Politics shows how the earth itself is given voice--a multiplicity of voices, actually--as environmentalists, capitalists, and the press do battle in the public square. DeLuca is a reliable guide to the resulting political fury. --Roderick P. Hart, Liddell Professor of Communication and Government, University of Texas at Austin DeLuca offers a penetrating reading of image events and their centrality in the rhetoric of new social movements. Using detailed case studies drawn from environmental activism, DeLuca analyzes 'imagefare' as an inevitable component of the struggle over the meaning of key political ideas. This book will be useful reading for students of rhetoric and media studies. --Dilip Gaonkar, PhD, Department of Communication Studies, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois

Author Information

"Kevin Michael DeLuca, PhD, has taught at the University of Virginia and the Pennsylvania State University and is currently an assistant professor of Speech Communication at the University of Georgia. His major area of interest is how industrial cultures relate to the natural world and construct visions of ""nature."" He has published articles on environmental politics, technology, the media, and postmodernism."

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