This thesis examines the persuasiveness of anti-smoking television advertisements aimed at teens and produced by Philip Morris's Youth Smoking Prevention Program and the American Legacy Foundation's truth campaign. The advertisements are analyzed rhetorically using Kenneth Burke's dramatistic approach, supplemented by theory related to persuasive advertising, characteristics of at-risk adolescents, persuasive attack, and persuasive defense (apologia). The analysis indicates that strong central themes present in both the Philip Morris and truth campaigns act as a means of rhetorical persuasion, but are not necessarily rhetoric designed to persuade adolescents not to smoke cigarettes. The truth campaign advertisements contain both strengths and weaknesses. The weakness of the truth ads is related to an over-reliance on allegory-type scenarios meant to communicate anti-smoking sentiments and the theme of manipulation. Truth ads that contain clearer messages conveyed by appealing central characters are a more effective means of communicating not only an anti-smoking ideology, but also the theme of adolescent empowerment. This thesis's analysis more alarmingly indicates that the Philip Morris ads are in no way an effective means of smoking prevention. The Philip Morris campaign acts as a persuasive defense with the intended purpose of image repair and may encourage adolescents to think of Philip Morris and their tobacco products in a positive light. Conclusions suggest that due to the vast impact of media the glorifies smoking and other self-injurious behaviors; infrequent appearance of pro-social media appeals; insidious coercive tactics of the tobacco industry; possible limitations in determining the effectiveness of pro-social media appeals due to adolescent self-perception (or third person effect variables); and lack of attention paid to more vulnerable or at-risk youth, the real need may not be better pro-social media campaigns, but rather media literacy campaigns. In doing so, youth may become empowered, critical thinkers able to make life choices based on personal preference and the desire for self-fulfillment, instead of being coerced into a belief system induced by the bombardment of media.

In sports discourse, the relationship between athletics and technology is often paradoxical. On the one hand, modern sports rely on technology at every level, from training and tracking of players to the equipment and apparel used by athletes to the game strategies and playing fields themselves. Nearly all of these technologies are intended to increase athletic performance on some level. And yet, certain performance enhancement technologies can be criticized for being antithetical to the spirit of sports, which is framed as being a strictly natural and pure human endeavor. Using a rhetorical-cultural methodological approach, popular sports discourse is analyzed to investigate how arguments in contested spaces between sports and technologies get (re)negotiated and (re)articulated to fit within a sports social language that emphasizes "pure" and "natural" ideals of sport. This often results in a dichotomy where the sport/technology relationship is either black boxed, thus being subsumed in the sport social language and becoming transparent and the relationships unarticulated, or the technology is regulated out of the sport through rules and bans. The reason for this articulation is attributed in large part to the deep humanism embedded in the sport social language. How a shift to a posthuman perspective would effect sports discourse is explored. These conclusions about underlying values in sports discourse lead to the formation of a new theoretical framework called disciplinary mythologies. Building off of Foucault's disciplinary power, Scott's disciplinary rhetorics, and Barthe's mythologies, disciplinary mythologies are discrete units of persuasion that both construct and constitute claims by drawing upon layered narratives and shifting associations that lose their context when entering the realm of myth. Two specific disciplinary mythologies are discussed—the level-playing-field topos and the nostalgia enthymeme—and it is shown how sports discourse often draws upon them to shape arguments and actions.

In the following pages I assert that important rhetorical work is being carried out by aesthetic means in museums and memorials in order to facilitate experiences of identification. I describe in rhetorical terms how that work is done, especially within my primary artifact of study, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Specifically, this paper explores concepts developed in studies of epideictic rhetoric, the rhetoric of place, and museology. The theoretical framework of this paper is founded on the ideas of John Dewey and Kenneth Burke. Deweys theories discuss how we learn from experience and the role of the aesthetic in creating such an experience. Burke asserts that people are primed for rhetorical identification by specific settings or œscenes, which he expounds upon in his theory of the dramatic pentad. I believe that the setting of an aesthetically vivid scene creates an emotional ecology in which museum and memorial patrons can have meaningful experiences. Furthermore, these experiences educate the patrons emotions by allowing them to identify with (and develop empathy for) narratives and groups that they had not previously. In short, aesthetic elements set the stage for a meaningful rhetorical experience to take place, which ideally allows patrons to congregate and identify with the values and ideas they are presented with in the exhibit.

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In his first term as president, George W. Bush was confronted with one of the worst national attacks in United States history: the September 11 terrorist attacks of 2001. Through the devastation, however, President Bush triumphed in unifying and guiding this nation during what would become the height of his rhetorical leadership. Following his reelection in 2004, President Bush faced one of the worst natural disasters in the nation's history: Category 4 Hurricane Katrina. In its aftermath, Katrina became known as "one of the worst mishandled disasters ever." Utilizing Kenneth Burke's pentad, this study analyzes the president's rhetorical response and the primetime network news coverage following each crisis in an attempt to determine how President Bush could fare so well in one instance, consoling and leading the American people, while falling short in his second major crisis during his term as president. / Master of Arts

This thesis explores the political reformation of “faction” in the political thought of Montesquieu, David Hume, and Edmund Burke, three thinkers whose works span what Pierre Manent calls “an exquisite moment of liberalism.” It examines the transformation of faction from one based largely on class to one based largely on political function and argues that as the political emphasis of “party” overtook that of class, a disconnect in constitutional theory appeared between the principles formerly associated with class, such as honor, and the principles now associated with parties. This disconnect is examined by focusing on the interrelated concepts of political principle, or that which motivates and regulates men, and faction, itself divided into two types, principled and singular. This thesis further considers the role of political principle to faction in each thinker’s thought in order to demonstrate how limited domestic political conflict could sustain itself via a party system. Each thinker recognized that limited political conflict did not weaken the state but rather strengthened it, if engendered by “principled faction” cognizant of a nominal sovereign. Accordingly, it is argued that a similar understanding of “principled faction,” though focused largely on aristocratic ideas of prejudice, self-interest, and inequality, better promoted political liberty within the state and contributed to a greater acceptance of party in political thought.