Return to search

Tonight It’s Government Funded: A Rhetorical Analysis of Manufactured Social Controversy and Government Funding of the Arts

Thomas Goodnight’s definition of controversy offers an initial examination of Reverend Donald Wildmon and Reverend Pat Robertson’s attack of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), initiating the Culture Wars of 1989. Using their most reliable communication tactics, Wildmon and Robertson attempted to garner support for their values by manufacturing controversy related to government funding of the National Endowment for the Arts. Together, they manufacture social controversy around two inter-related themes, one of morality, in which they argued Christians were being persecuted by the art community, and the other against federal funding of objectionable art, using Andres Serrano and Robert Mapplethorpe as symbols of corruption. In addition to the initial attacks on Serrano and Mapplethorpe, my rhetorical analysis illustrates how Wildmon’s and Robertson’s rhetoric seemingly sanctioned the manufacturing of a social controversy regarding the Federal funding for objectionable art as a way to promote their pro-family and anti-homosexual agenda.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:ndsu.edu/oai:library.ndsu.edu:10365/27191
Date January 2013
CreatorsBeckermann, Kay Marie
PublisherNorth Dakota State University
Source SetsNorth Dakota State University
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext/thesis
Formatapplication/pdf
RightsNDSU Policy 190.6.2, https://www.ndsu.edu/fileadmin/policy/190.pdf

Page generated in 0.0019 seconds