@issue: controversies in rhetorical and communication studies

Theorists, teachers and practitioners have been debating strategies & tactics of “purposive communication” for millennia. Every age and culture raises its own set of issues, inextricably bound to the time- and place-specific demands of audience and occasion. But there continues to be a surprising amount of overlap, too. Chances are pretty good that whatever issues preoccupy us today will have preoccupied others before us. Although the intellectual and/or communicative context changes, the aims of human discourse usually don’t.

This section of CommunicatingByDesign.com will raise several controversial issues which are relevant to 21st-century rhetors, especially those of us working in “new media” and digital communications. Our challenge is to grasp the contours of a given debate, take some sort of provisional stand on the issues, and creatively apply whatever lessons we have taken away from the ongoing argument to our own practices.

All a lot easier said than done, of course.

But in my experience, well worth the trouble involved.

to @Issue #1 ...

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