The rhetorical price of freedom: the impact of outsourced critical thinking on deliberative democracy
- WCU Author/Contributor (non-WCU co-authors, if there are any, appear on document)
- Emily Shelton Poole (Creator)
- Institution
- Western Carolina University (WCU )
- Web Site: http://library.wcu.edu/
- Advisor
- Johnathan Bradshaw
Abstract: In contemporary media ecologies, news consumers delegate the generation of political opinion to trusted outside entities. Consumers trust these purported experts, media personalities, or news outlets because their affect, values, ethos, or party positioning appeal to them in a way that confirms their own thoughts and opinions. This deferral of opinion to a source perceived to have greater authority and experience has potential consequences for democracy. For-profit news outlets—broadcast, print, and digital—court audiences and encourage exclusivity and loyalty in their attention. In so doing, they deliver to viewers a tranche of beliefs articulated together and carefully maintained through partisan discourse and blockage of outside ideas. This process cultivates an exclusive rhetorical ecology that functions as a closed system and impoverishes the discursive environment in which democracy—by way of compromise—flourishes. This study forwards the idea of outsourcing as a way to account for the complex rhetorical and ethical issues surrounding such an ecology. To describe the theory of rhetorical outsourcing, I draw on scholarship in rhetorical ecologies, rhetorical circulation studies, deliberative rhetoric, political theory and communication, rhetorical and organizational ethics, systems theory, and media studies. This study includes analysis of recent data from the Pew Research Center on the habits of both news consumers and producers as well as analysis of certain news media, applying current rhetorical theory and scholarship to disentangle participation in media ecologies. I argue that the creation and maintenance of closed systems created by media ecologies raises ethical dilemmas for news producers and preys on consumers who trust them with the cultivation and protection of political identities. These closed systems lead to further political polarization and impoverish discursive potential, having a negative impact on deliberative democracy as power shifts away from citizens and into the hands of the media who control the messaging.
The rhetorical price of freedom: the impact of outsourced critical thinking on deliberative democracy
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Created on 4/1/2023
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Additional Information
- Publication
- Thesis
- Language: English
- Date: 2023
- Keywords
- deliberative democracy, democracy, media ecology, media systems, new media, rhetorical circulation
- Subjects
- Media literacy
- Democracy
- Deliberative democracy
- Critical thinking
- Rhetoric