Rhetoric of Film, Visual Rhetoric, and the Media

As human beings, we make meanings, feelings, identities, cultures, and communities through a wide range of symbolic behaviors. Visual rhetoric, the rhetoric of film, and the rhetoric media have their own forms, and build habits of response that can parallel, subvert, or transcend the rhetorics of speech and writing. Thomas W. Benson studies visual rhetoric through the close textual analysis of film and its relation to the institutional practices that constrain the production, distribution, and reception of significant texts.

Thomas W. Benson and Carolyn Anderson. Reality Fictions: The Films of Frederick Wiseman. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1989.
• (Second edition 2002).

Carolyn Anderson and Thomas W. Benson. Documentary Dilemmas: Frederick Wiseman's “Titicut Follies.” Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1991.

Thomas W. Benson. "Joe: An Essay in the Rhetorical Criticism of Film. Journal of Popular Culture (Winter, 1974): 610-618.

Martin J. Medhurst and Thomas W. Benson. "The City: The Rhetoric of Rhythm." Communication Monographs 48 (1981): 54-72.

Thomas W. Benson and Kenneth D. Frandsen. An Orientation to Nonverbal Communication. Palo Alto: Science Research Associates, 1976.
• Second edition, Nonverbal Communication, revised and enlarged, 1981.
•
Martin J. Medhurst and Thomas W. Benson, eds. Rhetorical Dimensions in Media: A Critical Casebook. Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall/Hunt, 1984.
• Revised and enlarged printing 1986;
• second edition, 1991;
• revised and enlarged printing, 1995.

Thomas W. Benson. "Another Shooting in Cowtown." Quarterly Journal of Speech 67 (1981): 347-406.

Thomas W. Benson. "Implicit Communication Theory in Campaign Coverage." In William C. Adams (ed.). Television Coverage of the 1980 Presidential Campaign. (Norwood, NJ: Ablex, 1983).

Martin J. Medhurst and Thomas W. Benson. "Rhetorical Studies in a Media Age." In Medhurst and Benson (eds.). Rhetorical Dimensions in Media. Dubuque: Kendall/Hunt, 1984.

Thomas W. Benson and Carolyn Anderson. "The Rhetorical Structure of Frederick Wiseman's Model." Journal of Film and Video. 36:4 (Fall, 1984): 30-40.

Thomas W. Benson. "The Rhetorical Structure of Frederick Wiseman's Primate." The Quarterly Journal of Speech 71 (1985): 204-217.

Thomas W. Benson. "Respecting the Reader." Quarterly Journal of Speech 72 (1986).

Thomas W. Benson and Carolyn Anderson. "Good Films from Bad Rules: The Ethics of Naming in Frederick Wiseman's Welfare." In Visual Explorations of the World, ed. Jay Ruby and Martin Taureg (Aachen: Edition Herodot, 1987).

Carolyn Anderson and Thomas W. Benson. "Direct Cinema and the Myth of Informed Consent: The Case of Titicut Follies." In Image Ethics: The Moral Rights of Subjects in Photographs, Film, and Television, ed. Larry Gross, John Stuart Katz, and Jay Ruby (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 58-90.

Thomas W. Benson and Carolyn Anderson. "The Ultimate Technology: Frederick Wiseman's Missile." In Communication and the Culture of Technology, ed. Martin J. Medhurst, Alberto Gonzalez, and Tarla Rai Peterson (Pullman: Washington State University Press, 1990).

Carolyn Anderson and Thomas W. Benson, "Setz die Kamera ab und greif zur Schaufel." Ein Interview mit John Marshall. In R. Kapfer, W. Peterman, and R. Thomas, eds., Jager und Gejagte: John Marshall und seine Filme (Munchen: Trickster, 1991), 135-165.

Thomas W. Benson. "Killer Media: Technology, Communication Theory, and the First Amendment." In Martin J. Medhurst and Thomas W. Benson, eds. Rhetorical Dimensions in Media: A Critical Casebook, 2d ed. (Dubuque: Kendall/Hunt, 1991).

Thomas W. Benson and Carolyn Anderson, "The Freeing of Titicut Follies." In Free Speech Yearbook 1992 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1993) vol. 30: 40-55.

Carolyn Anderson and Thomas W. Benson, "Put Down the Camera and Pick up the Shovel: An Interview with John Marshall." In Jay Ruby, ed., The Cinema of John Marshall (Chur, Switzerland: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1993), 135-167. [This appeared in German in 1991 as "Setz die Kamera ab und greif zur Schaufel."]

Thomas W. Benson, "Thinking through Film: Hollywood Remembers the Blacklist," in Rhetoric and Community, ed. Michael Hogan. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1998.

Thomas W. Benson, “Looking for the Public in the Private: American Lives, Un-American Activities.” Rhetoric and Public Affairs 1 (1998): 117-129.

Thomas W. Benson. “Looking for the Public in the Popular: Collective Memory and the Hollywood Blacklist.” David Blakesley, ed. The Terministic Screen: Rhetorical Perspectives on Film. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2003, 129-145.

Rhetoric, Technology, and Democracy

The Internet has become an active site for political communication, but it is unclear whether the Internet will foster democratic institutions, or fragment the political community into fringe interest groups, or devolve into a corporate zone where power follows money. Thomas W. Benson investigates the potential and the practice of politics of the Internet, from the formal politics of presidential campaigns to the development of democratic practices in on-line communication among academic communities. In 1991, he was invited to serve as a consultant to IREX and the Russian Academy of Sciences on the democratizing potential of computer mediated communication for the scholars in the former Soviet republics. In 1985, he founded CRTNET, an on-line publication now published by the National Communication Association as its daily listserv. In 1999 he became the founding editor of The Review of Communication, an on-line journal of the National Communication Association. He is credited by one historian of technology as having originated the idea for a secure paper audit receipt for electronic voting.

Thomas W. Benson. "On the Margins of Technology." Technology Studies 1, no. 2 (1994): 290-296.

Thomas W. Benson, "The First E-Mail Election: Electronic Networking and the Clinton Campaign." In Bill Clinton on Stump, State, and Stage: The Rhetorical Road to the White House, ed. Stephen Smith. Fayetteville, AR: University of Arkansas Press, 1994, 315-340.

Thomas W. Benson, "Electronic Network Resources for Communication Scholars." Communication Education 43 (1994): 120-128.

Thomas W. Benson, "Desktop Demos: New Communication Technologies and the Future of the Rhetorical Presidency." Beyond the Rhetorical Presidency, ed. Martin J. Medhurst. College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 1996.

Thomas W. Benson. “Electronic Journals and Faculty Rewards.” American Communication Journal. (May 1998).

Thomas W. Benson, “Rhetoric, Civility, and Community: Political Debate on Computer Bulletin Boards.” Communication Quarterly 44 (1996): 359-378.

How do the people and the institutional structures of higher education help to shape the development of the discipline of communication / rhetoric / speech-communication?

All academic disciplines are in part arbitrary constructions, clustering diverse intellectual interests under the name of a single discipline, which usually has strong affiliations (and sometimes turf wars) with other disciplines, and is subject to a variety of constraints from local, national, and international institutional structures. These structures are also, in turn, strongly influenced by the singular and collaborative work of scholars, which stretches the boundaries of knowledge and sometimes challenges settled notions of what counts as part of a discipline. In a program of research attempting to understand the development of the discipline of communication, Thomas W. Benson investigates the interacting roles of individual scholars, academic practices, and institutional histories in shaping the field.

Thomas W. Benson, ed. Speech Communication in the 20th Century. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1985.

Thomas W. Benson, ed. Landmark Essays on Rhetorical Criticism. Davis, CA: Hermagoras Press, 1993.

Douglas Ehninger, Thomas W. Benson, Ernest E. Ettlich, Walter R. Fisher, Harry P. Kerr, Richard L. Larson, Raymond E. Nadeau, Lyndrey A. Niles, "Report of the Committee on the Scope of Rhetoric and the Place of Rhetorical Studies in Higher Education," in The Prospect of Rhetoric: Report of the National Developmental Project, ed. Lloyd F. Bitzer and Edwin Black (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1971), 208-219.

Thomas W. Benson. "History, Criticism, and Theory in the Study of American Rhetoric." In Thomas W. Benson (ed.), American Rhetoric: Context and Criticism (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1989).

Thomas W. Benson. "Academic Freedom and Scholarly Journals in Speech Communication: An Editor's Perspective." Association for Communication Administration Bulletin No. 73 (August 1990): 71-81.

Thomas W. Benson. "Communication and the Circle of Learning," Quarterly Journal of Speech 78 (1992): 238-254.

Thomas W. Benson, "Beacons and Boundary Markers: Landmarks in Rhetorical Criticism." In Thomas W. Benson (ed.), Landmark Essays on Rhetorical Criticism. Davis, CA: Hermagoras Press, 1993, xi-xxii.

Thomas W. Benson. “Electronic Journals and Faculty Rewards.” American Communication Journal. (May 1998). Link: http://www.acjournal.org/holdings/vol1/iss3/editorials/benson/benson.htm

Thomas W. Benson. “Carroll C. Arnold: Rhetorical Criticism at the Intersection of Theory, Practice, and Pedagogy,” in Roots of Rhetorical Criticism, ed. Jim A. Kuypers and Andrew King. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2001, pp. 157-174.

Thomas W. Benson. “Richard B. Gregg and the Scholarship of Critical Disclosure.” The Pennsylvania Speech Communication Annual 57 (2001): 1-14. link: http://www.personal.psu.edu/faculty/t/3/t3b/projects/Gregg/Dick%20Gregg%20and%20critical%20disclosure.htm

Thomas W. Benson, “Edwin Black,” Rhetoric & Public Affairs 4.3 (2001): 535-539.

Thomas W. Benson, “The Cornell School of Rhetoric: Idiom and Institution,” Communication Quarterly 51 (2003): 1-56.

Public Address, Political Rhetoric, and the Rhetoric of the American Presidency

Public address influences political decisions, shapes communities, and constructs shared identities. How can political institutions and practices best use society’s communicative resources to sustain and nurture democratic self-government? Study of the production, the texts, the mediation, and the reception of public discourse has been central to the revival of rhetorical communication studies that began in the early twentieth century. Using critical, historical, and theoretical perspectives, such studies engage in close readings of significant texts; interrogate archival sources and living witnesses to discover how speeches are written, staged, distributed; and examine the potential of significant discourse for shaping response.

Thomas W. Benson, ed. American Rhetoric: Context and Criticism. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1989.
Thomas W. Benson, ed. Landmark Essays on Rhetorical Criticism. Davis, CA: Hermagoras Press, 1993.
Thomas W. Benson, ed. Rhetoric and Political Culture in Nineteenth-Century America. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1997.
Thomas W. Benson. Writing JFK: Presidential Rhetoric and the Press in the Bay of Pigs Crisis. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2004.
• Winner of the Everett Lee Hunt Award, Eastern Communication Association (2004)
Thomas W. Benson. American Rhetoric in the New Deal Era, 1932-1945. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press. In press.
Thomas W. Benson. "Rhetorical Impasse: The Sedition Trials of 1800." The Southern Speech Journal 31 (Spring 1966): 196-206.
Thomas W. Benson. "Poisoned Minds." The Southern Speech Journal 34 (Fall 1968): 54-60.
Thomas W. Benson and Bonnie Johnson. "The Rhetoric of Resistance: Confrontation with the Warmakers, Washington, D. C., October 1967." Today's Speech 16 (September 1968): 35-42; reprinted, with photographs by T. W. Benson, in Colleague 5 (March/April 1969): 9-14.
Thomas W. Benson. "Conversations with a Ghost." Today's Speech 16 (November 1968): 71-81.
Thomas W. Benson. "Inaugurating Peace: Franklin D. Roosevelt's Last Speech." Speech Monographs 36 (June 1969): 138-147.
Thomas W. Benson. "Rhetoric and Autobiography: The Case of Malcolm X." Quarterly Journal of Speech, 60 (February 1974): 1-13.
Thomas W. Benson. "Another Shooting in Cowtown." Quarterly Journal of Speech 67 (1981): 347-406.
Thomas W. Benson. "Rhetoric As a Way of Being." In Thomas W. Benson (ed.), American Rhetoric: Context and Criticism (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1989).
Thomas W. Benson. “To Lend a Hand: Gerald Ford, Watergate, and the White House Speechwriters.” Rhetoric and Public Affairs 1 (1998): 201-225.
Thomas W. Benson. “FDR at Gettysburg: The New Deal and the Rhetoric of Presidential Leadership.” The Rhetoric of Presidential Leadership, ed. Leroy Dorsey. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2002, pp. 145-183.