Bøker av Theodore F. Sheckels

Political Problems and Personalities in Contemporary Maryland provides a comprehensive rhetorical analysis of contemporary politics and political communication in Maryland at both the state and local levels. Theodore F. Sheckels and Carl Hyden approach rhetoric in a broader sense, arguing that actions by political players including decisions on housing policy, urban redevelopment policy, and transportation policyare not in a separate category from their messages. In many cases, they argue, actions are messages, often with important material consequences. Rather than focusing solely on previous or upcoming elections, as political communication has traditionally been examined, Sheckels and Hyden give considerable space to non-election topics, responding to current shifts in political communication scholarship and encouraging others to examine political communication at the local and state levels elsewhere in the United States. Scholars of communication, political science, rhetoric, and history will find this book of particular interest.

Featuring a balance of practical advice and sound instruction, Speechwriting: A Rhetorical Guide provides readers with essential knowledge to prepare and deliver well-constructed and well-researched speeches appropriate for a variety of contexts.The first part of the book discusses traditional rhetorical theory in a way that is direct and easy for students to understand. The chapters cover such topics as audience and the rhetorical canons of invention, elocution or style, disposition or organization, delivery, and memory. Chapters in the second part then apply the rhetorical principles to four different types of speeches: inaugural addresses, commencement addresses, a variety of persuasive speeches, and a number of ceremonial ones.The text includes excerpts from actual speeches, illustrative speechwriting samples with commentary from a prospective speech writer, and a set of exercises that encourage readers to think about how the sample speech might be improved upon or modified if they were the one writing it.Speechwriting connects rhetorical theory to modern situations and settings to emphasize real-world application. The text is an exemplary resource for courses in speech and writing as found in departments of communication studies, English and composition, political science, education, and any other discipline in which people are frequently asked to speak or address an audience.

This book analyzes the thiry-six political party conventions since 1948 as rhetorical entities with goals often epideictic, constitutive, and even deliberative. Crucial in meeting (and sometimes not) these goals are speeches, demonstrations, and off-camera discussions at each convention.

Islands, both literal and figurative, recur in fiction authored by many prominent Canadian women writers. Using a critical lens based on Northrop Frye and Julia Kristeva, this book closely examines fourteen novels by eight twentieth-century authors, emphasizing works by L. M. Montgomery, Margaret Laurence, and Margaret Atwood. Several of the novels, such as Montgomery¿s Anne of Green Gables, Laurence¿s A Jest of God and The Diviners, Atwood¿s Surfacing and Bodily Harm, Alice Munro¿s The Lives of Girls and Women, and Gabrielle Roy¿s The Tin Flute, are among Canadäs most well-known. Some of the works discussed present the island as a redemptive retreat, but in most cases the island¿s role is ambiguous, ranging from a temporary respite from life¿s pressures to a nightmarish trap.

Political Communication in the Anglophone World: Case Studies, by Theodore F. Sheckels, extends political communication scholarshipprimarily rhetorical scholarshipinto the extensive English language arena outside the United States and the United Kingdom. While wrestling with the extent to which insights derived from and approaches used in political communication research focused on the United States can be used in other nations with different government structures, different media operations, and different political cultures, Sheckels provides insight into a variety of political communication topics ranging from the role gender plays in campaign politics to the politics involved as one speaks upon the occasion of leaving high office.This book explores how Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau used moments of media attention to push his foreign and domestic policy agenda, as well as another Canadian Prime Minister, Kim Campbell, and the difficulties she faced because of her gender. Sheckels also examines Jamaica's Michael Manley and his shift from advocating socialism to later supporting free markets, and reggae artist Bob Marley and his musical shift from concern for Kingston's poor to embracing pan-Africanism. Popular media images of Africa are also considered, as the book investigates Mwai Kibaki's attempts to unify Kenya, Nelson Mandela's presidential rhetoric, and Thabo Mbeki's ';I am an African Address.' Finally, Sheckels goes to Australia to consider Gough Whitlam's unprecedented dismissal as prime minister, and Kevin Rudd's farewell speech after being replaced by his own party members. Asking new questions and using novel rhetorical approaches, Political Communication in the Anglophone World illuminates how communication proceeds, whether the medium be speech, song, website, or pirouette.

Maryland Politics and Political Communication, 1950-2005 is not a survey of all that occurred between 1950 and 2005. Rather, this book focuses on a set of interesting political events in which communication is a very important variable. These events, be they elections or episodes of governance, are also_arguably_the most dramatic ones during the period. It begins with an examination of George Wallace's 1964 and 1972 campaigns in the state's Democratic presidential primary, considers William Donald Schaefer's flamboyant communication strategies as Baltimore mayor and the vicious 1986 U.S. Senate campaign between Democrat Barbara Mikulski and Linda Chavez, and runs through the 2002 gubernatorial race between Kathleen Kennedy Townsend and Robert L. Ehrlich. Sheckels highlights the similarities and differences between political communication at state and national levels and looks forward to questions and scenarios that may emerge in future elections.

Suggesting that politics and power are at the center of Margaret Atwood's fiction, the author examines Atwood's novels from "The Edible Woman" to "The Year of the Flood". He focuses on how the empowered act towards those who are constrained within the political, economic and social institutions that facilitate power dynamics.

In Gender and the American Presidency: Nine Presidential Women and the Barriers They Faced, Theodore F. Sheckels, Nichola D. Gutgold, and Diana Bartelli Carlin invite the audience to consider women qualified enough to be president and explores reasons why they have been dismissed as presidential contenders. This analysis profiles key presidential contenders including Barbara Mikulski, Nancy Pelosi, Nancy Kassebaum, Kathleen Sebelius, Christine Gregoire, Linda Lingle, Elizabeth Dole, Dianne Feinstein, and Olympia Snowe. Gender barriers, media coverage, communication style, geography, and other factors are examined to determine why these seemingly qualified, powerful politicos failed to win the White House.

This study argues that post-1970 Australian film is best described not as exhibiting phenomenal variety but as focused on a conception of heroism characterized by the love of freedom, the resentment of authority, and attachment to the land, along with anti-intellectualism, fatalism, and sexism.

This perspective on Congressional debating, derived from the theoretical work of Mikhail Bakhtin, argues against several often unvoiced assumptions: that such debating is tedious and inconsequential; that debates are inherently bipolar; and that they are "finalizable".