Affect, Emotion, and Rhetorical Persuasion in Mass Communication

Carlton Clark is a Lecturer in the English Department at the University of Wisconsin—La Crosse, where he teaches writing and American Literature. He earned his PhD in Rhetoric from Texas Woman’s University. He has published articles in Erfurt Electronic Studies in English, Kairos: A Journal for Teachers of Writing in Webbed Environments, Teaching English in the Two-Year College, Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Kybernetes: The International Journal of Cybernetics, Systems and Management Sciences. Lei Zhang is an assistant professor of English and Journalism at the University of Wisconsin, La Crosse, where she teaches rhetoric, journalism, and new media studies. She also serves as the faculty advisor for the student newspaper, The Racquet. She received her master’s in Journalism from the University of North Texas and Ph.D. in Rhetoric from Texas Woman’s University.

• ContentsIntroduction: Heartfelt Reasoning, or why facts and good reasons are not enoughPart I: Theorizing Affect and/or Emotion 1. Three Paradigms of Affect: The Historical Landscape of Emotional InquiryKevin Marinelli 2. Bridging the Affect/Emotion Divide: A Critical Overview of the Affective TurnPaul Stenner3. We Have Never Been Rational: A Genealogy of the Affective TurnDavid StubblefieldPart II: Affect in Rhetorical and Cultural Theory4. Affective Rhetoric: What it Is and Why it MattersSamuel Mateus5. White Nationalism and the Rhetoric of NostalgiaMichael Mayne6. They Believe Their Belief: Rhetorically Engaging Culture through Affect and IdeologyPhil Bratta 7. Governing Bodies: The Affects and Rhetorics of North Carolina’s House Bill 2Julie D. Nelson8. How Affect Overrides Fact: Anti-Muslim Politicized Rhetoric in the Post-Truth EraLara Lengel and Adam SmidiPart III: Affect in the Mass Media9. "Lee’s Filling—Tastes Grant!": The Affect of Civil War Archetypes in Beer CommercialsLewis Knight and Chad Chisholm 10. Disgusting Rhetorics: "What’s the Warts That Could Happen?"Jaimee Bodtke and George F. (Guy) McHendry, Jr.11. Aestheticizing the Affective Politics of "If You See Something, Say Something"Charlotte Kent12. Gratifications from watching movies that make us cry: Facilitation of grief, parasocial empathy, and the grief-comfort amalgamCharles F. Aust Part IV: Affect in 2016 U.S. Presidential Election13. The Circulation of Rage: Memes and Donald Trump’s Presidential Campaign Jeffrey St. Onge14. Feelings Trump Facts: Affect and the Rhetoric of Donald TrumpLucy Miller15. Affect, Aesthetics and Attention: The Digital Spread of Fake News across the Political SpectrumKayla Keener16. Meta-Sexist Discourses and Affective Polarization in the 2016 US Presidential CampaignJamie Capuzza