If you watched the political conventions of the past two weeks, did you find yourself nodding in agreement or shaking your head in disbelief during the many speeches given?
What caused the reaction: what was said or the way it made you feel?
On Monday's Up to Date, Steve Kraske gets together with Dr. Robert Rowland to decode political rhetoric. From how candidates will identify themselves as one of us while depicting their rival as being out of touch with voters to invoking the memory of great leaders of the past to distancing themselves from harmful associations, we look at why campaign words are so carefully chosen and what makes them so effective.
Robert C. Rowland, Ph.D. Dr. Robert (Robin) C. Rowland, Ph.D. is a Professor of Communication Studies and Director of Graduate Studies at the University of Kansas. Dr. Rowland's major teaching and research interests are in rhetorical criticism, argumentation, and the public sphere. As a student, he and his debate colleague were the 1976 National Debate Champions for KU. He is a former director of forensics at KU and at Baylor University. Dr. Rowland received the Louise Byrd Award for Graduate Teaching at the Doctoral Hooding ceremony May 2000. He also is a recipient of the William T. Kemper Teaching Fellowship and the Bernard Fink Award for outstanding teaching. In November 2006, he was honored by the National Communication Association with the Donald H. Ecroyd Award for Outstanding Teaching in Higher Education. A recent survey of journals ranked him among the fifty most published scholars in the discipline of rhetorical criticism.
