COMM 201 Exam Questions With Correct Answers A+

COMM 201 Exam Questions With Correct Answers A+ What is the significance of understanding the 18th and 19th centuries as times of social transitions? - Answer-Revolution of machines: Industrial revolution,Machine as metaphor, Division of Labor (Adam Smith). Rise of the firearm -Revolution of Reason-Locke, Property Rights -American Revolution -French Revolution -Alexis de Tocqueville: Rise of equality, Increasing challenges to slavery What is the importance of the rise of modern economies for our study of rhetoric - Answer- Standardization of currency: Shift from work to 'job', Rise of cash economy -Development of merchant class: Move from indentured labor to wages Rise of economics as field of study What is the driving concern in (and for) rhetorical theory after World War II - Answer-Impact of World War II/ Rise of Soviet Bloc on European intellectual thought -Concern for how to govern large groups in a mediated world According McGee, what is the difference between 'the public' and 'the people'? - Answer-The Public: Site of democracy. Where people are willing to take risks for personal self-expression. Understood in relation to its counterpart, private -The People:collective with a generalized sense of common identity which is difficult to manage and prone to a lack of civil behavior. The people is our irrational state that grants the populous sovereign power and keeps political authority in check. What are the significant features of the public? - AnswerA site of democracy 2.) Where people are willing to take risks for personal self-expression ©Jason MacConnell 2025 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 2 -how we behave when we are civilized What are the significant features of the people? - Answer-Literal extension of single person into multiple persons -Collective of individuals Action through collection, i.e., mob Failure to respond to logic or logical argument Collective force that transcends both individuality and reason When are the people most significant in public discourse - Answer... What is the role of triangulating as a means of rhetorical criticism - AnswerTriangulating considers rhetorical theory and notion of the audience, social theory and notions of mass. Consciousness and ideology, and notions of the people and specific- rhetorical practices. IN terms of rhetorical criticism, it allows one to understand there 3 points as sites of hegemonic negotiation therefore allowing one to conceive the people in a way that accounts for their rhetorical function when making arguments designed to warrant social action, even society itself. Triangulation provides a rationalization for rhetorical dispositions which seek to grant justifications for the operationalization of foreign entities and general masses in the functional capacity of the material world. How does Burke believe symbols are so important to the study of communication - Answer- Burke sees humans as symbol using creatures -We construct the world around us through use of symbols -Symbol using is what distinguishes humans from other animals & creatures Why does Burke discourage the study of persuasion as the central rhetorical function? - Answer-Rhetoric is the use of language by human agents to influence other human agents i.e., ability to live in the present and the past simultaneously -Burke - "the key term for the 'old rhetoric' was persuasion and its stress upon deliberative design. The key term for the 'new rhetoric' is identification..." For Burke, what is the difference between motion and action - Answer-Burke distinguishes between motion and action Thing move (response to pressure) People act (involves deliberate choice) -Metaphor of drama about how people act Human tendency to action requires dramatistic understanding ©Jason MacConnell 2025 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 3 What is symbolic orientation? - Answer-The accumulation of bodies of knowledge to make sense of the world -Relationships constitute our orientation -Expectancy, affects of history, and the future What are trained incapacities? - Answer-Symbolic conditions as trained incapacities For example, Pavlovian response to training of chickens Also, training as attorney means they will see legal questions in life situations Why does Burke argue that piety is significant to public discourse? - Answer-Piety: talking about the way we think as a public and what it means to be a public. A line on the slide Burke argues can be used to describe faithfulness to any set of beliefs. A habit and mode of thinking, that doesn't have to apply to faith and religion. Also talking about people being piest to ideas, movements and concepts. Why important to public opinion? Piety gets in a way, when you believe in a particular set of belifs, you stop questioning and start thinking logically. Public Discourse- people will start thinking with a set of belifs, ex.) Civil rights movement- no longer a sense of piety, 2 types of guilt- victimage- someone else fault, mortification-guilt is mine. Invested in a set beliefs What is the pentad? - AnswerThe Pentad is a model for describing how rhetoric and motivation occur, it offers a means to describe the interactive setting. The Five Parts of the Pentad 1. Act- the central point of the Pentad, all other parts radiate out from the act like the spokes. 2. Agent-who did it 3. Agency- how it was done, the tools used 4. Scene- the setting for the drama. 5. Purpose- the reason it was done Way in which we create communication. If I'm caught stealing cookies, and I say that an elephant actually took it-I'm creating drama in an attempt to get me out of trouble. Those are created within the pentadic framework. Depending on how you create your message. Burke says we can understand the motives of your communication. Therefore, the pentad functions as a tool of criticism by allowing us to understand the motives of one's behavior and communication. How does a pentad function as a tool of criticism? - Answer... What does Burke mean that humans are "rotten with perfection?" - AnswerWe can envision a perfect sate. We can talk about it, we can say it, but we can never get there- and so at the core of our being, we have a cancer, to tail to always chase-and so we're rotten with it.