Communicating Terror: The Rhetorical Dimensions of Terrorism » (2nd Edition)

Joseph S. Tuman (J.D., University of California, Berkeley; B.A., political science, University of California, Berkeley) regularly teaches upper-division courses in political communication, argumentation & advocacy, rhetoric, and technology and human communication. He is the author of Communicating Terror: The Rhetorical Dimensions of Terrorism (SAGE, ©2003) and the co-author of Freedom of Speech in the Marketplace of Ideas and of The Bedford/St. Martin's Guide to Public Speaking; he is the journal editor of Contemporary Argumentation & Debate: The Journal of the Cross Examination Debate Association. He is very active in the National Communication Association and the Western States Communication Association, is regularly published in The Free Speech Yearbook, regularly contributes editorials to the San Francisco Chronicle, and is the local CBS TV news respondent for political issues.

In response to the 9-11 attack, and to the effect it had on his communications students and other people, Tuman (political and legal communications, San Francisco State U.) explores what was changed that had not been changed by earlier attacks. Terrorism is a communication process with rhetorical dimensions, he explains, and looks at where public discourse affects and is affected by defining and labeling of terror, the symbolic meaning of terrorism, public oratory about terror, and the interaction of terrorism and mass media. Annotation ©2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR