Communicating Science to 21st Century Audiences

Leader: Alan G. Gross, University of Minnesota

Communicating Science to 21^st Century Audiences

Alan G. Gross, University of Minnesota

The last quarter-century has seen the rhetoric of science established as a legitimate field of activity for rhetorical theorists and critics. But can rhetoric, a discipline created to deal with words only, deal adequately with texts whose meaning depends so heavily on the interaction of words and images? This theoretical and methodological question is especially salient because of the rise of the internet and of science’s exploitation of the communicative possibilities of this new medium. In this seminar, we will explore the interesting past of rhetoric of science and what I take to be its more interesting future, a future more interesting, not only because of the added insight into science it will provide, but also because communication in general is becoming more like scientific communication in one crucial respect: it is becoming more and more a matter of the interaction of words and images.

Questions? Contact Alan G. Gross, agross@umn.edu