Localizing Responses to Gender-Based Violence: The Case of Women-Led Community-Based Organizations in Jordan

While the rationale for localizing humanitarian health response is well established at the level of policy rhetoric, the operationalization of the concept and its mainstreaming into concrete practice still require clearer intentionality. With COVID-19 pushing more people further into vulnerability, placing local communities at the heart of humanitarian and development health efforts has never been more urgent. Focusing on Jordan, this essay brings attention to the significant toll of violence against women and girls in conflict-affected communities and the importance of empowering local actors with community knowledge and resources to prevent and respond to gender-based violence. The essay follows on from the research conducted for CARE Jordan's She Is a Humanitarian report (2022) and draws on interviews I conducted with the heads of women's organizations in the summer of 2022. The essay explores the role of local women humanitarian actors as frontline responders, the challenges that hinder their role, and the advantages such actors enjoy, which, if harnessed, can achieve gains in accountability, health service quality, and gender equality.

"No Justice, No Peace”: Yard Signs as Public Pedagogy and Community Engagement at the Intersection of Public Health Crises

This paper examines yard signs as a site for public pedagogy that engages two concurrent, and comorbid, public health crises: the COVID-19 pandemic and racism. Specifically, I reflect on how yard signs responding to the George Floyd murder in my own Minneapolis neighborhood exist during a kairotic moment;as myself and my students are increasingly confined to our own homes, and as the boundaries between school and home are blurred, the public health crisis of racism and the specific community response of yard signs present opportunities for examining how these signs can act as entry points into difficult conversations among neighbors, classmates, and colleagues. While such signs are certainly examples of epideictic rhetoric, participating in either "praise or blame,” I suggest that communication teachers can frame them as public pedagogy that "strikes a harmony between learning through public engagement and understanding these public encounters in the space of the classroom” (Holmes, 2016). As such, they can act not only as artifacts of community belonging, but as artifacts to promote reflection, conversation, and inquiry.

COVID-19 conspiracy rhetoric and other primal fantasies

Planet Lockdown, a documentary film, claims that the COVID-19 pandemic was manufactured by finance capitalists, Silicon Valley, and the pharmaceutical industry to microchip the population, consolidate global wealth, and enslave the population. Viral videos from the film have received tens of millions of engagements throughout social networks and media, constituting a major source of COVID-19 disinformation. This article argues that COVID-19 enslavement fantasies consummate white conservative fears of racial displacement, brought on by an impending demographic shift and greater visibility of antiracist activism throughout the early stages of the pandemic. I argue that Planet Lockdown's preoccupation with so-called "modern slavery" restages a national primal scene to resecure white power as perceptions of its dominance wanes: a fantasy of the origins of the liberal subject that omits that subject's relationship to slavery and anti-Blackness. By imagining slavery as a future threat to white selfhood rather than the structural organization of a society underwritten by anti-Blackness, COVID-19 conspiracy rhetoric facilitates a disavowal of the structural legacy of white supremacy. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Quarterly Journal of Speech is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

COVID-19: An opportunity to deindustrialize writing education

This chapter illustrates the industrial nature of current writing education, especially at college and university levels. The author argues that the industrial compartmentalization of writing education into different levels, distinct genres, rubricated formats, and monodisciplinary practices has severed learning writing from its organic contexts. It discusses how having to move classes online as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic can help us critically reflect on our ideological attachment to the factory model of education and question the Fordian conveyor-belt model for teaching writing. The author proposes that by using online possibilities, we can nurture organic writing practices that defy the factory model organization of writing courses. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021. All rights reserved.

Who's a Vaccine Skeptic? Framing Vaccine Hesitancy in Post-Covid News Coverage

U.S. print news coverage of Covid vaccine hesitancy represents a departure from previous depictions of vaccine skepticism as a problem of wrong belief. This article reports on a mixed methods study of 334 New York Times texts about Covid nonvaccination and vaccine hesitancy published between December 2020–December 2021. Texts were analyzed for common themes and compared with prior media depictions of vaccine skepticism. Findings show that texts published during phased Covid vaccine distribution framed nonvaccination as a response to structural inequities, while later texts returned to blaming individuals for their hesitancy. These findings attest to the durability of individualistic framings of health while also illustrating possibilities of alternative frames. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Written Communication is the property of Sage Publications Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

Thinning the Herd: COVID-19 and the Rhetoric of Trumpian Catastrophe

As COVID-19 infections spread in early 2020, the term herd immunity drew the Trump administration's attention as a remedy for redressing the pandemic. However, scientific experts warned the Trump administration against adopting herd immunity as a pandemic response. The Trump administration was unmoved. I argue that understanding the Trump administration's incongruous pandemic response is impossible without theorizing the deeper catastrophic formations uniting herd immunity and the political Right. Drawing evidence from the Trump administration and its allies, I analyze herd immunity as a reflection of a catastrophic form of social Darwinism emerging from the Trump administration's coronavirus messaging. By exploring the Trump administration's general enthusiasm for catastrophe, I offer a fresh scholarly contribution at the intersection of rhetorical studies, public address, and health, political, and scientific communication, ultimately illuminating larger theoretical and political lessons for the discipline and beyond.

The Power of Bellicose Rhetoric: Metaphors in the Croatian Public Discourse

The use of metaphors often characterizes contemporary public discourses on various issues. By the same token, metaphors have been used extensively in the discourse on the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper examines the war metaphor as a framing and rhetorical device with distinct persuasive potency within the Croatian sociocultural context. The analysis shows that militaristic metaphors were omnipresent in the Croatian public discourse at the beginning of the pandemic. Their dual role, explanatory and persuasive, was instrumental in convincing the public to understand the pandemic and accept the restrictive mandates put in place.

Rhetorical Analysis of King Abdullah's English Speeches during the Covid-19 Pandemic

This paper analyses King Abdullah's II English speeches during the Covid-19 crisis in a corpus-based study. It investigates the rhetorical techniques employed by the King to convince the audience. The data include 14 English speeches (8,694 words) delivered by King Abdullah II of Jordan during the Covid-19 crisis, from January 2020 to August 2021. The rhetorical analysis is based on the classical Aristotelian classification of rhetoric. It examines one canon of rhetoric, invention. In the analyzing invention, the speaker's ethical appeals (ethos), emotional appeals (pathos), and logical appeals (logos) will be examined in detail in a corpus-based study. The analysis reveals that King Abdullah II employs ethical appeals to identify himself with the audience and create a rapport with them by using first-person pronouns and lexical items like "my friends". The quantitative analysis shows that the inclusive pronoun we and the pronoun I am used for rhetorical reasons to convince the audience. Direct and indirect emotional appeals are also used to stir the audience's emotions to call them to action. King Abdullah II uses logical arguments such as an argument from statistics, quoting from the Holy Quran, and an argument from a dilemma, inter alia, to convince the audience of his viewpoints and persuade them to do specific actions. © 2023 DSR Publishers/ The University of Jordan.

No Calm Before the Storm: Low-Income Latina Immigrant and Citizen Mothers Before and After COVID-19

Government pandemic provisions occurred alongside a safety net that excludes or dissuades Latina mothers from participation. These families are also disproportionately exposed to punitive immigration policies and rhetoric that may shape their views on such provisions and, in turn, influence their post-pandemic well-being. To understand these complexities, we draw on interviews before and after COVID-19 with thirty-eight Latina immigrant and citizen mothers, most of whom are undocumented (N = 29). We find that pre-pandemic distrust of public institutions and the safety net was common, increased after COVID-19, and negatively affected undocumented respondents' post-pandemic circumstances relative to that of citizen mothers. Findings suggest that safety net expansion on its own will not offset pandemic effects for these families without addressing exclusion from public benefits and alienation from and distrust of government.

Time of differend: the rhetoric of the argument over the policy towards the covid-19 pandemic

According to the Jean-François Lyotard's postulate about the need to testify about differences, in the following article rhetorical analysis of the multidimensional nature of the dispute about the policy towards the covid-19 pandemic has been made.”Pandemic policies” are material-semiotic strategies of dealing with a crisis situation used by political entities. By emphasizing the role of conflict and rituals of identification and exclusion in social processes, Kenneth Burke's rhetorical theory is a cognitively valuable supplement to the Lyotard's concept. The use of the dramatic pentad to analyze the rhetoric of the dispute over reactions to the covid-19 pandemic allowed the author to answer the following research questions: What elements create a social drama (rhetorical situation)? What is the action about and on what stage does it take place? Who are the characters of this action, what means do they take and what is the purpose of using them? And finally, what relations (ratios) constituting the difference – a rhetorical situation itself – determine the motives of social actors' actions? © 2023 Polish Rhetoric Society. All rights reserved.

2022 CCCC Chair's Letter

Hassel officially started his service as an elected CCCC officer on Dec 23, 2019, but for four years prior to that, he was an ex officio member of the CCCC Executive Committee (EC) by virtue of his role as editor of Teaching English in the Two-Year College. The editors of four of the college-level NCTE publications (TETYC, College Composition and Communication, Forum: Issues about Part-Time and Contingent Faculty, and the Studies in Writing and Rhetoric book series) are invited to attend meetings and participate in deliberations about issues affecting governance of the organization but do not have voting rights. During the nearly five years of service prior to his official elected role, he had many opportunities to observe how CCCC governance works (or doesn't): how committees and task forces are formed, appointed, and charged;how committees are constituted;how decisions are made;how nomination and election processes are conducted for the EC and other elected groups, such as the Nominating Committee. He even served on a subcommittee of the EC: the Subcommittee on Committees that produced the User's Guide to CCCC.

2022 CCCC Chair's Address: Writing (Studies) and Reality: Taking Stock of Labor, Equity, and Access in the Field

In a speech delivered at the virtual 2022 CCCC Annual Convention, Hassel talks about the professional rituals that CCCC members have come to rely on throughout their professional history. He focuses on three areas of the field to help them as a group of engaged educators think about the components of their work and make sense of them in this highly unstable point in time. He also looks at the past, present, and future of the field of composition, rhetoric, and writing studies.

Steps in Incremental Activism

In "The Promise of the Green New Deal: A 21st-Century Federal Theatre Project," I argued that a reimagined Federal Theatre Project (FTP) was a necessary response to the multiple crises faced by the field: 1) ongoing lack of equity in funding across race, gender, and geography;2) racism, misogyny, ableism, transphobia, and other forms of bias that cause ongoing harm;3) abusive and exploitative labor practices;and, of course, 4) COVID-19's widespread devastation of the theatre. [...]it would serve as a communications resource center for professional, community, and academic theatre, thus enabling us to share information and resources with other theatres and community, religious, and civic organizations. [...]I map a preliminary plan for a structure of communications and support that demonstrates the potential of a shift from crisis rhetoric to incremental activism. Minimum operating expenses of $50,000 in most recently completed fiscal year Professional paid leadership, including at least one full-time paid professional director or manager (filled either by one individual or shared) Evidence of rigorous pursuit of theatrical form, as shown by artists' payroll activity of at least 15 weeks per year or by a minimum of 50 performances per year A commitment to the rehearsal process which is demonstrated by at least 30 hours of rehearsal time for primary production activities Minimum of one year's prior existence as a professional producing organization with continuity of operation Community vitality, as evidenced by local, state or national funding sources, local media coverage and/or community awards or other recognition of the value of the theatre's work Diversification of funding sources

Communicable (Literature and Medicine 2013–2018)

People joke about "the before times," but they're not wrong. 2020 is an especially distorting lens, in part I think because things too easily relegated to peripheral vision came suddenly into shockingly clear focus: medical things, sociopolitical things, the fact of human health as an interconnected biocultural compound. Since 2020, surely no one can argue that it's possible to understand health without thinking about history and justice, or to understand disease without thinking about economics and rhetoric. Disease spread by invisible entities through a community or across the globe, exacerbated by social structures, controlled (or not) through public health measures, and made sense of (or not) by cultural rhetorics. Because infection is of course always metaphorical: something has an effect on something else by entering it, by infiltrating or invading it, or instilling itself into it. (Perhaps the positive antonym would be inspires, which we don't use for microbes, though it certainly implies inhalation?) In any case, literature-and-medicine always has in it that tension between invisible pathogens and communicable ideas. Health and suffering are unjustly distributed;health care is practiced within powerfully oppressive social structures;public health is a contradiction in terms when those structures go unquestioned, or when those who speak for it use their words less effectually than they might.

Civil society diplomacy: characterizing collective and connective actions for a shared cause

PurposeThis study proposes a description of the civil society diplomacy that emerged in the early solutions found to fight the COVID-19 crisis. The author analyses this concept as the intersection of the social movements of individuals and civil society organisations' and international health care. Its purpose is to determine the international structure of the connective actors aimed to find concrete solutions against COVID-19 and to characterize the communication visible on Twitter towards this civil society engagement.Design/methodology/approachBased on a data-driven approach, the author collected a large dataset of tweets from Switzerland between March and June 2020 and conducted a computational text analysis methodology.FindingsThe results showed who the participants were, provided a visualisation of the digital networking process between engaged and mentioned participants at national and international levels, and determined the emotions that emerged during three event phases.Originality/valueThe study reveals that features of connective social care actions and strategic collective communication can illustrate civil society diplomacy for a shared cause in times of health crisis.

International Student Mobility in Crises: Globalization and Foucault's Rhetoric Question

(1999) understand globalization as "a process (or set of processes) which embodies a transformation in the spatial organization of social relations and transactions—assessed in terms of their extensity, intensity, velocity and impact—generating transcontinental or interregional flows and networks of activity, interaction, and the exercise of power” (p. 6). Discussion: "Neoliberal globalization” and student mobility in crises I personally use the term neoliberal globalization in that I critique "neoliberalism as an ideology, political philosophy, economic doctrine and policy model has been embraced by many Western countries and multilateral institutions and embedded in contemporary globalization” (Zheng & Kapoor, 2020, Neoliberal globalization and opening-up section, para. 1) and argue ISM across national borders has been significantly influenced by neoliberal globalization and neoliberalism-doctrined supranational organizations like the World Trade Organization and the World Bank, which promote the removal of barriers and the liberalization of international trade. [...]ISM can be regarded as a flow because it bears the specific social and educational meaning and has caused some global effects as an increasing number of international students cross borders for education (Zheng, 2010). [...]China's outbound ISM might be affected in that it is confined to many uncertain factors, such as the capacity of foreign higher education institutions, available financial support for Chinese students from the Chinese government, students' family, or foreign higher education institutions, and visa requirement of foreign countries.

Demagoguery, populism, and foreign policy rhetoric: evidence from Jair Bolsonaro's tweets

This article investigates whether Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro extended demagoguery and populism into his foreign policy discourse. An analysis of 673 tweets indicates that demagoguery was more common (observed in 94 tweets) than populism (observed in 14 tweets). Bolsonaro adopted a Red Scare tactic, distorted information about the 2019 Amazon wildfires, spread rumours about COVID-19, and portrayed relations with the US during Trump's administration and Israel during Netanyahu's as panaceas. Findings suggest that demagoguery can ramify into foreign policy discourse, with a leader fitting distorted interpretations of foreign topics and actors into stories made for domestic consumption. Bolsonaro was cautious concerning relations with China though, indicating that international power politics and expected gains or losses from trade and investment may condition the scope of demagogical discourses. This article shows a conceptual gap in literature on foreign policy discourse, which a framework using the concept of demagoguery can, in part, fill. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Contemporary Politics is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

Neofascist "Thugs,” Pandemic Protests, Populisms: Giorgia Meloni's Cerchiobottismo and the Rise of Fratelli D'Italia During the Pandemic

In this essay, I examine the rise to power of Fratelli d'Italia (FdI), the populist far right Italian party led by Giorgia Meloni, in the 2022 election. I first situate FdI's victory in the complex context of the Italian experience of the pandemic—exploring the erosion of the democratic sentiment in Italy after COVID-19 and the mutual influences of crises and the shaky anti-establishment and anti-intellectual epistemologies of populisms. I then proceed to examine Meloni's recurring rhetorical strategy to deal with FdI's problematic relationship to fascist heritage during the electoral campaign. Specifically, I analyse Meloni's rhetorical maneuvers as instances of cerchiobottismo. Cerchiobottismo is an Italian term that explains the practice of strategic ambiguity typical of seasoned politicians that can juggle two sides, telling both sides that they are partially wrong, without compromising too much of the rhetor's own position. In the second part of this essay, I unpack Meloni's cerchiobottista rhetorics in a set of three significant examples in relation to the 2022s election and the controversies over fascism to illustrate how Meloni rejected the repeated public accusations of fascist nostalgia in her party, while boosting FdI's electoral appeal among a moderate electorate and also reassuring international stakeholders. © 2023 EURICOM.

Crisis, Rhetoric and Right-Wing Populist Incumbency: An Analysis of Donald Trump's Tweets and Press Briefings

How do right-wing-populist incumbents navigate rhetorical strategic choices when they seek to manage external crises? Relevant literature has paid increasing attention to the role of ‘crisis' in boosting the electoral success of right-wing populist candidates. We know a lot less about the rhetorical strategies used by right-wing populist incumbents seeking re-election. We draw on literatures on populism, crisis management and political rhetoric to conceptualize the rhetorical strategic choices of right-wing populist incumbents in times of crisis. We propose a framework for the choice of rhetorical strategy available to right-wing populist incumbents and illustrate it with a qualitative content analysis of Trump's tweets and White House press briefings during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic. We find limited rhetorical adaptation to crisis and high degrees of continuity with previous rhetoric grounded in right-wing populism. This challenges prevalent assumptions regarding the likelihood of incumbent rhetorical flexibility in the face of crisis.

From Bad to Worse: The evolving nature of "cult" rhetoric in the wake of Covid-19 and QAnon

The rhetoric "cult wars," which began in the 1970s and 1980s, has stagnated in recent decades. Having empirically undermined the "brainwashing" hypothesis, academic research has progressed beyond the classic typologies and discussion of "dangerous cults." Terms such as "New Religious Movement" became academized in a bid to recalibrate the discussion of religious phenomenon around the individual. However, "cult" rhetoric is still prevalent in popular vernacular, incipient in multiple discourses that redefine the terminology beyond an historic understanding of "religious." In this article, I outline my initial intention to revisit the terminology currently used in the academy as a result of reflections from participants in my doctoral research. I designed a survey that sought out the thoughts of everyday people in how they perceive the key terms: "cult," "brainwashing," "new religious movement" and "minority religion." Having used the Facebook Advert Centre to widen the reach of the survey, I quickly found that those commenting on the survey were engaging in a battle that is synonymous with the "cult wars" of old. I found that the discourse was predicated upon COVID-19 and a general distrust of "the establishment." This article analyses the comments engaging with the advert and explores the usage of "cult" rhetoric in contemporary society.