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Rhetorical Audience Studies and Reception of Rhetoric pp 1–42Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Audience Analysis and Reception Studies of Rhetoric

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Part of the book series: Rhetoric, Politics and Society ((RPS))

Abstract

Without audiences, there would be no rhetoric. Understanding audiences, therefore, is essential for understanding rhetoric. If we do not understand when, how and why audiences are influenced by communication, or see how they negotiate and reject rhetorical messages, then we do not understand rhetoric. In light of this, it is surprising that rhetorical scholars have paid so little attention to audiences—or to be more precise: to empirical audiences. This book encourages researchers to do more studies of empirical audiences and their reception of rhetoric. The chapters offer examples of central methods of understanding reception and empirical audiences: historical approaches such as archival-historical methodology and historiography, interviews and focus group research, protocol analysis, ethnographic participation and observation, appropriation as reception and finally triangulation, where the researcher applies several methods in unison. While these methods are common in media studies, anthropology, cultural studies and other fields of research, they are surprisingly rare in rhetorical studies.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    I thank Richard Toye for this point.

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  1. Department of Information Science and Media Studies, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway

    Jens E. Kjeldsen

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    Jens E. Kjeldsen

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Kjeldsen, J.E. (2018). Audience Analysis and Reception Studies of Rhetoric. In: Kjeldsen, J. (eds) Rhetorical Audience Studies and Reception of Rhetoric. Rhetoric, Politics and Society. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-61618-6_1

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