Brian L . Ott
BRIAN L. OTT (Ph.D., The Pennsylvania State University) is Distinguished Professor of Communication and Media at Missouri State University. He has been studying rhetoric, media, and their intersection for more than 25 years. Brian has authored numerous books and essays on the changing nature of communication in the digital era, and he has been interviewed by the Associated Press, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, and Politico among others. His op-eds have appeared in outlets such as The New York Times, USA Today, Newsweek, Salon, Business Insider, and The Hill. He is the former Director of Texas Tech University Press, a former Editor-in-Chief of the Western Journal of Communication, and a former President of the Western States Communication Association.
Supervisors: Thomas W. Benson
Supervisors: Thomas W. Benson
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Toy unboxing videos are a popular and lucrative form of children's entertainment on YouTube. This essay undertakes a media (auto)poetics of these videos and their relationship to children's play through an integrated analysis of technology (media ecology), text (rhetorical criticism) and participant experience (autoethnography). Based on this analysis, I argue that toy unboxing videos foster and promote a form of 'play as advertising' via three key structural features: (1) repetition of the interest-excitement affect, (2) object fetishization and (3) direct address. In a concluding section of the essay, I reflect on the implications of the preceding analysis for digital media criticism, online advertising and children's play.
social conditions that, in turn, condition us, the authors illustrate how the digital logics of publicity, intransigence, impertinence, and impulsivity remake the contours of leadership. Based on a critical case study of Elon Musk’s public management of Twitter, which has subsequently been rebranded as “X”, it is argued that the four digital logics transform toxic leadership into digital authoritarianism, an unabashed form of authoritarian rule. A concluding section of the essay explores the implications of this evolution for traditional categories of leadership; the importance of attending to communication technologies in leadership research; and the individual, institutional, and social harms of digital
authoritarianism.
offers a case study in how the rise of social media is driving populism, divisive rhetoric, and harm to our socio-political landscape. Dr Brian Ott at Missouri State University and Dr Greg Dickinson at Colorado State University have identified three fundamental biases of Twitter – simplicity, impulsivity, and incivility – each of which were leveraged by
@realDonaldTrump.
meaning effects in a particular space-time. After charting and explaining the key relations among the constituent elements that comprise this conception of rhetoric, the advantages of studying rhetoric’s materiality in critical practice are discussed.
Toy unboxing videos are a popular and lucrative form of children's entertainment on YouTube. This essay undertakes a media (auto)poetics of these videos and their relationship to children's play through an integrated analysis of technology (media ecology), text (rhetorical criticism) and participant experience (autoethnography). Based on this analysis, I argue that toy unboxing videos foster and promote a form of 'play as advertising' via three key structural features: (1) repetition of the interest-excitement affect, (2) object fetishization and (3) direct address. In a concluding section of the essay, I reflect on the implications of the preceding analysis for digital media criticism, online advertising and children's play.
social conditions that, in turn, condition us, the authors illustrate how the digital logics of publicity, intransigence, impertinence, and impulsivity remake the contours of leadership. Based on a critical case study of Elon Musk’s public management of Twitter, which has subsequently been rebranded as “X”, it is argued that the four digital logics transform toxic leadership into digital authoritarianism, an unabashed form of authoritarian rule. A concluding section of the essay explores the implications of this evolution for traditional categories of leadership; the importance of attending to communication technologies in leadership research; and the individual, institutional, and social harms of digital
authoritarianism.
offers a case study in how the rise of social media is driving populism, divisive rhetoric, and harm to our socio-political landscape. Dr Brian Ott at Missouri State University and Dr Greg Dickinson at Colorado State University have identified three fundamental biases of Twitter – simplicity, impulsivity, and incivility – each of which were leveraged by
@realDonaldTrump.
meaning effects in a particular space-time. After charting and explaining the key relations among the constituent elements that comprise this conception of rhetoric, the advantages of studying rhetoric’s materiality in critical practice are discussed.
Native Americans."
The readings are organized into four sections, each representing key conceptual issues and debates in rhetorical criticism: critic/purpose, object/method, theory/practice, and audience/consequentiality. Each section is preceded by an introductory essay that puts the readings into context. For added flexibility, an alternative table of contents is also included for instructors and students to customize their teaching and reading.
Intended for upper-division undergraduate and graduate courses in rhetorical criticism, The Rhetorical Criticism Reader uniquely lends itself to thoughtful discussion of the role of the critic in the critical process. It assists readers not only in learning the tools of criticism, but also in reflecting on the values that underlie the critical endeavor.
Reviews:
"An inspired conversation between reflections on the activity of criticism and models of exemplary criticism, The Routledge Reader in Rhetorical Criticism provides a superb introduction to the key theoretical debates in rhetorical criticism."
--Sonja K. Foss, Department of Communication, University of Colorado - Denver
"Ott and Dickinson’s reader on rhetorical criticism features 50 thoughtfully selected essays, which exemplify several accomplished critics’ conceptually-driven, generative practices for criticism of public advocacy, while exploring the intricate relationships between theory and practice. Offering a conversational and dialogic orientation to rhetorical criticism as an alternative to a methods approach, The Routledge Reader in Rhetorical Criticism is an exceptional resource for teaching criticism to graduate students and advanced undergraduates."
--Lester C. Olson, Professor of Communication and Women's Studies & Chancellor’s Distinguished Teacher, University of Pittsburgh"
Places of Public Memory: The Rhetoric of Museums and Memorials is a sustained and rigorous consideration of the intersections of memory, place, and rhetoric. From the mnemonic systems inscribed upon ancient architecture to the roadside accident memorials that line America’s highways, memory and place have always been deeply interconnected. This book investigates the intersections of memory and place through nine original essays written by leading memory studies scholars from the fields of rhetoric, media studies, organizational communication, history, performance studies, and English. The essays address, among other subjects, the rhetorical strategies of those vying for competing visions of a 9/11 memorial at New York City’s Ground Zero; rhetorics of resistance embedded in the plans for an expansion of the National Civil Rights Museum; representations of nuclear energy—both as power source and weapon—in Cold War and post–Cold War museums; and tours and tourism as acts of performance.
By focusing on “official” places of memory, the collection causes readers to reflect on how nations and local communities remember history and on how some voices and views are legitimated and others are minimized or erased.
Reviews:
“This is a very interesting and diverse set of essays in the field of public history, which focuses our attention on fascinating case studies that have not been widely examined before. That alone makes this collection of interest to a broad readership.”
—Journal of American History
“A timely and welcome addition to the literature on memory studies, Places of Public Memory seeks to marry memory studies with the methodology of the rhetorician. This exceptional book should be widely read by cultural historians, rhetoricians, students of public memory, designers of museums and public displays.”
—Journal of Popular Culture
“Places of Public Memory, makes a compelling argument that rhetorical scholarship on public memory has yet to attend sufficiently to memory's material manifestations and the ways in which they shape affective experience. . . . Dickinson, Blair, and Ott offer an exhaustive literature review-useful to anyone interested in the study of public memory-to show that attention to the materiality of remembrance and the ways such materiality structures affective experience will significantly expand our current understanding of the rhetoric of public memory. . . . The eight essays comprising this volume constitute a real contribution to the study of rhetoric and public memory.”
—Rhetoric & Public Affairs
This collection of new essays by an international group of media scholars argues that HBO, as part of the leading edge of television, is at the center of television studies’ interests in market positioning, style, content, technology, and political economy. The contributors focus on pioneering areas of analysis and new critical approaches in television studies today, highlighting unique aspects of the "HBO effect" to explore new perspectives on contemporary television from radical changes in technology to dramatic shifts in viewing habits.
It’s Not TV provides fresh insights into the "post-television network" by examining HBO’s phenomenally popular and pioneering shows, including The Sopranos, The Wire, Six Feet Under, Sex and the City as well as its failed series, such as K Street and The Comeback. The contributors also explore the production process itself and the creation of a brand commodity, along with HBO’s place as a market leader and technological innovator.
Contributors: Kim Akass, Cara Louise Buckley, Rhiannon Bury, Joanna L. Di Mattia, Blake D. Ethridge, Tony Kelso, Marc Leverette, David Marc, Janet McCabe, Conor McGrath, Shawn McIntosh, Brian L. Ott, Avi Santo, Lisa Williamson
Foreword by Toby Miller
Reviews:
"The ultimate question of this varied collection is not whether HBO is TV, but whether television today is the same as it once was: has TV not changed to take account of new forms of leisure, new social and sexual mores, new modes of electronic entertainment and so on? With verve, the authors approach the HBO phenomenon from multiple perspectives to make clear its important role in a new, complex media landscape."
--Dana Polan, Professor of Cinema Studies, NYU, and author of The Sopranos
"If HBO represents the apogee of post-network programming, the essays collected here represent the new wave in television studies. Cutting through HBO's self-promotional hype, the authors closely examine industrial and economic issues, while also discussing specific programs and audience responses. This extremely informative book is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the key issues in today's TV industry."
--Heather Hendershot, author of Shaking the World for Jesus and editor of Nickelodeon Nation
"The editors have carefully assembled an in-depth investigation unlike any before, and are to be saluted for the breadth and depth of this important work. HBO has redefined modern television, and this book, has in its own way, helped to redefine the way we look at HBO."
--Brian Cogan, Molloy College
“In The Small Screen, Brian L. Ott explores how US television of the 1990s met the Information Age. With theoretical clarity and acute critical analysis of content and form in the television experience, Ott illustrates how some Americans embraced the future through hyperconscious television while others celebrated the past through nostalgia. A breakthrough study.”
-Thomas W. Benson, Pennsylvania State University
“Brian L. Ott’s book is accessible to students and valuable for professional scholars. It integrates a wide range of contemporary scholarship at a high level of sophistication without ever falling into jargon or postmodern dogma. This volume will be cutting edge in the rhetorical study of television.”
-Barry Brummett, University of Texas-Austin
". . . ultimately what is pleasing about Ott's book is its willingness to take television seriously . . . "
-M/C Reviews
“Ott . . . hints at the coming identity crisis as the connected age replaces the information age. Summing Up: Recommended.”
-Choice
“Ott’s distinctions between hyperconscious and nostalgic programming serve as fine distinctions for considering the cultural significance of television.”
-PsycCritiques