“If we don't get the help that we need, what does that say about the future for Americans?”: A rhetorical analysis of public responses to Ohio environmental disasters

Authors

Kaitlin M. Gold, James Madison UniversityFollow

Preferred Name

Katie

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.

Date of Graduation

5-9-2024

Semester of Graduation

Spring

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

School of Communication Studies

Second Advisor

Taylor Johnson

Third Advisor

Dan Schill

Abstract

This thesis examines three case studies surrounding various Ohio environmental disasters and controversies. In particular, I explore how the public has resisted and asserted themselves through advocacy measures to ensure that their homes and communities are safe. The case studies examine how the state of Ohio has evaded responsibility and not taken action, and thus how the public has attempted to resist those efforts through various means. While Olson and Goodnight’s (1994) conception of oppositional arguments acts as a methodological backbone to the thesis, each case study employs other specific tools of rhetorical analysis to better understand each chapter and the corresponding rhetorical situation at hand. Thus, the case studies use Hofstadter’s (1964) paranoid style, Olson and Goodnight’s (1994) oppositional arguments, and Schwarze’s (2006) environmental melodrama to better understand how advocates and the public invoke these persuasive tactics to resist slow violence and seek long-term environmental justice. This thesis finds that, no matter their tangible success, advocacy measures are perfectly imperfect and necessary. Better understanding how the public pushes back on state-based environmental controversies in order to reassert themselves sheds light on necessary tensions, offering resource for future research. Further, this thesis expands potential understandings of slow violence, slow justice, and environmental justice. Most importantly, the thesis argues that oppositionality exists on a spectrum and does not exist in absolutes. This insight allows for a larger understanding of how specific tactics can be woven into advocacy measures and tactics of persuasion.