1986•Communication MonographsRequires access

Power and the rhetoric of social intervention

William R. Brown

Abstract

Relating rhetoric to power, this essay offers a view of power as communication medium, i.e., communication through power. Logically prior, however, is power through communication by which the rules for power are rhetorically derived. Case studies show (1) a conception of rhetoric‐as‐power being complementary to rhetoric‐as‐epistemic; (2) the development of the power medium as a cultural code dependent on hierarchical interdependency; and (3) the formal strategies, tactics, and maneuvers of rhetoric‐as‐power for social intervention.

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Key concepts: Rhetoric, Interdependence, Power (physics), Sociology, Intervention (counseling), Psychology, Social psychology, Epistemology