The Rhetoric of Agitation and Control, Third Edition

by John W. Bowers, Donovan J. Ochs, Richard J. Jensen

This compelling text is a careful examination of the rhetoric of dissent. The Rhetoric of Agitation and Control provides a framework for the study of agitation and responses to that agitation. The third edition offers a profile of past and current movements, such as the street theatre of Chicago in 1968 and the innovative and technological rhetorical techniques found in the Battle in Seattle. The modus operandi of today's protests continues to evolve from that of the 1960s and 1970s. As BlackBerries and the Internet replace tie-dyed shirts and flower power, contemporary students and scholars alike will find this edition of The Rhetoric of Agitation and Control to be a helpful tool in studying the progression of social and protest movements. Titles of related interest from Waveland Borchers, Persuasion in the Media Age, Third Edition (ISBN 9781577668268); Holmes-Gan, Nonviolence in Theory and Practice, Third Edition (ISBN 9781577667605); Stewart et al., Persuasion and Social Movements, Sixth Edition (ISBN 9781577667773); and Woodward-Denton, Persuasion and Influence in American Life, Seventh Edition (ISBN 9781478607892).

Genres: Sociology

190 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1992

Reviews

[Mark Gring · Rating 3 out of 5]

I used this book in my graduate Summer II 2017 class on Propaganda. I read this years ago as an undergraduate student at the University of Texas-Austin. It is less interesting to read it a third + time these years later. The book was interesting as a first read, and continues to be valuable, because of Bowers and Ochs initial listing of strategies and tactics for agitation and for control. Much of this was based on the radical movements of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Many of these techniques have been so used/abused over the years that they have almost become passé to the casual observer. The introduction of the strategies and techniques of control, however, still continue to be a useful part of this text.
The book is designed for advanced undergraduates and/or early MA students and it is open to some critique. As one of my graduate students observed, the techniques of control introduced here seem to come from a system where those in control do not have much control. Another critique is the almost dictionary type listing of strategies and tactics, along with some interesting and always updated case studies, seem too pedantic when compared with books like Jacques Ellu's Propaganda or Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals. Too little philosophical ideas with an applied bent and, now, too much of an attempted social science categorization tends to make this text less profound and more passé.

Despite the critiques, though, the ideas are still valuable introductions to students interested in mass movements, activism, propaganda, and persuasion/coercion on a mass scale.

[bel luu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Useful tool

[Dave · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not particularly breath-taking, this collection of theoretical framework and case studies is very basic, but it does provide a useful vocabulary I can use to speak somewhat intelligently about dissent. At the very least, its framework is a foundation I can question and reevaluate.

[Autumn Shuler · Rating 2 out of 5]

I picked this up because it was required for a class, and I wasn't crazy about it. It had a lot of good information, but I found it hard to follow in a few different spots.