Democratic rhetoric and emergent media

Abstract

This article offers a comparative analysis of the promotional rhetorics that surround the emergent media of radio and the Internet in the USA. It details the development of each rhetoric, provides an analysis of their ideological underpinnings and suggests that - given the emphasis on the ‘virtual’ in Internet theory and promotion - our current communication utopia will come to resemble its predecessor: a literal ‘no place’ in which the word ‘democracy’ becomes a consumption-based parody of what might have been the medium’s actual democratic potential. The analysis of radio’s promotional rhetoric studies the writing and speeches of the National Broadcasting Company/Radio Corporation of America leader David Sarnoff, the newspaper editor Martin Codel, the educator Joy Elmer Morgan and the psychologist and media analyst Rudolf Arnheim. The examination of the Internet takes up the work of former Speaker of the US House of Representatives Newt Gingrich, Vice President Al Gore and Internet theorist Howard Rheingold.