This paper traces, through in-depth interviews with San Francisco Bay letters editors, the criteria editors use to select letters, and examines how these criteria contribute to constructing the public by privileging certain forms of expression, and suppressing others. In constructing a theoretical framework, the paper draws on political philosophy to distinguish between three prevalent modes of publicity: Exhibitionist publicity, focused on the display of individual greatness; dialogist publicity, emphasizing democratic dialogue between groups and individuals; and activist publicity, which entails the confrontation between groups that seek to advance political goals

This essay focuses attention on some of the polysemic and polyvalent dimensions of Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan. The author argues that this film needs to be viewed as an intertextual fragment, where audiences, rhetors, and critics co produce their interpretations of the rhetorical meaning of D-Day and the "Good War" .The essay advances the argument that critical memory studies help us understand how various representations and absences in the film allow for a number of different nostalgic and oppositional readings of the film. Because of the ambiguous nature of this cinematic representation, both supporters and detractors could claim that this was a realistic film that supported their own views on warfare

We used Symbolic Convergence Theory to analyze 2,000 political cartoons on the investigation, impeachment, and trial of the president. The cartoonists' vision incorporates components from Starr's and Clinton's visions: "Our public figures (Clinton, Starr, Congress, the news media) are engaged in a tawdry burlesque drama. "The number of levels in a rhetorical vision depends on the vision's complexity. We show that multiple, independent, rhetors can create a rhetorical vision. These messages, highly visual and generally critical, freely use metaphor and allusions, allowing multiple interpretations and rendering the fantasy themes in these dramas accessible to readers with widely divergent attitudes. Despite their fictionality, these messages concern important issues and make moral judgments on these public figures.