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Public Address

In its simplest form, public address is the process of giving a speech or presentation to an audience, but the scholarly definition of public address places it as an area of emphasis within the field of communication studies. Academics in the discipline classify public address as, “The study of speakers and speeches, including the historical and social context of platforms, campaigns, and movements” (“What Is Communication?”). Moreover, the National Communication Association, which “advances Communication as the discipline that studies all forms, modes, media, and consequences of communication through humanistic, social scientific, and aesthetic inquiry” (“Resources for Media”), lists public address as one of 48 divisions that comprise the contemporary field of study. The mission statement for the Public Address Division in National Communication Association is as follows:

the practice and the promotion of the study of a wide variety of rhetoric that addresses publics. Although the term “public address” evokes a rich history of the study of political and religious oratory, we welcome and include not only traditional studies of “great speakers and speeches,” but also work that focuses on rhetorical acts and artifacts from various cultures, nations, and media. The Public Address Division is one of NCA’s oldest and largest divisions. Its members employ various analytical methods, including historical, descriptive, rhetorical, textual, and institutional critiques, as they examine the symbols that serve both to express and to shape public cultures. Scholarship in the division often leads to theoretical insight about the nature of public discourse at the same time as it enhances our understanding of particular discourses, rhetors, or social movements. Despite the variety of critical perspectives, members of the division share a concern for the relationship between “text” and “context,” the object of study, and its scene. (“Interest Group Descriptions”)

This entry examines the history of public address, key figures in public address, the context of public address, objects of study in the field of public address, and feminist challenges to the tradition of public address.

The History of Public Address

Since the time of Aristotle, scholars have studied the form, content, style, and delivery of public address, both to understand its impact on audiences as well as to create exemplars for students of public speaking. Rhetorical criticism is a method or an umbrella term for a series of methods, which seeks to understand the processes and influences of public address. Fundamental to rhetorical criticism is neo-Aristotelian criticism, considered the “first formal method of rhetorical criticism” according to Sonya K. Foss, which emerged in the 1920s and was further popularized in the 1940s by Norwood Brigance and then in the 1960s by Edwin Black. As its name indicates, it is based on the writings of Aristotle and other classical rhetorical scholars. It requires that the critic undertake three procedures:

(1) the reconstruction of the historical context in which the speech occurred, including background information about the speaker, details of the times, and a description of the particular occasion; (2) the analysis of the speech itself according to the classical canons of invention, or the discovery of subject matter; organization or speech structure; style; delivery; and memory; and (3) assessment of the effectiveness of the speech for the audience and occasion.” (Foss & Foss, 1991, p.

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