Young people spend two-and-a-half as much time watching Internet videos as they do traditional television. Business concerns aside, questions remain about other effects of this change in media consumption. One such concern is of celebrities and their influence. Research demonstrates that celebrities are influential, in part because people consider them credible sources, even with regard to political information. Research also shows that a credible source is more effective at changing one’s attitude and behavioral intention than a low-credibility source. These research findings might alter what was previously perceived as the influence of traditional celebrities – movie stars, pop groups, and the entertainment industry as a whole. With the growth of particular participatory platforms and social media sites, a new type of celebrity exists: microcelebrity. Defined as an act of bolstering digital self-representation through media and technology, the term microcelebrity has since evolved to include individuals who construct self-representation and garner popularity online. Although there is a great deal of research demonstrating that microcelebrities are also influential, especially regarding consumer good purchases on social media, the question of microcelebrity influence on politics remains. In a two by two experiment, this study starts with a literature review on credibility, traditional celebrity, their political influence on audiences, followed by an introduction to microcelebrities and their influence, with a method section that leads to a few hypotheses. First, according to past literature, it is hypothesized that traditional celebrities are evaluated as more credible than microcelebrities. Second, male celebrities (both traditional and microcelebrities) are expected to be evaluated as more credible than female celebrities. Third, traditional male celebrities will be more credible than any other kind of celebrity. Given credibility is deemed by scholars as a crucial component of persuasion, assessing microcelebrities’ credibility provides a better understanding of their societal and political mpact.

Conservation is a pressing and widely discussed topic. There are many people and organizations involved in the issue, meaning there are many different perspectives and opinions. In his paper “Conservation in the Anthropocene,” Peter Kareiva presents controversial ideas about modern day conservation. Based on my rhetorical analysis of his paper, I argue that he takes advantage of the controversy by presenting his ideas in a purposefully more provocative way than he needs to. In this paper we see him attacking conservation icons and ideals as well as putting forward arguments against currently held ideas in the conservation movement and directly attacking traditional environmentalists. This enrages much of his audience, and through that controversy he brings more attention to his paper and his ideas. This paper analyzes how he uses rhetoric to emphasize the controversial aspect of the ideas he presents in this paper to attract more attention to his argument and to open up a discussion about the issues he presents.

Theodosius Dobzhansky was a prominent 20th century scientist, who proved to be an eloquent rhetor, catalyzing the interdisciplinary synthesis of modern theories of evolution by bridging the great divide between Mendelian and Darwinian schools of thought. In March 1973, The American Biology Teacher published his essay “Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution.” This sentence has become the memorable line from the essay, often used anecdotally against religion and in support of evolutionary theories by the scientific community. However, this use directly contradicts Dobzhansky’s goal of persuading readers that science and religion aren’t mutually exclusive, through arguing for evolution as proof of God’s greatness, attempting to unite these two disciplines. Theories of evolution have long been tied to and in confrontation with religion. This contention prevails today; in 2017 alone multiple bills were introduced into the U.S. House lobbying for equal time spent teaching both evolution and creationism in public schools. I argue that Dobzhansky’s rhetorical eloquence allows him to appeal to two audiences. Through the use of prolepsis, anecdotes, and devoutness to God he is able to address his religious audience while simultaneously giving educators persuasive tools for teaching evolution in a religious context. Going forward, we can pull from Dobzhansky’s rhetorical strategies to facilitate productive conversations between polarized schools of thought, such as seen today in the American political climate.

Cosmos was a widely popular TV show that presented science to general audiences in the United States. It first aired in 1980 as Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, with famed astrophysicist Carl Sagan spearheading the making of the show, hosting it and becoming one of the most popular scientific spokesmen in the late 20th century. The show was redone in 2014 as Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson. The revival season featured mostly the same subject matter as the original and had some of the same writers and producers, so the differences in presentation are mostly due to new scientific discoveries and new public perspectives towards science. While many rhetoricians of science have analyzed the shows, no comparison has been performed to see how rhetoric in public science presentations has changed over time. In this presentation, I will analyze corresponding episodes of Cosmos, one from each season, to determine how the presentation of scientific topics has changed for the better and to rediscover past rhetorical strategies which could be employed once again in contemporary scientific discourse. A tone of wonder and awe permeates the 1980 Cosmos while one of excitement is present in its 2014 counterpart; it is this change in particular that may have detrimental effects if the two tones are not merged in public rhetoric going forward.