Copyright by Michael Tyler Welsh 2020 The Dissertation Committee for Michael Tyler Welsh Certifies that this is the approved version of the following Dissertation: Disruptive Rhetoric in Age of Outrage Committee: Barry Brummett, Supervisor Diane Davis Joshua Gunn Michael Butterworth Disruptive Rhetoric in an Age of Outrage by Michael Tyler Welsh Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin May 2020 Dedication Dedicated to the ones with the courage to live within conflict. To those who decided to not just have a comfortable life. To the ones who disrupt. Acknowledgements I do not possess enough language to express the gratitude for the various people who helped, listened, discussed, comforted, and encouraged me along the way. I am only here today because of the efforts of others who gave me the inspiration to complete this journey. It is somewhat futile to attempt to acknowledge all of the tremendous support and guidance I received across this entire endeavor; however, I will try. I would like to thank my remarkable committee who helped shape and push this project to a place I could never have envisioned alone. To my longtime advisor, Barry Brummett, whose patience and direction have been instrumental to my growth as a person and academic for so many years, thank you. To Joshua Gunn, for opening me up to worlds of understanding and being a confidant and colleague. To Diane Davis, for pushing me to never settle for less than my best, and formulating my perspectives of ethical treatment of others. And to Michael Butterworth, your insight and expertise proved invaluable. To the other incredible educators I have had the honor of learning from along the way – Billy Earnest, Innes Mitchell, Dana Cloud, Scout Stroud, and Lori Peterson. To the late, great Harald Becker for inserting this crazy idea into my head in the first place. For teaching me the true meaning of traümen. Finally, to my wife Amelia, for being my rock, my confidence, my counselor, and even my research assistant, for always believing in me. I am only able to finish this process precisely due to your steadfast support throughout the entire ten years. When everything seemed impossible, your love and encouragement gave me strength to finish. This would have been impossible without you, and I cannot thank you enough. I’m grateful beyond words. v Abstract Disruptive Rhetoric in Age of Outrage Michael Tyler Welsh, PhD The University of Texas at Austin, 2020 Supervisor: Barry Brummett Abstract: Online discursive practices often take place within a context know as an age of outrage. This culture of outrage dominates the current socio-political condition showing few, if any, signs of subsiding. In fact, this project suggests that outrage culture is an inescapable societal framework within which rhetors operate today. Outrage culture can be understood as the tendency for individuals to react publicly to any rhetorical action that is deemed offensive, insensitive, or uncivil in nature. These outraged reactions are often mob-like in nature; they are polarized, politicized, and enacted quickly without further investigation into the context, meaning, and intentions of the original rhetorical action. This project asks: under what circumstances can rhetors offer stylized answers for dealing with socio-political issues in an age of outrage? This research reveals that some rhetors use disruptive rhetoric to challenge hierarchical structures, utilizing the rhetorical concept of “impiety,” which in turn can create publics within digital, discursive spaces. These digitally networked publics demonstrate how groups coalesce and self-organize in order to discuss, negotiate, and contest meaning in response to disruptive acts. This project also proposes that affective releases can sustain networked publics through public displays of emotion and intensity as they seek to reorder and reorganize disrupted hierarchies. Archival research vi on digital platforms provides digital methods to locate the formulation of these networked, affective publics by tracking specific hashtags responding to disruptive rhetorical strategies. Hashtags become sites of affect wherein publics debate, deliberate, and contest deeper meanings of messages offered by disruptive rhetors. Additionally, this project utilizes close reading methods to reveal the affective nature of these hashtagged responses, which create rhetorical space for publics to feel their way into understanding. This project’s goal is to not only propose new approaches for understanding disruptive rhetorical strategies, but also offer methods to track and locate future disruptions in an age of outrage. vii Table of Contents List of Figures .................................................................................................................... xi Chapter 1: Disruptive Rhetoric in an Age of Outrage .........................................................1 Outrageous Outbreaks.................................................................................................3 Narrowing the Scope of Outrage: Disruptive Rhetoric.............................................14 Previewing the Potential of Disruptive Rhetoric ......................................................17 The Pussy Riot Controversy .....................................................................................18 The Case of Colin Kaepernick ..................................................................................20 Some Key Distinctions, Definitions, and their Limitations ......................................22 Disruptive Rhetoric is Public and Can Create Publics.........................22 Disruptive Rhetoric is not an Issue of Free Speech .............................23 Disruptive Rhetoric and Risk ...............................................................24 Call-Out and Cancel Culture Rhetoric ......................................................................26 Hashtag Activism and Digilantism ...........................................................................29 Uncivil Rhetoric/Incivility ........................................................................................35 Synthesizing the Literature .......................................................................................40 Toward a Burkean Symbolic Analysis .....................................................................41 A Hierarchical Analysis ............................................................................................42 Research Questions ...................................................................................................43 Proposed Thesis ........................................................................................................44 Overview ...................................................................................................................44 Chapter Previews ......................................................................................................45 viii Chapter 2: Old(er) Theories, New(er) Methods .................................................................48 Burkean (Im)Piety.....................................................................................................50 From Coffeehouses to Digital Platforms ..................................................................56 Digitally Networked Publics .....................................................................................63 Affective Digital Publics ..........................................................................................67 Digital Tools .............................................................................................................73 Tracking Tagged Affect ............................................................................................75 Case Studies Preview and Conclusion ......................................................................80 Chapter 3: The Colin Kaepernick Case Study ...................................................................84 Case in Context .........................................................................................................84 History of the Kaepernick Controversy ....................................................................86 Impiety Before Militarized Hierarchies ....................................................................95 Networked Publics in a Digital Age .......................................................................101 Affective Publics in a Digital Age ..........................................................................107 “Affective publics materialize uniquely and leave distinct digital footprints.” ......108 “Affective publics support connective yet not necessarily collective action.” .......111 “Affective publics are powered by affective statements of opinion, fact, or a blend of both, which in turn produce ambient, always-on feeds that further connect and pluralize expression in regimes democratic and otherwise.”........115 “Affective publics typically produce disruptions/interruptions of dominant political narratives by presencing underrepresented viewpoints.” ...................119 “Ambient streams sustain publics convened around affective commonalities: impact is symbolic, agency claimed is semantic, power is liminal.”................122 Conclusion ..............................................................................................................126