From Communicative Silencer to Responsive Listener: Participation and Public Dialogue in Benin

The interpretation explores the issue of participatory communication within the particular Beninese context of public dialogue by focusing on the communicative praxis of intellectual elite and by taking the public dialogue of the 1990 National Conference of Benin as a case study. The interpretive listening of such a situated participatory public dialogue results in the framing of two major metaphors: communicative silencer and responsive listener. First, the interpretation unveils that the possibility of broad participation in the democratization of Benin is compromised by a culture of silence in which intellectual elite become communicative silencers of the silenced communities including the illiterate, the poor and the underprivileged. Second, the interpretation pays heed to the communicative alternative emerging from the public dialogue experienced during the National Conference echoing a call to the intellectual elite to become responsive listeners.

Name thesis:degree_name

PhD

Level thesis:degree_level

Immediate Access

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Communication and Rhetorical Studies

Year dc:date.available

2006

Author dc:creator

• Quenum, André

Contributors dc:contributor

• Janie Harden Fritz
• Michael Dillon
• Ronald C. Arnett

• Benin
• Dialogue
• Listener

Language dc:language

English

Repository record dc:identifier

https://dsc.duq.edu/etd/1074

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dsc.duq.edu:etd-2090