Calls to be counted: Rhetorics of aggregation and numerical representation in 20th century American democracy

In this dissertation, I examine the role various forms of counting citizens have played in mass campaigns in twentieth-century American political culture. Scholarship in political science, history and rhetorical studies tells us that the census and public opinion polling have long been used to tell Americans who they are or to justify political actions in democracy. Scholarship on citizenship suggests that civic rituals and collective civic actions are a substantial way citizens learn or lay claim to citizenship and understand their obligations or relationship to the collective. My research project fills this gap by examining mass movements in 20th century civic culture that make many of these same claims to public identity or beliefs, and negotiate many of the same tensions of homogeneity and difference. In each case, I analyze how calls to be counted articulate what it means to be counted as one among many in a mass campaign or as part of a collective citizenry more broadly, and why being counted matters at all. My dissertation consists of four case studies, beginning with women’s suffrage petitions in the early 1910s, continuing with President Franklin Roosevelt’s calls for citizens to send letters en masse from 1934-1937, proceeding to the Million Man March in 1995, and culminating in Moveon.org’s groundbreaking 1998 online petition campaign. In my analysis, I find that arguments about what it means to be counted are shaped by the specifics of the contexts, issues, and technologies of counting. Central to these distinct arguments about counting is the concern for what is being counted by the campaign, from public opinion, demands, a nation, or public interest; all represented through distinct types of counting, from degree to quantity, aggregation, or oneness. These are bolstered by common rhetorical figures of counting, including magnitude, accumulation, repetition, and elaboration; as well as an emphasis on time and space.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Communication

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2019

Author dc:creator

• Weickum, Nikki

Contributors dc:contributor

• O'Gorman, Ned
• Finnegan, Cara
• Cisneros, J. David
• Hamilton, Kevin

• rhetoric
• aggregation

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2019 Nikki Weickum

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/105912

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/105912