Is there anybody out there? Toward an audience-oriented writing pedagogy.

Abstract

In chapter one I explore the history of audience as a theoretical construct within rhetorical and composition studies. I argue that James Porter's work in particular has caused audience to be conceived of in a managerial sense, as something to be manipulated to the rhetor's ends. I go on to argue that historical alternatives exist which help to create a richer history of audience theory and which do not exclusively emphasize the managerial sense of audience.

In chapter three I consider iterations of critical pedagogy developed by Henry Giroux, James Berlin, and Deborah Brandt, and discuss the ways in which aspects of critical pedagogy can productively intersect with a non-managerial notion of audience.

In chapter two I look to the work of Gertrude Buck, whose writings represent a turn-of-the-century example of the development of a non-managerial theory of audience. I go on to argue that Buck's notion of audience has strong consonance with recent appropriations of the work of Mikhail Bakhtin.

In chapter four I critique key assumptions that undergird critical pedagogy and use these critiques to help theorize an audience oriented writing pedagogy. Such a pedagogy emphasizes that audiences, like subjects, are multiply constructed and are highly dependent on the contexts in which discourses occur.

Finally, in chapter five I explore the ways that an audience oriented writing pedagogy can be deployed with the computer mediated classroom. I conclude by suggesting some of the ways we can use hypertext, the internet, and e-mail as tools for teaching undergraduates a sophisticated, non-managerial notion of audience.