| book details |

Sound-Bite Saboteurs: Public Discourse, Education, and the State of Democratic Deliberation

By (author) Julie Drew, By (author) William Lyons, By (author) Lance Svehla

| on special |

normal price: R 1 343.95

Price: R 1 209.95

| add to trolley |

| book description |

Argues that the reliance on sound bites in recent political discourse is harmful to the democratic process. Sound-Bite Saboteurs examines the emergence of a multifaceted, multimedia culture that encourages the use of sound bites to silence one's opponents at the expense of democratic deliberation and debate. No simple partisan phenomenon or mere attempt to ""spin"" a particular issue, sound-bite sabotage is, the authors argue, a sophisticated and media-savvy effort by public and private elites to destroy the grounds of public discourse, higher education, and democratic argument. By displacing democratic debate with political spectacle, sound-bite saboteurs attempt to keep citizens more entertained but less informed, more cynical but less engaged, more adept as consumers but less adept as agents. In a broad-based and integrated analysis of this phenomenon, the authors argue that sound-bite sabotage can and must be resisted both within the classroom and beyond.