Aristotle

Dean, D. (2005). Fear, negative campaigning and loathing: The case of the UK election campaign. Journal of Marketing Management, 21, 1067–1078. This paper uses Aristotle’s concept of rhetoric as a basis for understanding how messages are conveyed to the electorate.

Shanahan, F., & Seele, P. (2015). Shorting ethos: Exploring the relationship between Aristotle’s ethos and reputation management. Corporate Reputation Review, 18(1), 37–49. DOI: 10.1057/crr.2014.19

Explores the role of Aristotle’s notion of ethos in corporate reputation and repairing reputational damage.

Bormann

Adams, A. S. (2013). Needs met through role-playing games: A fantasy theme analysis of Dungeons & Dragons. Kaleidoscope: A Graduate Journal of Qualitative Communication Research, 12, 69–86.

Using fantasy theme analysis, this study identifies four themes within D&D player talk on Facebook: democratic ideologies, friendship maintenance, extraordinary experiences, and good versus evil.

Bormann, E. G. (1972). Fantasy and rhetorical vision: The rhetorical criticism of social reality. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 58, 396–407. An overview of fantasy theme analysis.

Burke

Foss, S. K. (2009). Rhetorical criticism: Exploration and practice (4th ed). Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press. Discussion and examples of Burke’s work and pentadic criticism. Also includes chapters on fantasy theme, metaphor, and narrative criticism.

Milford, M. (2015). Kenneth Burke’s punitive priests and the redeeming prophets: The NCAA, the college sports media, and the University of Miami scandal. Communication Studies, 66(1), 45–62. DOI: 10.1080/10510974.2013.856806. A Burkean analysis of organizational adaptation to new circumstances.

Conversation Analysis

Clifton, J. (2006), A conversation analytical approach to business communication: The case of leadership. Journal of Business Communication, 43(3), 202–219. A study of the normally unnoticed machinery of talk by which leadership in a group is enacted.

Richards, K., & Seedhouse, P. (2005). Applying conversation analysis. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. See in particular the chapter on conversation analysis as a research methodology.

Discourse Analysis

Discourse Analysis

Bingham, A. (2010, Winter). Discourse of the Dammed: A study of the impacts of sustainable development discourse on indigenous peoples in the Brazilian Amazon in the context of the proposed Belo Monte hydroelectric dam. POLIS Journal, 4, 1– 47.

A discourse analysis study of a dominant discourse of sustainable development based on science, technology, and management versus a secondary discourse of decentralization and full participation and the impact of the former on indigenous peoples.

Gee, J. P. (2014). An introduction to discourse analysis: Theory and method (4th ed.). New York, NY: Routledge. An introductory text that discusses a variety of approaches to discourse analysis.

Metaphor

Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors we live by. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Discusses metaphor and its role in our lives. Why is “up” good and “down” bad, for example?

Narrative Analysis

Nettleton, P. H. (2011). Domestic violence in men’s and women’s magazines: Women are guilty of choosing the wrong men, men are not guilty of hitting women. Women’s Studies in Communication, 34(2), 139–160. DOI: 10.1080/07491409.2011.618240. Using narrative analysis, this study found that men’s magazines show ongoing tolerance for domestic violence and that women’smagazines hold women responsible for male violence.

Semiotics

Chandler, D. (2002). Semiotics: The basics. London: Routledge. An overview of semiotics. Shows how language and signs cannot be regarded as neutral carriers of meaning.

Floch, J. (2001). Semiotics, marketing and communication: Beneath the signs, the strategies. New York: Palgrave. An overview of semi¬otic theory and its application using specific examples from advertising and marketing.

Harrison, C. (2003). Visual social semiotics: Understanding how still images make meaning. Technical Communication, 50(1), 46–60. A paper, illustrated with examples, on analyzing imagery in documents and websites. Discusses the relationship of words and text and how to choose images to enhance text.

Pagel, S., & Westerfelhaus, R. (2005). Charting managerial reading references in relation to popular management theory books: A semiotic analysis. Journal of Business Communication, 42(4), 420–448. Uses semiotic analysis to find out how business people actually read popular business theory books.

Zhao, S., Djonov, E., & van Leeuwen, T. (2014). Semiotic technology and practice: A multimodal social semiotic approach to PowerPoint. Text & Talk, 34(3), 349–375. DOI: 10.1515/text-2014–0005

Considers PowerPoint as a semiotic practice with three dimensions—the software’s design, the multimodal composition of slide shows, and their presentation.