Topic: The Laughing Avatar and the Web of Persuasion

We begin by briefly considering metaphors for the study of persuasion.  We
then look to cyberspace to provide metaphors to describe persuasion, or
influence between self and others, and play with those metaphors through
the rest of the term.  Some piece of writing by Kenneth Burke (who uses
drama as a metaphor to explain communication practices) will be central to
each of three units, and we'll visit a variety of subjects and texts:
hypertext, personality, acting, narrative,  rhetoric, films (probably
including In the Company of Men, The Wizard of Oz, The Matrix, Don Juan de
Marco, and Paris is Burning), essays, speeches, and websites, among others.
Unit 1: The avatar: psychological (personality) and rhetorical (persona)
conceptions of the self.
Unit 2: The tragic and comic: attitudes that inform our avatars (personae).
Unit 3: The web: the scene in which your avatar (persona) performs and is
performed by attitudes among other avatars (audience).

This is not primarily a speech presentation course, but our work will
include student presentations.  I will attempt to familiarize you with
equipment for living in your journey, or hunt, as persuader and persuaded.
Grading is based on three projects: one oral, one written, and one
electronic.

http://php.indiana.edu/~anfleury/fleury.html