Adaptations for

Professionalization

Kevin Hollister’s Journey through

Old Dominion University’s M.A. in Professional Writing

Spring 2010-Spring 2011

Table of Contents

Introduction

Understanding Professional Writing

Defining Professional Writing in Academia (Original Draft)

Defining Professional Writing in Academia (Revised)

Specializing in Journalism

Taylor-Made

Overcoming a Nightmare to Fulfill a Dream

Research on Journalism and Rhetoric

First Name Basis: The Rhetorical Strategies in the Shaping

of LeBron’s Stardom (Original Draft)

First Name Basis: The Rhetorical Strategies in the Shaping

of LeBron’s Stardom (Revised)

Making Us Witnesses: The Visual Rhetoric Shaping

LeBron’s Stardom

Adaptations for Professionalization

Kevin Hollister’s Journey through Old Dominion University’s M.A. in Professional Writing

In the spring of 2009, I graduated Lynchburg College with a Communications Studies degree

emphasizing in journalism and public relations. Most of my coursework at the undergraduate

level focused on learning how to write journalistically, AP style, editing, compiling media kits,

and strategizing mock PR campaigns. I learned the core skills of writing in my desired field of

work, but, to me, I saw a bachelor‟s degree as simply laying a foundation for my future career. I

wanted a master‟s degree in order to hone my particular writing interests and qualify me for a

professional career.

I aspire to have a career as a journalist—ideally, relating to sports. In looking for graduate

schools, I wanted a program that would allow me to continue my interests in journalism and

public relations. I sought a curriculum that could challenge me as a writer and improve my

chances in the job market.

I chose Old Dominion University because of their Professional Writing track that offered classes

in journalism, public relations, and new media. After being accepted into ODU, I met with the

English department‟s Graduate Program Director, who explained to me the benefits of the

flexible curriculum in the Professional Writing track. He discussed how I could utilize two

elective courses to fulfill my interest in journalism.

My portfolio consists of four pieces that demonstrate how I was able to effectively tailor my

coursework at ODU around journalism. But, more importantly, this portfolio shows my growth

as a writer throughout my three semesters in graduate school.

When deciding on pieces for inclusion in my portfolio, I chose to present works that keep with

my journalistic interest. I also wanted to include pieces that reflect what the Professional

Writing program taught me as a researcher and demonstrate how my skills as a writer could be

channeled into the workplace.

Understanding Professional Writing

The piece titled “Defining Professional Writing in Academia” was included because it explains

how I interpret the term “professional writing” and why I elect to present this portfolio as my

program capstone.

I wrote this piece for English 715: Professional Writing Theories and Practices. Before this

course, I did not realize that the term “professional writing” was so heavily contested amongst

scholars and other professionals.

Most of the class readings and the experiences of my fellow students focused on the technical

side of professional writing, such as business writing or manual writing. Many of our

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introductory readings discussed the implications of defining “professional writing” and why this

contributed to professional writing being housed in various academic departments (Connors,

1982; Faber, 2002; Sullivan, 1993). Because of the interdisciplinary nature of professional

writing, it has still yet to become clearly defined.

Further readings discussed this tension and what aspects of each discipline should prevail in the

teaching of professional writing (Rude, 2009; Porter & Sullivan, 2007; Coney, 1997). With

strong roots in English and rhetoric, but also in technology and engineering, scholars debated

whether education in professional writing should focus more on the vocational or academic

skills.

For the first few weeks of class, I relied on my public relations background as a model for

workplace writing. Although PR writing is not traditionally accepted as professional writing, I

felt that this contention was debatable—especially with public relations‟ strong correlation with

business writing. Like scholar Jo Allen, who wrote a piece entitled “The Case Against Defining

Technical Writing,” I think that it is best to leave the field undefined. Allen believes that since

no definition of technical writing has emerged as universally acceptable, “definitions serve no

purpose than to separate certain kinds of writing—and eventually writers” (Allen, 2002, p. 76).

While I interpret ODU‟s Professional Writing program as a way to hone my skills in journalism

and public relations, most of my classmates tend to fall more on the technical side of the

professional writing continuum. Due to the wide variety of courses—some required and others

electives—in the curriculum, I was confused about the program‟s emphasis. I was curious how

decisions regarding the curriculum impacted my specialization as a writer. My personal interests

in how professional writing was interpreted at ODU led me to perform research.

My research paper examines how three graduate programs define professional writing based on

how their curriculum matches up with their program‟s mission statement. Using the research of

Yeats and Thompson (2010) as a jumping off point, and their continuum as a model for my

methodology, I was able to understand more about ODU‟s program and what it offers me as a

student.

Concluding that ODU‟s curriculum is categorized by courses in “writing, including essays,

nonfiction, creative writing, public relations, speech writing, editing and publishing,” I

understand what my degree offers in terms of specialization. A more liberal curriculum, like

ODU‟s, “sacrifices specialization, but offers flexibility for students to tailor their courses to their

career aspirations” (Yeats & Thompson, 2010, p. 223).

The edits I made to this piece are minor—mainly grammatical. However, at the recommendation

of my professor, I did make changes to my introduction and literature review.

In my introduction, I make my personal anecdote tie in more closely to not just my experiences

at ODU, but discussions in the field of professional writing. Particularly, I use a 2007 case study

on Elon University‟s development of a professional writing program to illustrate the ongoing

tensions and factors that influence how the discipline is taught in the “Academy” (Peeples, T.,

Rosinski, P., & Strickland, M., 2007)

2

Also, more was added to my literature review. I want to make the previous research “speak” for

how my particular study situates itself in the field. Specifically, Allen and Benninghoff (2004)

and Meloncon (2009) perform research studies on how technical and professional

communication is presented in an academic setting. These two studies serve as a foundation as

to why I use Yeats and Thompson‟s continuum as my methodology.

Including my research on ODU‟s curriculum in my portfolio is important because it serves as the

foundation of why I chose my courses, my research topics, and the other pieces I include in my

portfolio.

Specializing in Journalism

The next three pieces my portfolio is comprised of are products of ODU‟s flexible curriculum

and how I was able to choose my own particular area of specialization within the program.

The Jeff Taylor Profile

One of my two elective courses that improved my writing as a journalist is English 582: Sports

Journalism. Although my undergraduate degree was in journalism, this course afforded me the

opportunity to write and be critiqued on the genre of journalism I aspire to pursue. Covering and

writing about sports was something that I did for my undergraduate newspaper, yet I was never

given formal instruction on the intricacies of covering particular sports.

My piece, entitled “Taylor-Made” was the final assignment of the semester—an in-depth profile

piece that could be a feature in a newspaper or magazine. The profile subject, Jeff Taylor, Jr., is

a friend of mine from undergraduate school at Lynchburg College. In addition to being a

challenging assignment to write, it was also a struggle to maintain objectivity and

professionalism when portraying a friend.

I submitted the final version to various magazines for publication. Lynchburg College Magazine

thought the piece was worthy of publishing, but needed me to make significant changes in length

and update the piece.

I was able to gain experience in what it would be like working as a freelance writer. The editor

of the magazine gave me strict deadlines, word limits, and specific changes that needed to be

made in order for the piece to be published. I also had to conduct more interviews with not only

Taylor, but his former coach. In order to get pictures to accompany the piece, I contacted the

minor-league team and the Taylor family.

There are significant changes between the final version I submitted for class and the one

published in the magazine. The most notable is length. I had to tell the same story and create the

same emotional attachment to Taylor in less than 1,500 words for the magazine publication.

Although initially I felt constrained, I eventually found that the end result was a more concise

telling of Taylor‟s story.

3

Besides word limit, getting the chance to have a professional editor critique my writing helped

me to improve and forced me to make rhetorical choices in my revisions. While my piece for

class was read only by my professor and Taylor, the magazine version is mass distributed to LC

students, alumni, donors, faculty, and parents.

I find that writing for a real-world audience makes me more conscious of how I portray Taylor‟s

story. Pathos was prevalent in my original version because I wanted to re-tell his story in a way

that appeals to the uncertainty of his future. Pathos comes through even stronger in the

magazine version because of the use of visuals. I also make a concentrated effort to establish

ethos with the magazine version by adding the personal anecdote about knowing Taylor, his

father, and his girlfriend on a personal level. Acknowledging that I am an LC student makes

both an ethos and logos appeal. This is done to show my credibility to tell Taylor‟s story to a

larger audience and display my knowledge of the bond he had with his father, and Taylor had

with LC.

Overall, to have a piece that was created in the classroom become published is an enormous

accomplishment for me. I demonstrate that I am able to apply the skills that I learned in my

Sports Journalism class (along with my undergraduate experience) toward real-world

application. Developing vocational skills is something that I envision as a central goal of

graduate school.

Research on Journalism and Rhetoric

Deveney and LeBron

Continuing with my journalistic theme, I am including two academic research pieces on LeBron

James. My first piece, “First Name Basis: The Rhetorical Strategies in the Shaping of LeBron‟s

Stardom,” was for English 685: Writing Research.

Writing Research is a class I took my first semester at ODU. As an undergraduate, I found

research papers and writing for academia to be a boring endeavor. However, in my first

semester, between Writing Research and Teaching College Composition, I transformed from an

undergraduate student, into an experienced researcher and graduate writer.

Teaching College Composition taught me a lot about the writing process and I realized that

previous teaching pedagogies had constricted me as a writer. I felt confined to write what I

thought the professor “wanted to hear” rather than establish my own voice or simply pursue

research in areas of my interest. Through observing an ODU professor teach his first-year

composition course, and learning from my Writing Research professor, I concluded that

expressivist pedagogy positively affects me as a writer. ODU‟s program offers professors who

acknowledge my writing style and encourage my academic interests.

The goals of Writing Research are to „“analyze the intersections of theory, research, and practice

in composition studies, explore current research methods and methodologies, carry out our own

research into "sites and scenes" of writing”‟ (Writing Research syllabus, 2010). I remember

4

being excited that I was free to explore my research interests, but also feeling challenged on how

to compose a methodology and feasible research question.

Initially, my research question was: “Does sports writing, specifically athlete profiles, contribute

to the celebrity of athletes in today‟s society—attributing them with a sense of glorification?”

However, through class and what I learned about empirical research, I was able to create a more

workable question. Considering the importance of establishing a construct of interest and having

a precise scope, I eventually created the thesis: “What, if any, rhetorical strategies sports

journalists use in the shaping of LeBron James‟ stardom throughout his career?”

This paper demonstrates my growth as a researcher. The literature review section reveals the

major researchers in the field (Teitelbaum, 2005; Segrave, 1993; Inabinett, 1994), why there is a

need for my particular study, and where it fits amongst the others. It shows my understanding of

the importance of using the literature review in order to situate my topic within the field. This

creates reliability for me as a researcher that I can identify the major scholars in field and

acknowledge their research on similar topics.

Additionally, my methodology section clearly defines my terms, especially “rhetoric” (Vatz‟s

2006 definition), in order to frame my research. Defining the empirical methods of research that

I used in my methodology section and my rationale for using it as a means of examining my data

set was something that I learned in class, and was a goal for the course.

A qualitative study such as mine is iterative and discursive. Therefore, in order to reach

conclusions (which need to be generalized), I must use my text, as well as draw on personal

experiences and interpretations to make my case. Unlike quantitative research that makes its

case based on numbers, statistics, charts, and raw data, I need to provide reasoning and evidence

to support my findings.

This research paper was revised rather significantly in order to update it based on the recent

changes in LeBron James‟ career (kairos) since April 2010, when I wrote the first version.

Although my sample size increased because of the new pieces by Sean Deveney, my

methodology and coding for analysis stayed basically the same.

The main difference is I created another category of coding for Deveney‟s rhetoric title “The Big

Three.” This was done because it was clear that Deveney‟s rhetoric shifted once James joined

the Miami Heat as a free agent. The motifs that are so prevalent in the previous pieces

disappeared when Deveney wrote about James on the Heat, thus calling for another rhetorical

category in addition to my previous three.

Visual Rhetoric: Deveney and LeBron

Continuing my research on LeBron James, the final piece that I include in my portfolio is a piece

which expands upon the rhetoric surround Deveney‟s pieces and focuses on the pictures

accompanying the articles. The piece, entitled “Making Us Witnesses: The Visual Rhetoric

Shaping LeBron‟s Stardom,” is for English 706: Visual Rhetoric and Document Design and is

not a final product like the other three works in the portfolio.

5

In my heuristic of my previous research on LeBron James, I discuss how further research would

examine the images of James with Deveney‟s pieces to see if they offer confirming evidence to

the conclusions I make about Deveney‟s written rhetoric. This research is useful in further

establishing validity to my findings and creates a more comprehensive approach to determining

the rhetorical strategies involved in the shaping of James‟ stardom.

As a methodology, I use one of the course‟s required textbooks as the foundation of my

methodology for analyzing the images. My literature review offers justification for why I use

Kress and van Leeuwen‟s five categories of image analysis as means to understand the rhetoric

of the photos. Using Kress and van Leeuwen, I look at not just the signs used in the images, but

what the “sign-makers” (Deveney) may have intended the image to mean and how it correlates

with his verbal rhetoric (Kress and van Leeuwen, 2007). Using Kress and van Leeuwen to

critique eight images, I conclude that the visuals accompanying Deveney‟s articles enhance his

rhetorical motifs.

Eventually, I am turning this paper into a Sophie project. This will help to capture all the aspects

of multimedia in my paper and incorporate additional sources of visual rhetoric—such as

hyperlinks to videos and audio. Like Sheridan (2010) expresses in his highly progressive

research, that there is a call to create more “three-dimensional” rhetoric that utilizes technology.

The Sophie project and this paper help me understand that rhetoric is not limited to the written

word.

This visual rhetoric study is for a class I am taking this semester. In order to include it in the

portfolio, I needed to complete the assignment nearly a month early. Unlike the other pieces, I

received no feedback on the piece and therefore it is not as polished as the others. Regardless, I

think it gives an indication of my ability to critique visuals and understand their rhetorical

impact.

Final Thoughts

This portfolio is not a comprehensive representation of my graduate level work, but an indication

of how I am able to fulfill both the goals of ODU‟s program and my personal goals as a master‟s

student. On ODU‟s website, the university outlines clearly what a student will derive from the

Professional Writing program:

“The MA concentration is designed for those who seek an intense

investigation into professional writing. Designed to prepare students to

expand and theorize their practices of workplace writing and to prepare

students for doctoral work in the field” (ODU).

According to this definition of the program, I think the pieces I include in my portfolio

demonstrate my growth and success as a graduate student over the past three semesters. Each of

these pieces represents my understanding of the practical application of the term “professional

writing” and how I adapt the program in order to specialize in my area of interest.

6

References

Allen, J. (2004). The case against defining technical writing. In Teaching Technical

Communication: Critical Issues for the classroom. Ed. James Dubinsky. Boston:

Bedford/St. Martin‟s. 67-76.

Allen, N., & Benninghoff. S. T. (2004). TPC program snapshots: Developing curricula and

addressing challenges. Technical Communication Quarterly. 13. 157-185.

Borhart, J. R. (2003). "A Rhetorical Analysis of the Images of Female Athletes on the

Covers of Sports Illustrated." MA Thesis. University of Kansas.

Connors, R. (1982). The Rise of Technical Writing Instruction in America. Journal of Technical

Writing and Communication. 12.4 329-52.

Hollister, K. (2010). “Taylor-Made.” MA Project. Old Dominion University. Print.

Hollister, K. (2011). “Overcoming a Nightmare to Fulfill a Dream.” Lynchburg College

Magazine. Spring 2011: 18.2 18-19. Print.

Hollister, K. (2011). “First Name Basis: The Rhetorical Strategies in the Shaping of

LeBron‟s Stardom.” MA Research Paper. Old Dominion University. Print.

Hollister, K. (2011). “Defining Professional Writing in Academia.” MA Research Paper. Old

Dominion University. Print.

Inabinett, Mark. Grantland Rice and His Heroes: The Sportswriter as Mythmaker in the 1920's.

Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1994. Print.

Lindemann, E. (2001). A Rhetoric for Writing Teachers. Ed. Anderson, D. New York: Oxford

University Press. Print.

Kress, G., & van Leeuwen, T. (1996). Reading Images: The Grammer of Visual Design. New

York: Routledge.

MacNealy, M. S. (1999). Strategies for Empirical Research in Writing. New York: Addison

Wesley Longman. Print.

Meloncon, L. (2009). Master's programs in technical communication: A current overview.

Technical Communication, 56, 137-148.

Peeples, T., Rosinski, P., & Strickland, M. (2007). Kronos and Kairos, Strategies and Tactics:

The Case of Constructing Elon University‟s Professional Writing and Rhetoric

Concentration. Composition Studies

Sheridan, D.M. (2010) “Fabricating Consent: Three-Dimensional Objects as Rhetorical

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Compositions.” Computers and Composition 27. 249–265.

Sullivan, P. A., & Porter, J. E. (1993). Remapping curricular geography: Professional writing

in/and English. Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 7, 389-422.

Teitelbaun, S. H. (2005) Sports Heroes, Fallen Idols. Lincoln: University of Nebraska, Print.

Vatz, R. E. (2006). "Rhetoric and Psychiatry: A Szaszian Perspective on a Political Case Study."

Current Psychology 25. 3. 174-81.

Yeats, D. & Thompson, I. (2010) Mapping Technical and Professional Communication: A

Summary and Survey of Academic Locations and Programs. Technical Communication

Quarterly 19.3 225-61. Education Full Text. Web. 12 Nov. 2010.

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Defining Professional Writing

in Academia

Written: December 13, 2010

Revised: March 25, 2011

Introduction

I received my B.A. degree in Communications from Lynchburg College with an

emphasis in Journalism and Public Relations. I graduated seeking to further my education by

earning a master‘s degree in order to become more specialized in writing for the fields of

journalism and public relations.

With this notion in mind, I elected to pursue Old Dominion University‘s (ODU) M.A. in

English, emphasizing in professional writing. I had assumed that earning my Master‘s degree in

professional writing would teach me how to write for journalism and public relations ―more

professionally‖—especially since ODU‘s program offered courses in journalism and public

relations.

As I began to learn more about professional writing and its history, the field‘s

interdisciplinary nature creates variations in curriculum development. Peeples, Rosinski, and

Strickland (2007) give a contemporary perspective on how professional writing programs are

strongly influenced by other factors within an institution.

Through the process of creating a professional writing program at Elon University,

Peeples, Rosinski, and Strickland found that the expertise of the faculty, the facilities available,

the academic department the program was housed, and funds available at the university affected

the way the program was developed (Peeples, Rosinski, & Strickland, 2007).

The case study revealed some of the decisions made regarding the program‘s curriculum

and how professional writing programs try to develop a balance between the teaching of

vocational and academic skills. In Elon‘s case, their faculty consisted of professors with an

English background, thus creating a program that emphasized the rhetorical roots of professional

writing (p. 75).

36

Like Elon, ODU‘s professional writing program is housed in the English department. In

order to gain a better understanding of what earning a graduate degree in professional writing

means, and what type of specialization I would receive from ODU‘s curriculum, I thought it

would be best to study how other institution‘s professional writing programs were structured; as

well as ODU‘s.

Literature Review

The history of technical writing programs at universities begins at engineering schools.

Between 1880 and roughly 1905, an engineering curriculum was where tech-based writing

courses were found.

Technical writing was part of freshman composition at schools and it was ―the tacit

assumption in engineering schools that these first-year courses was all the introduction to writing

that the engineers needed‖ (Connors, 1982, p. 5).

With the demand for better writing from engineers, engineering schools began to

establish separate English departments that helped to teach their specialized writing skills. But

in order for engineers to get English instruction, they ―had to accept literature along with

writing‖ (Connors, 1982, p. 7).

It was not until the post-WWII era that colleges began to give serious consideration to the

field of technical writing. By 1957, ―nearly all colleges offered a technical writing course‖

(Connors, 1982, p. 13). However, technical writing was still an evolving field trying to

understand where it belonged in academia.

Even as it becomes more customary for schools to offer graduate programs in technical

communication, the field continues to find a home in various departments of other disciplines.

With roots in both Engineering and English, research done in the field of technical

37

communication shows that the Academy has not come to a general consensus about the

curriculum design of technical writing programs.

Extensive research on technical writing programs was done by Allen and Benninghoff

(2004). Their research was done on undergraduate technical writing programs. Although I am

concerned with program development on the graduate level, Allen and Benninghoff‘s research

focuses on the skills students developed based on the structure of these programs. Allen and

Benninghoff wanted to determine how universities were designing curriculums that met

expectations of a technical writer in the workplace.

In surveying 42 undergraduate programs offering degrees in technical and professional

communication, Allen and Benninghoff found that students ―engage nine topics in most courses

or as featured topics in a large percentage of programs: audience, genre, visual rhetoric,

document design, rhetorical analysis, collaboration, ethics, user-centered design, project

management‖ (p. 165). Their results help them conclude that in order to best prepare students

for the challenges of the workplace, a curriculum should have balance in courses developing

humanities and technological skills.

In 2009, Meloncon surveyed the field of graduate programs in technical communication.

Instead of relaying on surveys like Allen and Benninghoff to gain an understanding of the

graduate programs, Meloncon relied on looking at the websites of 80 universities. Meloncon

(2009) found that ―English departments award 61% of Master‘s degrees‖ in the field (p. 138).

Meloncon used Sullivan and Porter‘s research as a basis for distinguishing ―professional‖

from ―technical‖ when she coded her data set. Porter and Sullivan (1993) categorized

professional writing as ―more closely aligned with English as a field, focusing more on writing

and promoting a more humanistic perspective.‘ Whereas technical communication emphasizes

38

gaining knowledge in a technical area and employs a number of media in the service of

communicating the knowledge of a technical field to others in that field or the public‘‖ (p. 413).

Meloncon (2009) determined that although Porter and Sullivan‘s distinction ―did not hold

in terms of degree names‖ it was reflected in program curricula (p. 138). Meloncon concluded

that where a program was housed played a part in how the university set up their

professional/technical writing curriculum. Programs housed in English tended to be more

―professional‖ while schools offering a MS degree tended to develop their program as

―technical‖ (Meloncon, 2009).

Allen and Benninghoff and Meloncon‘s research into the structure of professional writing

programs at the university level was instrumental in providing a foundation for my research. My

particular study focuses on the previous research done in the field by examining specific

universities offering degrees in technical communication and how they have shaped their

programs. I seek to determine, based on curriculum structure and assessment, how are modern,

public universities defining professional writing at the graduate level?

Methodology

In order to answer this research question, I elected to examine three graduate programs—

one of them being the school I am currently enrolled, ODU.

According to the Council for Programs in Technical and Scientific Communication

(CPTSC), there are 146 institutions that offer degrees in technical communication. Of that list, I

chose ODU, Towson State University (Towson) and Michigan Technological University

(Michigan Tech). These schools were chosen because they each offered master‘s degrees in

technical communication or professional writing (as it is titled at ODU and Towson) and were

convenient to access online.

39

ODU offers a Master‘s in English with a concentration in Professional Writing. ODU is

a state university located in Norfolk, Virginia with a post-graduate population of roughly 6,000

students. Because I am enrolled in ODU‘s Professional Writing track, it made sense to use it as

one of the schools for research.

Towson was chosen because, like ODU, it is a state university with a comparable

graduate population (approximately 2,000 less than ODU). It is located in Towson, Maryland

and offers a M.S. in Professional Writing.

Michigan Tech was chosen because the university is one of the leaders in the field of

technical communication. Like the others, it is a state university. However, it is not located on

the East Coast, and instead located in Houghton, Michigan (the upper peninsula of Michigan).

Although it has a smaller graduate population, I wanted to examine the curriculum of a program

that is well known for producing successful technical writers. Michigan Tech offers a Master‘s

degree in Rhetoric and Technical Communication and boasts on its website: ―…a placement rate

near 100 percent, our graduates hold positions at institutions such Penn State, Villanova, Unisys

Corporation, and IBM‖ (Michigan Tech).

I based my methodology for completing a landscape analysis across these three programs

on research done by Yeats and Thompson (2010).

In an article published in September 2010 in Technical Communication Quarterly, Yeats

and Thompson performed a study on all the universities offering degrees—bachelors, masters,

and doctoral—in technical communication.

The article claimed that it aimed ―to offer a complete account of the academic locations

of technical communication programs in the United States‖ (Yeats & Thompson, 2010, p. 225).

As has been seen throughout the history of technical writing programs in academia, technical

40

writing programs have yet to become clearly defined or have a consistent place within academia.

While Yeats and Thompson only can offer ―snapshots‖ of how programs are set up at each

institution, they contend that ―By knowing first where the field resides, scholars have a better

chance to have a meaningful discussion about where the field is going‖ (Yeats & Thompson,

2010, p. 225).

Of the previously stated 146 institutions offering degrees in technical communication,

Yeats and Thompson examined 142 (excluding four because they ―either lacked a degree

program in technical communication or had discontinued their programs‖) (Yeats & Thompson,

2010, p. 231).

For each program, they examined the following:

―…data about the hosting department or institutional structure, the names

of degree program offerings, and any other clues that would help us

understand how the particular incarnation of a technical communication

program understood its own focus and purpose‖ (Yeats & Thompson, 2010, p.

232).

The researchers acknowledge that there are some limitations to their study—the biggest

being that the information was obtained from the university websites, which contained

information largely catering to potential students. However, in order to slightly offset this

limitation, they gave program coordinators a brief survey.

―We asked for information about their degree programs as well as information

about their hosting departments. We also asked the respondents to locate their

own programs on a continuum of categories representing some of the main foci of

programs. The continuum was designed not only to allow respondents to place

their programs in a category but also to encourage them to specify which end of

each category they most identified with‖ (Yeats & Thompson, 2010, p. 232).

41

The following chart was published in the study and details Yeats and Thompson‘s

categorization and continuum options program coordinators could chose from (Yeats &

Thompson, 2010, p. 223):

Because my research question was closely related to Yeats and Thompson‘s research, I

decided it would be best to think of the terms ―professional writing‖, ―technical writing‖, and

―technical communication‖ as they were defined in this study.

Since the field of technical communication has such contended definitions, having a set

of criteria (that was established and reinforced by program directors of universities offering

technical communication degrees) for what constituted the characteristics of each was useful for

my particular research question.

Using the Internet, I accessed ODU, Towson, and Michigan Tech‘s curriculum and

course descriptions, and used this chart alone as the continuum and basis for analysis. Each class

course description was read and then given a numerical rating based of Yeats and Thompson‘s

criteria.

42

After assigning each course in the curriculum a point value, all the course values were

added up and averaged. Both the entire curriculum and core course average was placed on Yeats

and Thompson‘s continuum.

The reason why I elected to assess both the entire course catalog and also the core

courses was to alleviate the potential that one of the school‘s elective course choices skewed the

curriculum average too far in one direction on the continuum.

Acknowledging that assigning ratings using this continuum is arbitrary in nature, I

created a chart detailing my decision-making in order to help further delineate between ratings:

Rating on Yeats

and Thompson’s

Continuum

Explanation

2 Course description was primarily theory-based. Description used

word such as: rhetoric, theory, literature, research, history of,

communication, pedagogy

3 Course description heavily involving writing, editing, creative and

nonfiction writing, and essays. Involved words like: practice, study

of, supervised, overview, introduction

4 Course description similar to courses rated as a ―3‖, except this type

of course applied skills to the field. Involved words like: applying

concepts, critical interpretation, hands-on approach, internship,

proficiency

5 Course description involving the genre of workplace writing.

Involved words like: reports, memoranda, technical writing, client-

based, business, proposals

6 Course description was similar to a course rated a ―5‖, but involved

words like: hands-on approach, hands-on projects, internship in

____, projects, consulting activities

7 Course description dealt with learning how to work with technology.

Theory and introduction. Involved words like: techniques,

introduction to _____, develop, strategies

8 Course description involved applying skills of technology use to the

field. Involved words like: intensive workshop, investigative

reports, hands-on projects, internship, developing

9 Course description dealt with usability and user-centered design.

Involved words like: interaction with, contextual, evaluation of ____

Note: The rating of “1” or “10” on the continuum was excluded in order to prevent the curriculum average from being

skewed too far in one direction because of one class.

43

In addition to defining criteria for my personal rating of each course, I matched each

program‘s final rating on the continuum against its program‘s mission statement. This was done

to determine whether the curriculum and assessment was effectively accomplishing the

program‘s intentions.

Finally, in similar fashion to the Yeats and Johnson study, I contacted the program

coordinators from ODU and Towson (Michigan Tech‘s coordinator did not respond) and

conducted a brief interview—asking them specific questions about their respective programs

(See Appendix A and B). This was done as another way to test the accuracy of my assessment of

their curriculum. Because I was not able to get another rater, I thought interviews would be the

best way to establish coherence between my assessment of the school‘s curriculum and how the

program director believes they help to accomplish their intended mission of the graduate degree.

Program Analysis

Old Dominion University

As discussed earlier, all three universities analyzed offer a Master‘s degree in technical

writing. However, looking closely at each of the programs, and applying my methodology to

their curriculum, helps to better determine how each institution is defining professional writing.

ODU offers a Master‘s of Arts in English with a Professional Writing concentration.

Their program is a 30 credit hour curriculum with thesis, oral exam, or portfolio options as a

capstone.

The curriculum requires students to take four courses: Writing in Digital Spaces, Writing

Research, Visual Rhetoric and Document Design, and Professional Writing Theories and

Practices. Besides these four courses, students must take at least one course (three credit hours)

from specified areas of coursework. The curriculum is laid out into four blocks of coursework—

44

pedagogical (ex. Teaching College Composition), linguistic (ex. General Linguistics), rhetorical

(ex. Classical Rhetoric and Theory Building), and technological (ex. Texts and Technologies).

Students are required to take at least one course from each of the areas of instructional

emphasis. The rhetorical block offers three courses, the pedagogical and linguistic blocks offer

four courses, and the technological block offers 13 courses; giving a student specific options.

For example, in the instance of the pedagogical block, a student may choose a class like Second

Language Writing Pedagogy, while another student in the program chooses Teaching Writing

with Technology.

Some courses are listed twice because they fall under multiple areas of professional

writing. For example, two rhetorical courses (Classical Rhetoric and Theory Building, Modern

Rhetoric and Theory Building) and a pedagogical course (Pedagogy and Instructional Design)

are listed in the technological section of the curriculum as well.

In addition to this, students are allotted six credit hours to pursue two approved elective

courses. These can be taken from any part of the professional writing curriculum, or taken from

another area of the English department (if approved).

This is why I specified that the curriculum would be analyzed as a whole and by its

required core courses—in order to account for this student flexibility, which ODU‘s curriculum

offers.

Towson University

Towson offers a Master‘s of Science in Professional Writing. However, just like ODU,

their program is housed in the English department. Their curriculum requires students to

complete 36 credit hours—15 from required coursework, and 12-18 from their chosen

45

professional writing track. The capstone is a choice between either writing a thesis or taking 18

hours of coursework in a desired track of professional writing.

Of the three schools analyzed, Towson‘s take on developing a professional writing

curriculum was the most unique. While the program required selected classes of coursework, it

offered the most flexibility for a student to tailor their graduate degree to their desired field of

work.

Towson‘s five required courses for all graduate students are: Rhetoric: The Pursuit of

Eloquence, Rhetorical Grammar, Theory Exposition, History and Development of Prose Style,

and Editing.

In addition to these classes, Towson professional writing graduates chose from one of

these seven tracks that they want to emphasize their degree in:

-Biomedical Writing

-Creative Writing

-Journalistic Writing

-Scientific Writing

-Teaching College Writing

-Teaching Writing

-Technical Writing and Informational Design

In each of these desired tracks, there is coursework specific to the desired field. Students can

decide whether they want to take 18 hours in their track (six classes), or take 12 hours in their

track (four classes) and complete a thesis (worth six credit hours).

Unlike ODU or Michigan Tech—which offered some flexibility—Towson‘s curriculum,

depending on the track that a student chose, would score drastically different on the continuum.

Therefore, I only rated Towson‘s required classes for all graduates, and the courses offered for

the Technical Writing track:

Required Courses for Technical Writing track (in addition to the five core

courses):

46

-Technical Writing and Information Design

-Designing Content for the Web

-Creating Online Help

-Applied Research for Information Design

Students electing the non-thesis option take two electives selected from the list below:

-Information Technology Infrastructure

-System Development Process

-IT Project Management

-Elements of WWW Design

-Multimedia Concepts

Rating just this tract of classes on a continuum helped keep continuity amongst the different

curriculums, yet still demonstrated how Towson‘s program allows for specialization. Because of

the degree of flexibility students have in development of their professional writing degree at

Towson, this was the most efficient way to rate their curriculum on Yeats and Thompson‘s

continuum.

Michigan Tech

Finally, Michigan Tech offers a Master‘s of Science in Rhetoric and Technical

Communication. Unlike ODU and Towson, Michigan Tech houses its professional writing

program in the Humanities department. Michigan Tech‘s program is 32 hours and offers (like

the other two schools) options for the degree capstone. Students have three options: complete all

32 hours in coursework, complete 26-29 hours of coursework and a project, or 23-26 hours of

coursework and write a thesis.

Students have required courses, just like ODU and Towson‘s graduate programs. All

students are required to take: Proseminar in Rhetoric and Technical Communication, and must

chose two out of the following three ―Key Issues Courses‖: Rhetoric, Composition, and Literacy

47

Studies (RCL), Technical Composition and Technology Studies (TC/TS), or Communication in

Cultural Contexts (CiCC).

Then, students chose which track of those three areas will be their ―Major Field‖ and

which one will be their ―Minor Field‖. Graduate students are required nine hours (three classes)

of coursework in their ―Major Field‖ and six hours (two classes) of coursework in their ―Minor

Field‖. After that, they can decide whether they want to pursue more coursework, a project, or a

thesis as their degree capstone.

The following is the program structure as outlined in the department handbook (Michigan

Tech, ―Master‘s Degree Requirements‖):

Michigan Tech describes each discipline within their program as ―streams‖: ―Students

pursue advanced work focused in two of the three streams of study: Rhetoric, Composition, &

Literacy (the R stream), Technical Communication/Technology Studies (the T stream), or

Communication in Cultural Contexts (the C stream)‖ (Michigan Tech, ―Course Offerings‖). The

coursework for each stream is broken down in the following way:

48

[R] stream—Rhetoric, Composition, & Literacy:

-Composition Theory

-Literacy Theory & Research

-Linguistic Analysis [C]

-History & Theory of Rhetoric I

-History and Theory of Rhetoric II

-Writing Literacy Nonfiction

-Writing for Publication

-Grammar & Editing for Professionals

-Qualitative or Quantitative Humanistic Research Methods [TC]

-Background of Critical Theory [C]

-Critical Perspectives on the Environment [C]

-Rhetorics of Difference/Alterity [C]

-Theories of Language

-Theories of Pedagogy

-Special Topics in Composition

-Special Topics in Rhetoric

-Special Topics in Contemporary Critical Theories

[T] Stream—Technical Communication & Technology Studies:

-Technology, Culture, and Communication

-Computer Applications in Technical Communication

-Writing Applications in Technical Communication

-Qualitative or Quantitative Humanistic Research Methods [RC]

-Critical Perspectives on Science & Technology

-Literacy, Technology, Society, & Education

-Seminar in Technical Communication

-Special Topics in New Media

[C] Stream—Communication in Cultural Contexts:

-Organizational Communication

-Communication Theory

-Linguistic Analysis [R]

-Reading Literature

-Intercultural Communication

-Issues in Social, Political, & Legal Philosophy

-Qualitative or Quantitative Humanistic Research Methods [RT]

-Background of Critical Theory [R]

-Critical Perspectives on the Environment [R]

-Cultural Studies

-Introduction to Visual Representation

-Rhetorics of Difference/Alterity [R]

Again, just as in ODU‘s professional writing curriculum, there is an overlap of courses for each

of the specified disciplines. The cross-listings are indicated by the letter of the stream next to the

course title.

49

Like ODU and Towson, I analyzed Michigan Tech‘s required courses and placed them on

the continuum, as well as their entire curriculum as a whole.

Findings

Old Dominion University

The classes titled ―Topics‖ were excluded from the rating system because it would be

impossible to know what each class‘s emphasis was from semester to semester. As for their

curriculum as a whole, the program‘s average was a 3.85. This rating places ODU in the

Professional Writing section of the continuum, but closer to a ―4‖—which according to my

ratings, emphasizes ―applying skills to the field.‖

ODU‘s four core course courses averaged a rating of 4.75 which is swaying a bit toward

the Technical Writing section of the continuum; however, no course has the words ―technical

writing‖ in its title. Although five classes in the Technological section of the curriculum were

rated in the Technical Communication quadrant, the rest of the courses in this quad were rated as

either Professional Writing or English Studies.

This skewed the results more toward the lower end of the continuum—more professional

writing based. These findings are fairly concurrent with the program‘s mission statement:

―The MA concentration is designed for those who seek an intense investigation

into professional writing. Designed to prepare students to expand and theorize

their practices of workplace writing and to prepare students for doctoral work in

the field‖ (ODU).

While the curriculum as a whole scored more toward the Professional Writing and English-based

side of the continuum, the required courses scored more towards the application area of

Professional Writing and the Technical Writing area of the continuum—incorporating theory, but

putting an emphasis on workplace writing, designing documents, and writing digitally.

50

Also, my analysis of the program aligns with the responses ODU‘s program director had

to my interview questions. The director thought that students who complete the program should

have ―a rhetorical understanding of writing and how workplace writing happens‖, ―an

understanding of teaching and training‖, and understand ―how technology impacts the work of

writing‖ (J. Romberger, personal communication, 2010).

All of these goals that the director has of the program are emphasized both in the whole

curriculum and the required four courses—three of which would fit underneath the program

director‘s desires for student achievement.

Towson University

Only Towson‘s Technical Writing track and core required courses were rated on the

Yeats and Thompson continuum. The Technical Writing track scored a 7.22 according to my

ratings. This shows that they emphasize technical writing as more of a visual and web-based

type of writing. Most of the classes scored high on writing, designing, and managing writing for

the web and new media—this was categorized as Technical Communication according to Yeats

and Thompson.

However, the core five required courses at Towson scored a 2.6 on the continuum. This

would place the required coursework as more English Studies based, but moving toward

Professional Writing. However, requiring a background in English and a course on writing as a

whole aligns with Towson‘s mission statement of the program:

―The program develops the communication skills of students seeking to

enter or to advance in occupations requiring extensive written analysis

and reporting. The program prepares students to improve written

communication and its management in the corporate and public sector and

in professional organizations. Students typically enter the program with

liberal arts backgrounds, but business and healthcare professionals often

pursue professional training to enhance their writing skills‖ (Towson,

51

Professional Writing Degree Requirements).

It is clear that Towson defines professional writing as essentially any type of writing someone is

paid to do. Yet, by offering specific tracks, they allow their graduates to specialize and ―define‖

professional writing as they see fit (and most useful for their desired field of work).

Their program director has an expressivist view toward professional writing, and

although he was not the creator of the program, seems to agree with and emphasize many of the

core concepts of the program‘s curriculum structure:

―All the students take five core classes. Two of them are heavily rhetoric based.

One is sort of a history of rhetoric and one is more of applied rhetoric. Then they

have an editing course. Then a history and development of prose-style, which is

more of a stylistics class. And then there‘s Theory of Composition, which is a

composition class. So everyone has to take those required five courses, then,

beyond that, they get into more specialized things that they might want to pursue.

We try to be flexible. Writing is a very big word. We have students in this

program who are interested in becoming technical writers, but we also have

students who want to write a novel and we try to accommodate both ends of that.

If people have a particular agenda, we try to work with them to see if we can

design something that might fit their interests‖ (G. Becker, personal

communication, 2010).

The program‘s seven different tracks allow students this flexibility in designing a program that

best suits their interest. Having a core which emphasizes writing and rhetoric is congruent with

the program being housed in the English department.

In Yeat‘s and Thompson‘s article, they explained how they encountered technical

communications programs which they classified as ―broad based‖ (Yeats & Thompson, 2010, p.

230). They defined a broad based program as ―an amalgamation of courses, including creative

writing, composition, journalism, and technical and professional communication‖ (Yeats &

Thompson, 2010, p. 230). They found these types of programs were usually housed in English

departments, just like Towson‘s.

52

Towson‘s program, although housed in the English department, seems to have developed

a program that researcher Rachel Harlow (2010) has suggested is effective:

―Given the interdisciplinary nature of our field, a curriculum with a small, well-

designed core and extensive exposure to coursework in other disciplines may

actually make us more marketable‖ (Harlow, 2010, p. 329).

What I found the most interesting about Towson‘s program is that they are able to entice

students from various undergraduate backgrounds to their program because of the curriculum‘s

flexibility. A student is able to tailor their graduate degree in professional writing to their

professional and graduate needs.

Michigan Tech

The results for where Michigan Tech‘s curriculum landed on the continuum were most

surprising. As a leader in the field of technical communication, I was expecting their courses to

fall in the Technical Communication section of Yeats and Thompson‘s continuum. However, for

both their core courses and curriculum as a whole, they fell in the Professional Writing quadrant.

Michigan Tech‘s core four courses rated a 2.25, and their curriculum as a whole rated a

3.32. Allowing students to take courses in the three ―streams‖ seems useful in tailoring a

graduate program to a particular students needs; however, on the basis of the course catalogue

and descriptions, I rated most of the courses closer to Professional Writing or even English

Studies on the continuum. Most of the classes were largely theory-based, and only a few

specified an emphasis on field work.

Obviously, depending on the internships (internships were not rated) and the courses

within the ―stream‖ a student elects to pursue could fluctuate the rating on the continuum.

53

However, according to the program‘s mission statement, the course does not seem to veer off of

preparing students and achieving a desired outcome:

―An M.S. degree in Rhetoric and Technical Communication is based on

innovative, broad-based, interdisciplinary programs that draw students into study

across a range of field, focusing on the complex interactions among rhetoric and

communication within their social and cultural contexts. Special attention is

given to the changing role of technology, communication, and representation in

contemporary societies. The Master of Science program, in addition to preparing

students for future graduate work, provides education for technical

communicators, consultants, trainers, and instructors‖ (Michigan Tech).

According to their mission statement, the course curriculum accomplishes many of these

goals. For instance, in the different ―streams‖, many of the courses are cross-listed, which keeps

with the interdisciplinary nature that the program claims to emphasize. Additionally, many of

the classes were heavily rhetorical, theory-based, or communication-based. This is what the

program wanted to emphasize, yet courses emphasizing these traits were ranked more toward

English Studies or Professional Writing on the Yeats and Thompson continuum.

Like Towson‘s program, Michigan Tech characterizes itself as ―broad-based‖—which it

is, even by Yeats and Thompson‘s definition of that term. However, at Michigan Tech, having

―streams‖ with less concrete titles like Rhetoric, Composition, and Literacy, as opposed to

Towson‘s well-defined tracks such as Biomedical Writing and Journalistic Writing create less

specialization for students.

It would have been ideal to talk with Michigan Tech‘s program director to ask the same

questions that were asked of ODU‘s and Towson‘s program director. An interview may have

better answered some of my curriculum questions. But, as was stated earlier, Michigan Tech

graduates have nearly a 100 percent placement rate in the field, so their curriculum must be

doing a successful job in vocationally preparing its students.

54

Discussion

From looking at each of these three schools, it is evident that they each define

professional writing differently. They account for these differences by allowing flexibility in

their program structure and allowing students options with their degree capstone. Every

university had at least two options for capstone assessment.

Another thing that was similar between each of the programs was that they each required

students to take a core group of courses. Regardless of what electives students took to tailor their

graduate degree, each university felt that a few overview, theory-based, or introductory courses

were necessary. Despite the differences in how each of these three programs defined

professional writing in their curriculum structure, each program offers what its mission statement

expresses.

With that being said, I found that Towson‘s program offers the most flexibility in

allowing for the most specialization in the field. By offering seven well-defined tracks, with

specific courses in each, a student can decide how they would like professional writing to be

defined.

Some limitations I encountered were that it was difficult to make definitive

determinations about a program simply by examining the courses on their university website and

course catalogue. A lot of the information presented on a school‘s website is written with the

intention of encouraging prospective students to attend their institution—therefore, only sitting in

on classes or reading through a syllabus would shed light on exactly what a particular course

emphasized. With this in mind, by conducting interviews, I tried to gain more insight into the

program.

55

Another limitation was that neither of the program directors I interviewed we involved in

the construction of the curriculum. The ODU program director, when asked why the program

was housed in the English department, explained why the faculty dictated this decision, as well

as the courses offered:

―…It is housed in English because that‘s where the faculty had the interest to

develop something along these lines. That said, there was a lot of turnover in the

faculty so the program has gone through many, many permutations. Even now,

when you talk about ‗core competencies‘, they are a little mute-able because of

the fact that we‘ve gone through so many faculty members…The short of it is, it‘s

where the service course for engineering and IT was housed traditionally until

about 1998 or 1999. And that‘s a long, more complicated story than you need to

know…‖ (J. Romberger, personal communication, 2010).

Towson‘s program director also discussed a similar scenario:

―Honestly, I think the person who wrote the program (who‘s gone now), when he

was a professor in the English department, he designed it. The institution didn‘t

decide, ‗We‘ll have a professional writing program, I wonder where it should go‘,

someone in the English department said, ‗We should have a professional writing

program and it will be here‘‖ (G. Becker, personal communication, 2010).

As much as this investigation led to some answers of how professional writing is defined

at the graduate level, it also showed me how difficult it is to grasp the exact circumstances

surrounding program development. I was able to gain a better understanding of professional

writing within academia—as far as the benefits of attending each of these programs—but what I

ultimately discovered was that a graduate degree in professional writing continues to be defined

in a variety of ways. Although a consensus definition of how the discipline is taught has yet to

be reached, it is clear that each school makes an attempt with their curriculum to allow students

the flexibility to obtain the knowledge and field skills that are valued by prospective employers.

56

References

Allen, J. (2004). “The Case Against Defining Technical Writing.‖ In Teaching Technical

Communication: Critical Issues for the classroom. Ed. James Dubinsky. Boston:

Bedford/St. Martin‘s. 67-76.

Allen, N., & Benninghoff. S. T. (2004). ―TPC Program Snapshots: Developing Curricula and

Addressing Challenges.‖ Technical Communication Quarterly. 13. 157-185.

Connors, R. (1982). ―The Rise of Technical Writing Instruction in America.‖ Journal of

Technical Writing and Communication. 12.4 329-52.

Faber, B. (2002). ―Professional identities.‖ Journal of Business and Technical

Communication, 16(3), 306-337.

Harlow, R. (2010). ―The Province of Sophists: An Argument for Academic Homelessness.‖

Technical Communication Quarterly 19.3 225-61. Education Full Text. Web. 20 Nov.

2010.

Jeyaraj, J. (2004). ―Liminality and Othering: The Issue of Rhetorical Authority in Technical

Discourse.‖ Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 18(1), 9-38.

Johnson-Eilola, J., and Selber, S. A. (2001). ―Sketching a Framework for Graduate Education in

Technical Communication.‖ Technical communication quarterly, 10, 403–436.

Meloncon, L. (2009). ―Master's Programs in Technical Communication: A Current Overview.‖

Technical Communication, 56, 137-148.

Michigan Technical University (MI) Humanities Department (2010). ―Master‘s Degree

Requirements.‖ Rhetoric and Technical Communication Student Manual. Ch. 2.

Michigan Technical University (MI) Humanities Department (2010). ―Course Offerings.‖

Rhetoric and Technical Communication Student Manual. Ch. 6.

Michigan Technical University (MI) Rhetoric and Technical Communication, 2010. Fast Facts.

Retrieved from <http://www.mtu.edu/gradschool/programs/degrees/rhet-comm/>

Old Dominion University (VA) Department of English (2009). English Courses. Retrieved

from <http://al.odu.edu/english/academics/courses/index.shtml>

Old Dominion University (VA) Department of English (2009). Master of Arts in English,

Professional Writing Concentration. Retrieved from

<http://al.odu.edu/english/academics/ma/ma_pw_option.shtml>

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Peeples, T., Rosinski, P., & Strickland, M. (2007). ―Kronos and Kairos, Strategies and Tactics:

The Case of Constructing Elon University‘s Professional Writing and Rhetoric

Concentration.‖ Composition Studies 35.1 57-76.

Rentz, K., Bebs, M. & Meloncon, L. (2010). ―Getting an Invitation to the English Table—and

Whether or Not to Accept It.‖ Technical Communication Quarterly 19.3 225-61.

Sullivan, P. A., & Porter, J. E. (1993). ―Remapping Curricular Geography: Professional writing

in/and English.‖ Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 7, 389-422.

Sullivan, P. A., & Porter, J. E. (2007). ―Remapping Curricular Geography: A Retrospection.‖

Journal of Business and Technical Communication. 21, 15-20.

Towson State University (MD) College of Liberal Arts. (2009). Professional Writing (M.S.)—

Degree Requirements. Retrieved from <http://grad.towson.edu/program/master/prwr-

ms/dr-prwr-ms-prof.asp>

Towson State University (MD) College of Liberal Arts. (2009). Technical Writing and

Information Design. Retrieved from <http://grad.towson.edu/program/master/prwr-

ms/dr-prwr-ms-prof.asp#7>

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Writing (M.S.)—Course Descriptions. Retrieved from

<http://grad.towson.edu/program/master/prwr-ms/cd-prwr-ms.asp>

Yeats, D. & Thompson, I. (2010) ―Mapping Technical and Professional Communication: A

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Quarterly 19.3 225-61.

58

Appendix A

ODU Program Director interview:

What are your program’s core competencies?

I would say that two things we would like our students to understand once they graduate

from the program is that they should have a rhetorical understanding of writing and how

workplace writing happens; and the other is an understanding of teaching and training. Well,

there‘s a third one really, which is how technology impacts the work of writing.

Why does your program exist in its current academic location? What are some of the

factors that played into placing your program where it is?

I think it has to do with—institutionally you have to understand I‘ve been here for five

years, so I don‘t have all the background on this—but my understanding is that it is housed in

English because that‘s where the faculty had the interest to develop something along these lines.

That said, there was a lot of turnover in the faculty so the program has gone through many, many

permutations. Even now, when you talk about ‗core competencies‘, they are a little mute-able

because of the fact that we‘ve gone through so many faculty members. And if you asked this

question to each faculty member, you‘d probably get a slightly different answer. Engineering

has absolutely no interest in doing anything along these lines. So, in that way it‘s kind of

traditional that English ends up making up this kind of work. It used to be the English

department taught the 334 Technical Writing course for the engineers before the state of Virginia

said you had to get your engineers through their program in four years instead of the typical five.

The short of it is it‘s where the service course for engineering and IT was housed traditionally

until about 1998 or 1999. And that‘s a long, more complicated story than you need to know…

What is the theoretical foundation or framework of your technical communications

program?

Rhet-Comp. And that has to do with a lot of the people who set it up. Now we‘ve got

some people in the program now who come from more of a cultural studies bent and an industry

bent. But the people who give out the current MA all have backgrounds in Rhet-Comp and

professional writing. So rhetoric plays a very big part in it. Praxis plays a very big part in it.

Workplace writing is large, rather than being highly specialized.

Do you think this program’s academic location has had an effect on the curriculum

structure?

Absolutely, because to a degree we have to pull on the specialties of the people that

we‘ve got. And there is a reason that there are some journalism courses and some other courses

included in there because we were trying to fill gaps because of the turnover in faculty.

What is the program’s focus on specialization of its students?

It‘s to provide them—prepare them to be able to address a variety of careers that focus on

different types of writing. And that‘s writing kind of written large—more of a variety of

modalities of communication.

59

Appendix B

Towson Program Director interview:

What are your program’s core competencies?

This is going to sound a little ―jargony‖ but when we analyze portfolios we look for:

ability to focus on a topic and deliver sound, reasonable evidence to support or develop that

topic, clearly and logically organized work that shows evidence of craft, students should be able

to show flexibility in a range of writing styles as well as sentence and paragraph-level command

of language, and also demonstrate line-level competence with grammar, punctuation, and

vocabulary. Honestly, when faculty evaluators look at student portfolios, those are things they

have to rate the work on. I guess more conversationally, we want to get students to experience a

wide variety of writing styles, and also just get them to be better writers.

Why does your program exist in its current academic location? What are some of the

factors that played into placing your program where it is?

We‘re part of the English department. We‘re a degree offered by the English department

and all our professors are professors in the English department. Honestly, I think the person who

wrote the program (who‘s gone now), when he was a professor in the English department, he

designed it. The institution didn‘t decide, ‗We‘ll have a professional writing program, I wonder

where it should go‘, someone in the English department said, ‗We should have a professional

writing program and it will be here‘. But I think this is where it belongs.

What is the theoretical foundation or framework of your technical communications

program?

All the students take five core classes. Two of them are heavily rhetoric based. One is

sort of a history of rhetoric and one is more of applied rhetoric. Then they have an editing

course. Then a history and development of prose-style, which is more of a stylistics class. And

then there‘s Theory of Composition, which is a composition class. So everyone has to take those

required five courses, then, beyond that, they get into more specialized things that they might

want to pursue. We try to be flexible. Writing is a very big word. We have students in this

program who are interested in becoming technical writers, but we also have students who want to

write a novel and we try to accommodate both ends of that. If people have a particular agenda,

we try to work with them to see if we can design something that might fit their interests.

What is the program’s focus on specialization of its students?

We actually have a lot of different tracts—it‘s probably a little overly complicated—but

we will allow substitutions to students who have specific agendas to help them gain the exact

experience they want. As long as it is academically sound, and makes sense for that student,

we‘ll let them do it. Some students already have careers and are looking to sharpen skills, and

some students are just out of college and have no idea what they‘re doing. We try to let the

students take the courses—they have to take the required core courses—but for electives, we try

to allow it to work in such a way that benefits them the best. It‘s a little hard to be everything to

everybody, but everybody has to write. I mean I‘m a novelist. What I do, I‘m a professional

writer, but it‘s slightly different from someone who has a technical writing job down at the

Social Security Administration. I don‘t know. But it‘s all professional writing.

60

Taylor-Made

Written: April 14, 2010 Revised: March 25, 2011

It‟s a warm day in Lynchburg, Va. Underneath a blue, cloudless sky, Jeff Taylor, Jr., is

one of eight Lynchburg College senior baseball players being recognized on Senior Day.

Jeff stands next to the third base dugout in his pearly white uniform that showcases the

bold script of “Lynchburg” and “7” stitched in red and accented in black.

“Jeff Taylor, Jr., is the son of Jeff, Sr., and Mary Clare Taylor and will graduate with an

exercise physiology major.”

The P.A. announcer‟s abbreviated speech about Jeff‟s career does little to encapsulate

exactly all that utility player has achieved. You can almost feel all the eyes transfixed on Jeff as

he makes his way from behind the weathered brick backstop to walk through the line-up of his

fellow teammates.

Interlocked with Jeff as he walks, is his mother. Like, her son, Mary Clare has blonde

hair and models the college‟s colors with her red blouse and black pants.

Upon reaching the chalk of the third base line, mother and son engage in a warm

embrace. Both know what this day would mean to Jeff‟s father, Jeff Taylor, Sr.

Many fathers name their first sons after themselves. And with Jeff being his only son,

and only child, that‟s exactly what Jeff Taylor, Sr., did.

What‟s unique is that it was Senior‟s passion for America‟s pastime that he instilled in

his son that ultimately has Junior, today, reflecting on their past times.

At an early age, father and son were bonded by baseball. The sport permeated every

aspect of their time spent together—which was practically always. Little league, fall ball, high

school ball, Jeff, Sr., was there for nearly every one of Jeff‟s games.

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“When I played summer ball down in Clemson, South Carolina, my dad came down a

good number of times to just to watch games with my mom,” Jeff says. “So, distance still

wouldn‟t even keep him from watching one of my games.”

As a standout for Heritage High School in Lynchburg, Jeff could have played ball

anywhere. Instead, he elected to stay local, and patrol the diamond for Division III Lynchburg

College, so his father could follow his quest to the pros.

“After every baseball game he would have video tape for us to go over,” Jeff explains.

“You know, what I did wrong, what I‟m doing well, what to stick with, and what to fix.”

To call Jeff a “utility” player is a gross understatement—like saying Albert Pujols hits

well. Today, he starts in right field, but eventually moves to third base in the seventh inning.

I‟m sure if he was asked to pitch, he could do it. And excel at it.

Jeff‟s thunderous swing, combined with lightning speed, has him batting .366, and

recently breaking the Old Dominion Athletic Conference‟s (ODAC) record for career stolen

bases. Throw his physical gifts into the caldron, and spice it up with intangibles of an

unbelievable drive to be the best, and you‟ve got yourself a tasty pot of baseball jambalaya.

All-State, All-ODAC, All-Region—his accomplishments are evidence of his drive.

I met Jeff when he was an incoming freshman at Lynchburg College. I remember asking

him why he had come to the small, private, liberal-arts school. His answer: to play baseball.

“But what will you do,” I asked, “if you don‟t make the team and can‟t play baseball?”

“That‟s not going to happen,” said Jeff with a straight face.

Call it cockiness. Call it confidence. Call it whatever you want, but when Jeff spoke, I

knew he meant what he said.

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Four years later, Jeff‟s freshman year statements can be defined only one way: the kid

was born to play baseball. Take one look at Jeff, and it‟s clear—lean, thick arms, thick legs, a

defined jaw line trimmed with blondish stubble—there‟s no question about it.

He stands confidently in the on-deck circle, constantly adjusting his batting gloves and

left elbow guard while he shuffles gravel between practice swings. He is getting his timing

down. As Jeff pulls up his pant cuffs, which he wears above his calves revealing red socks, he

glares towards the mound with a look that says, “You think you‟re going to get me out? Not a

chance.”

His body language punctuates his drive.

“Now batting…Jeff Taylor…June-ya.”

The end of his name, Junior, is announced with swagger—which fits Jeff, as does his

walk-up song, Lupe Fiasco‟s “Superstar.”

“If you are what you say you are—a superstar—then have no fear,” the tune blasts

through the stadium speakers as Jeff struts toward the plate for his at-bat.

Before stepping into the right-handed batter‟s box, Jeff straddles the chalk, his right foot

digging into the clay while the left remains out. Checking the signs from his third base coach, he

holds the bat one-handed, and taps his black, high-top Nike cleats solidly—twice each.

Then Jeff subtly reaches under his uniform for his necklace—a silver chain that entangles

two wedding bands—his mother‟s and his father‟s. He brings the assortment of jewelry to his

mouth, kisses it, and tucks it safety away beneath his red undershirt.

This is the high octane fuel that has Jeff in overdrive these days.

Nearly a year ago, April 28, 2009, Jeff was taking batting practice. Although the

Lynchburg season was over, baseball never ends for Jeff. He was preparing for summer

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collegiate ball with the Martinsville Mustangs. As has been the case so many evenings in his

life, Jeff was taking his hacks from his favorite batting practice pitcher—his dad.

“We were going through my second round, and it was actually the last pitch of the round.

I was like, „I‟m going to end on a good, hard-hit ball,‟” Jeff describes.

Jeff hit that final pitch from his father really hard and the skills that they both

collaborated on for so many years unfortunately sealed his dad‟s fate.

Although he was pitching behind an L-screen, Jeff, Sr., who was wearing a glove,

instinctively turned his head to catch the screaming line drive off his son‟s bat. Unfortunately,

the ball struck him in the neck, leaving him debilitated in front of the mound.

“He was collapsing down, and he even said, „I‟m OK; I‟m alright.‟ Then I stood there in

the batter‟s box for a minute,” Jeff recalls. “When I realized something was wrong, I rushed by

his side. His eyes started to roll back in his head and he started struggling to breathe.”

Jeff performed CPR on his father, but, tragically, he was pronounced dead shortly after

the incident at Lynchburg General Hospital.

As Jeff speaks, he is calm. He speaks slowly and directly in his All-American southern

accent. His description is remarkably vivid for such a sensitive subject. Yet, he is able to

compose himself—showing no visible signs of emotion.

“You really don‟t realize how close you are with somebody until you actually lose them.”

Eyes don‟t lie. And when I look into Jeff‟s bright blue eyes I don‟t see sadness. I see a

man who has come to terms with what happened.

He begins telling me an intimate story about dreams he had a few months after the

incident where he spoke with his father.

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“I was sitting down in my basement—this is what happened in the dream—just watching

TV. He had this distinct way of coming down my steps. And he comes around the corner in his

red shirt and khakis—what he always wore to baseball games—and was like, „Are you doing

OK? I just wanted to make sure you were OK with everything and that you understand what

happened.‟”

He maintains eye contact while telling his story. Every detail of the dream is carefully

articulated. There is so much passion in his voice as he speaks.

Jeff continues, describing a second encounter with his father about a month later.

“I had another dream seeing him on a baseball field, and I asked him, „I just want to

know, was it painful?‟ And he said, „After the impact of the ball, I didn‟t feel a thing, and there

was no pain.‟”

During the entire interview, Jeff‟s girlfriend, and fellow diamond standout, Lauren

Duguay, sits right by his side. She‟s a senior softball star for Lynchburg, and has known Jeff and

his passion for baseball for nearly four years.

Although she has been quiet throughout the interview—comforting Jeff as he recounts his

experience—she feels the need to interject when I ask Jeff how baseball has helped him get

through such a tragedy.

“I remember the next day after everything happened. I was at softball practice and

someone was like, „Jeff‟s down at the field right now,‟” Duguay begins. “I was like, „What?‟

That was just shocking to me. But I think that it wasn‟t just that he lost his dad that day, but his

dad was baseball. So, he let go of one thing, but he couldn‟t let go of another. The spirit of his

dad is still on the diamond.”

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When Jeff was at the hospital beside his father‟s lifeless body, he made a promise that he

would get a major league baseball contract.

Right now, Jeff‟s not concerned with fulfilling that promise. He‟s focused on capping off

his senior season with an ODAC championship—one that would be the school‟s first since 1990.

The other stuff will “work itself out.”

But when I ask him what it would mean for him to follow through on what he said to his

father that April evening, I see him exhibit his first signs of emotion:

“It would mean the world to me. I feel like if I got a major league contract, that it would

just…it wouldn‟t necessarily make him proud because I know I‟ve already made him proud, but

it would…,” Jeff struggles to find the right words as he thinks of the emotional ecstasy he would

feel.

Duguay finishes, “…be all encompassing of everything you ever worked for—not only

by yourself, but with your dad along side you.”

Jeff smiles at his softball star—the two truly are a “Diamond couple”—because he knows

that she captured exactly what he wanted to say.

Few outside the small, southern city of Lynchburg would know Jeff Taylor, Jr. But one

day—in the very near future—you will be watching him play professional baseball in HD from

the comfort of your living room.

Senior day has just ended in dramatic fashion—a walk-off grand slam in the bottom of

the 10th

inning to win the game for Lynchburg College. Jeff watched the ball fly over the left

field wall from second base after being intentionally walked two at-bats earlier.

As he rounds third and trots toward home plate, his facial expression isn‟t one of a

college senior, but more like a little boy on Christmas morning.

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Being swallowed amongst the hands of his teammates, it is clear that the baseball

diamond is where he belongs.

Standing on the very field that inflicted him with so much pain, Jeff exuberantly

celebrates with high-fives and fist-bumps. A smile is permanently glued on his face.

Jeff knows this win isn‟t just for him. It‟s a “Taylor-made” victory dedicated to his

father, Jeff, Sr., the one who instilled him with the love of the game and his major league-caliber

drive.

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First Name Basis:

The Rhetorical Strategies in the Shaping of LeBron’s Stardom

Written: April 21, 2010 Revised: March 25, 2011

Introduction

Beginning in the spring of 2010, I analyzed articles covering National Basketball

Association (NBA) player LeBron James written by Sporting News journalist Sean Deveney.

Sean Deveney has covered James throughout his NBA career and continues to cover him today

in Sporting News—a weekly, nationally distributed magazine.

Sports journalists, like Deveney, are essential in covering the games and its athletes.

However, over the past thirty years, with the rise of ESPN and other all-sports outlets, athletes

have been able to become presented as larger than life. With constant coverage of sports, a great

game or play is magnified in multiple media outlets.

In the 1930‟s, a communications model called the hypodermic needle, or “magic bullet”

theory was proposed. Although the theory has since been slightly dismissed, it continues to have

relevancy in that it implied that with the popularization of various media outlets, the mass media

has a direct effect in shaping the thoughts and opinions of public opinion (DeFleur).

Many anchors, sportswriters, and fans have been critical of the hype surrounding the

coverage of athletes. Too quickly, athletes are anointed and their stardom is shaped before they

have earned it.

At the age of 18, LeBron James decided to forgo college and enter the 2003 NBA draft.

He was the first overall pick by the Cleveland Cavaliers. Predicted to be such a “phenom,” Nike

inked James to a shoe contract worth an excess of $90 million before he ever played a

professional game. James was given the nickname “King James” and featured on the covers of

national magazines such as Sports Illustrated and SLAM, while still in high school.

After his first seven seasons in the league, it could be argued that James has lived up to

the hype—being named to six All-Star teams, winning two Most Valuable Player (MVP)

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Awards, and becoming an NBA Scoring Champion. However, before James had even

accomplished these tangible feats in the NBA, he was being touted as a future star by not only

journalists like Deveney, but others in the media.

ESPN‟s Skip Bayless has been one journalist who has been critical of undue praise of

James. Bayless has been very public in placing James under a microscope of criticism and

scrutiny because he feels that James‟ persona has been inflated through the media and sports

journalism. In 2009, after the Cavaliers were eliminated from the playoffs, Bayless said, “This,

to me, is the real LeBron James. This is the spoiled, brat product of those billions of witnesses of

there…” (Skip Bayless).

Sports journalists are undoubtedly opinionated, yet they must try to cover the games and

athletes as objectively as possible. Through my study of Deveney, I seek to determine what, if

any rhetorical strategies sports journalists use in the shaping of LeBron James‟ stardom

throughout his career?

Literature Review

The 1920‟s were dubbed the Golden Age of Sports in America. The economy was

booming and “the postwar period gave the games the greatest collection of stars that sport has

ever known since the first cave men tackled the mammoth and the aurochs bull” (Inabinett 17).

It was during this Golden Age, that sportswriters began to emerge in the country.

Perhaps the most notable writer of this era was Grantland Rice. With newspaper

readership increasing during the Golden Age from 28 million to 36 million, papers had more free

space for covering sports. Rice, and other reporters began to focus on more than just merely

reporting the scores, but used “extra space devoted to sports (in the newspapers) to analyze

strategy, provide background, and illuminate character” (Inabinett 18). As a result, Inabinett

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believes that Rice transformed the idea of sports writing—“sportswriters became poets in the

press box, thrill spinners rather than statisticians” (21).

Grantland Rice was the first of the sportswriters to use hyperbole and metaphors to

transform athletes. He took athletes, and made them legends; stars of the Golden Age like Jack

Dempsey, Babe Ruth, Red Grange. Rice‟s “hero building” molded the day‟s best into something

more than “their formidable athletic talent would not have done alone” (Inabinett 99). Through

his flowery prose, Rice shaped the fame of these athletes and made them into folk-heroes of their

time.

It is a necessity to understand the importance of Grantland Rice and his pioneering of

sports writing. Although, much of the writing of the Golden Age has been toned down today, the

ideas that Rice examined—“heroes and goats, winners and losers, rise and fall of fortune, heart

and desire and magnificent skill”—are all parts that continue to remain a cornerstones of sports

journalism today (Inabinett 106).

Rice‟s writing relied on the rhetorical method of ethos to shape the image of the athletes.

The ancient philosopher Aristotle would add that sport writing (especially Rice‟s) implores

epideictic oratory-type qualities. Although Aristotle discusses epideictic oratory in the context

of “public ceremonies such as funerals or events commemorating war heroes…dealing with

issues of praise (epainos) and blame (psogos),” when sports writers use the rhetorical strategies

Rice made common in the industry, they are offering a type of epideictic discourse to the

audience (Aristotle 85).

Why is there such a need in society for sports writers to promote athletes as heroes?

Stanley Teitelbaum discusses this question in his book, Sports Heroes, Fallen Idols. Teitelbaum

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concedes that sports journalists play a part in transcending athletes to heroic status; yet thinks

that the pedestal athletes are placed upon comes from a societal void that needs to be filled.

Teitelbaum argues that initially heroes are our parents, “whom we view as all-knowing

and all-powerful as they protect us and shepherd us through early life” (Teitelbaum 1).

Eventually, children notice their parents‟ flaws and “replace them by outside heroes, often from

the world of sports” (Teitelbaum 1). Regardless of how sports writers portray athletes, children

will gravitate towards them as figures to idolize. It is the idea that children need heroes because

“heroes, just by being, communicate the romantic and yet realistic idea that you can turn your

life into something great” (Teitelbaum 1).

Teitelbaum explains the inevitability of sports stars being idolized; fellow researcher,

Jeffrey Segrave, hardly disagrees. In fact, in his research, he thinks that this action of elevating

sport and its athletes is regressive to society. In a critical analysis, Segrave examines sports

writing in order to determine what effect it has on readers. In reading the fictional sports novels

of John Updike, Irwin Shaw, and Jason Miller, Segrave notes that the shaping of characters

reveals how sports has created a cultural hero-system (Segrave 182). Segrave references in the

conclusions of his research, statements by fellow researcher T.S. Hendricks. Like Segrave,

Hendricks agrees that portraying athletes as heroes is regressive, but goes further in making a

connection that sports writing is similar to a play: “sport is not so different from the world of

informal play, and that like play, sport presents an occasion of innocence and simplicity „to

which the adult—burdened so often by an inglorious past and equally uncertain future—returns

so willingly‟” (Segrave 188).

Modern day journalists see how Grantland Rice-like writing has given positive spins into

today‟s sports world filled with many athletes who often personify the exact opposite qualities of

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heroic. Gene Collier, an ex-sportswriter, touches on how society is so eager for heroes, that

often the standards have been lowered for athletes. The now-retired sportswriter notices “a

larger issue is the way the media has simultaneously lowered the standards for hero status”

(Collier 49). He discusses how the idolization of Michael Jordan—grouping him with the like‟s

of Ali, Jackie Robinson, and Ruth—is “embarrassing, even sickening” (Collier 49). The other‟s

gained heroic status for their athleticism and what they did in “transcending the sport.”

However, Collier argues that elevating Jordan to their status for simply “going strong to the

rack” is not what journalism is supposed to do (Collier 49). Thus, because of this constant

idolization of athletes by journalists, Collier eventually retired from the profession.

The research of both Teitelbaum and Segrave shed light that sports writing fulfills a part

in society that craves embracing athletes for their skills. And the editorial by former sportswriter

Gene Collier brings the idolization to the forefront. Yet, there is little discussion about how an

athlete is designated as a hero by the media—particularly the sports journalist.

In Joshua Shuart‟s research of the portrayal of which athletes are shown as heroes, he

references Susan Drucker‟s research on the debate between “heroes” versus “celebrity status”

athletes. This is important to note because in my research of LeBron James, the grey area in the

distinction becomes clear through Drucker‟s explanation.

According to Shuart, “Drucker argues that sports heroes are merely pseudo-heroes, and

are only compared to the heroic because of celebrification in the mass media” (Shuart 32).

Drucker thinks that mass media is responsible for undeservingly propelling athletes to “mythic

proportions.” It is Drucker‟s contention, which Shuart somewhat upholds as well, that the hero-

creation process by the media, is almost exactly the same as the creation of celebrity (Shuart 32).

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Shuart, in his dissertation, looks at specific athletes and whether they are portrayed by the

media as a “sports hero” and what this does to athletes‟ marketability. Through quantitative

methods, Shuart polled University of Connecticut students on various athletes and whether

students thought these athletes were “heroes,” “celebrities,” or both. Then, he questioned the

students whether they would purchase a product they endorsed.

Shuart‟s findings reveal that athletes such as Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Muhammad

Ali, Magic Johnson, and Venus Williams, are athletes that rank high as both “hero” and

“celebrity.” Therefore, these same students felt they would make an excellent endorser. In

contrast, athletes such as Mike Tyson, O.J. Simpson, Dennis Rodman, Darryl Strawberry, and

Anna Kournikova, are athletes ranking high in “celebrity,” but low in “hero” (Shuart 49). These

results show that there is a distinction between athletes and how they achieve “hero status.”

Other athletes such as Latrell Sprewell were seen as neither a “celebrity” nor “hero.”

It is clear that those athletes who excel at their sport and have a personality to be

portrayed positively by the media, have two overriding components that contribute to creating

both a “celebrity” and “hero” status. While “celebrity” status can be achieved without positive

media coverage, these athletes will not match the “hero-like” status of the others.

Previous research has shown that sports journalists are able to shape a heroic motif when

covering athletes. However, little research has been done on analyzing specific texts written by

sports journalists about the stardom-construction of a specific player. Therefore, a discourse

analysis will be performed on the articles of Sporting News’ Sean Deveney about LeBron James,

to determine: what, if any, rhetorical strategies sports journalists use in the shaping of LeBron

James‟ stardom throughout his career?

Methodology

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Before discussing how I studied “rhetorical strategies,” it is important to understand what

exactly I mean by rhetoric. A classical definition of the term is the one laid out by Aristotle in

Rhetoric: “an ability, in each particular case, to see the available means of persuasion”

(Lindamann, 39). Aristotle saw three methods of persuasion the rhetorician could use to

construct their arguments: “to the good will of the speaker (ethos), to the nature of the audience

(pathos), and the subject matter (logic)” (Lindemann, 41).

Since Aristotle laid out the effect of rhetoric in persuading audiences, there have been

various other players and definitions. Perhaps the most notable scholar is Kenneth Burke who

defines rhetoric as, “symbolic means of inducing cooperation in beings that by nature respond to

symbols” (Lindemann, 53). In summary, Burke thinks that humans rely on linguistics and

“rhetoric is a function of language that enables human beings to overcome the divisions

separating them” (Lindemann 53). He also lays out the “rhetorical situation” with the use on his

“pentad”—analyzing how “human beings act rhetorically with on another” (Lindemann 54).

However, for the sake of this study, I used a more recent interpretation as my definition

of rhetoric. In a 2006 study, researcher Richard Vatz examined the numerous definitions of

rhetoric in order to formulate a more contemporary definition. Using the concepts of Aristotle

and Burke, Vatz does not think of rhetoric as necessarily a two-way dialogue like Burke

suggests. To Vatz:

Rhetoric is not generated by situations, it is generated by rhetors or persuaders. In

this perspective, the production of rhetoric is an agent-centered, continuous

competition to seek to establish the agent‟s own (in today‟s terminology) agenda

and spin by making different situations and facts salient and infusing them with

meaning and significance to interpret the saliencies for chosen audiences

(Vatz,173).

This definition provided a modern basis for the study of rhetoric and focused more on the

influences of media in today‟s society—making it effective in interpreting Sean Deveney‟s

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writing. I looked at Deveney as the rhetor or persuader, and determined what his rhetorical

strategies were, and how they were potentially effective in shaping James‟ stardom.

Once I defined rhetoric, I determined the best way to examine the rhetorical strategies

Sean Deveney employs. I decided on doing a discourse analysis because “In the early 1900s,

communications scholars began using similar methods to analyze newspapers” (MacNealy 123).

Because all of Deveney‟s 35 articles that I used as data were published magazine articles in

Sporting News, I needed to use a method proven effective for analyzing text.

According to Anssi Perakyla, a “discourse analysis usually refers to research that aims at

uncovering the features that maintain coherence in units larger than the sentence” (Perakyla 353).

It is important to understand that with qualitative studies involving discourse analysis,

researchers use the text as a means for answering a particular question. Again, my research

question is: “What, if any, rhetorical strategies do sports journalists use in the shaping of LeBron

James‟ stardom throughout his career?”

Sean Deveney covered LeBron James before his career in the NBA began in 2002, and

still continues to cover James and the NBA today. Because Deveney had been coving James for

such a span, with a nationally published sporting magazine (Sporting News), I used his articles as

my data set. It offered a consistent text to examine the rhetorical strategies by a specific

journalist.

After the 2009-10 season, James‟ career was at a crossroads. His contract with the

Cleveland Cavaliers expired, and he was testing the free agent market. On July 8, 2010, James,

an Akron, Ohio native, announced to a nationally televised audience that he was leaving the

Cleveland Cavaliers and “taking his talents to South Beach” to sign as a free agent with the

Miami Heat.

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This kairotic moment gave me the opportunity to revisit my initial research which was

done in the spring of 2010, and update it with more recent pieces by Deveney about James. It

allowed me to determine whether Deveney‟s rhetoric changed as James‟ circumstances changed.

To gain an unbiased sampling, I used convenience sampling by accessing all of Sean

Deveney‟s published pieces where LeBron was the subject beginning in July 2002 to February

2011. In a MaterFILE Premier Database* search through Old Dominion University online

databases, it revealed 44 pieces of various lengths published in Sporting News by Deveney.

After reading and assessing the articles, my final data set was 35 articles because nine articles

were removed as they offered no discourse, just statistics.

Since I was revisiting my initial research, I analyzed Deveney‟s works in two parts: I

looked at the first 29 pieces from the spring as one set, and the final, more recent six, as another.

However, in reading all the articles I looked for themes. I went about the process in a similar

way researchers Ann Blakeslee and Cathy Fleischer recommended, “Creating categories in a

flexible and recursive manner, are important first steps in the analysis stage of research…the

next step is look through your data with a careful and critical eye to discover the evidence that

supports the themes and categories identified” (Blakeslee and Fleischer 175). Once I completed

the process of themeing my data, I then began coding.

Coding is “a systematic way of indicating in your data themes and categories that you

have identified…With coding you mark all of the occurrences of the particular themes and

categories that you have identified as important” (Blakeslee and Fleisher 176). As I coded, I

gave names and defined reoccurring themes so that I would be better able to identify elements

within each in my texts. I employed a coding method of marking because this was the most

effective for my particular data set. The marks which I used “indicate how particular words,

* MasterFile Premier is database that provides access to general periodicals covering business, education, health,

science and more, reference books including the World Almanac & Book of Facts, biographies, primary source

documents, Magill Book Reviews, as well as an image collection of photos, maps and flags.

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phrases, and segments of the data support the theme” (Blakeslee and Fleischer 177). I also

employed coding by highlighting, “where the researcher uses colored pencils or highlighting and

have a coding chart that indicates which colors relate to which themes” (Blakeslee and Fleischer

178). This was important in determining frequency of certain themes and visually seeing where

in the texts they occurred.

During the coding and categorization process, I made sure to only look for the rhetorical

strategies Deveney used to shape the persona of LeBron James based on my functioning

definition of rhetoric. Based on the 29 articles, I came up with three distinct categories from my

coding: “Comparing LeBron,” “LeBron Over Team,” and “LeBron as a Commodity.” However,

in reading Deveney‟s most recent six articles, I created a new category: “The Big Three” (all

categories will be discussed in the Data Analysis section).

The coding and creating categories helped to show the rhetorical strategies Deveney used

in his writing of LeBron James. This type of discourse analysis, a rhetorical analysis, according

to researcher Mary Sue MacNeely, is useful in investigating larger portions of data or texts,

describing a rhetorical analysis as a “method used to investigate persuasive techniques”

(MacNealy 141).

MacNealy also recommends a stylistic analysis, as another effective way of critiquing

rhetorical strategies using a discourse analysis. MacNealy describes a stylistic analysis as

effective for researchers concerned “with techniques such as comparison of the number of

elaborative elements (eg. metaphor, simile, anecdote, personification, etc.) in newspaper

articles…” (MacNealy 137).

Although this second portion of my study is less extensive and categorized, it was

revealing of Deveney‟s rhetorical strategies. I counted how often Denveney used these

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elaborative elements in describing LeBron James in his articles. This was done because I

thought the way Deveney describes James to the reader was also another important component in

his rhetorical strategy and shaping James‟ stardom.

Data Analysis

“Comparing LeBron”

One prevailing theme in the readings of Sean Deveney‟s pieces on LeBron James, I titled

“Comparing LeBron.” This category I defined as: “Whenever LeBron James‟ skill, playing

style, abilities, work ethic, or any other trait important to basketball success is compared to an

NBA player or another superior athlete. Comparisons will be counted if it is done by Deveney

himself, as well as fellow teammates, coaches, analysts, former players.”

What I found with this particular category was that throughout the 35 articles, there were

28 times that this category was positively carried out. This does not mean that in 28 of the 35

articles I found a category (in some articles there were multiple confirmations), it is just a total. I

devised three sub-categories for my findings: “Comparisons to All-Time Greats/Hall of Famers,”

“Comparisons to current NBA stars,” and “Comparisons to „special people.‟”

Under the sub-category of “Comparisons to All-Time greats/Hall of Famers,” there were

21 comparisons. The two most prominent players compared to James were Michael Jordan (10),

and Magic Johnson (6). What was also interesting was the most comparisons in one article were

six, in Deveney‟s 2004 piece “Crystal Baller,” when LeBron James was just two years into the

league. Here are some examples of findings in the “Comparisons to All-Time greats/Hall of

Famers” sub-category:

“He has played just under 100 games, so it‟s impossible to get a clear read on

where LeBron James‟ career will head. Three names that come up in

comparisons though, are Julius Erving, Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan. A

look at how those three improved between their rookie years and their second full

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seasons is telling. James is on pace to do something the other three didn‟t:

improve in every major category” (Deveney, “Crystal Baller”, 20).

“Says Pacers coach Rick Carlisle, „He makes plays we have not seen anybody

make since (Michael) Jordan in terms of pure strength and athletic ability and

hanging and seeing things and finishing.‟” (Deveney, “Deja Two”, 23).

In the six recent articles, Deveney offered two comparisons to Michael Jordan. While

they were done in a similar fashion as in the previous 29 articles, the comparisons he makes of

James after his seventh season in the NBA and second-straight Most Valuable Player (MVP)

award have more validation because they are accompanied with statistics, rather than

speculation:

Not since Michael Jordan in 1988-89 had a player put up at least 2,250

points, 650 assists and 550 rebounds in a season as James did this year”

(Deveney, “Player of the Year, LeBron James”, 20).

“LeBron is much bigger—he is able to use more strength and power in

his game. He is 6-8 and something like 260 pounds; Michael was

athleticism. But as Michael got older, he came to use other things—he

got smarter, he got stronger. The same will happen with LeBron. He

will get better as he gets older and evolves.” (Deveney, “Player of the

Year, LeBron James”, 20).

In the sub-category of “Comparisons to current NBA stars,” there were five references.

Like the previous category, they were prominent players; players who went directly from high

school to the NBA (Kevin Garnett, Tracy McGrady, and Kobe Bryant), like LeBron James did.

Aside from two comparisons to Carmelo Anthony, James is compared to these other players.

Here are some examples of my findings:

“James seems to fit the mold of two other athletic, preps-to-pros wing men who

have gone on to NBA stardom: Kobe Bryant and Tracy McGrady. But even that

mold might not be big enough for him” (Deveney, “Let the LeBron-a-thon begin”

2002, 51).

“He (James) has the physical tools to become a very good defender, Just as

Garnett, Bryant and McGrady have” (Deveney, “Ready for prime-time”, 3).

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The final sub-category was “Comparisons to „special people.‟” This rounded out my

three sub-categories in the “Comparing LeBron” category, and only revealed two findings. One

of Deveney‟s references was clear as to who the “special person (people)” were, while the other

was more ambiguous. Because of a small sample size, it was difficult to conclude much from

this sub-category. Nonetheless, it still illustrates a rhetorical motif Deveney uses to shape the

stardom of James:

“Former Cavaliers center, Brad Dougherty says, „He‟s one of those rare athletes

blessed with a great body, great size, great speed and strength. He‟s taken those

blessings and added hard work. He‟s in the upper echelon of special people—Bo

Jackson, Deion Sanders—people like that‟” (Deveney, “Kobe or Lebron?”, 47).

“His arrival in The (NBA) Finals secures his spot in the NBA’s pantheon of elites

and could forever change the league” (Deveney, “His time is Wow”, 37).

For the category of “Comparing LeBron,” throughout the 35 articles, there were only

three examples of disconfirming evidence. Since there was such a small set of data, I did not

create sub-categories for the disconfirming evidence. I just will simply show the three examples:

“James resists comparisons, especially to Jordan. „I appreciate it,‟ James says of

the tendency to link him to Jordan, „But I don‟t really think that way. I have my

own path to follow.‟” (Deveney, “Crystal baller” , 18).

“The NBA has had too many next-big-things who turned disappointing, on and

off the court—Vince Carter and Kobe Bryant come to mind—to raise James’

pedestal too high too early” (Deveney, “Crystal baller”, 19).

The following relates to comparisons of Camelo Anthony and LeBron James being the

modern-day equivalent of Larry Bird and Magic Johnson:

“These two stars are not quite aligned perfectly, and talk of a rivalry to match that

of Magic Johnson and Larry Bird in the 1980‟s is both premature and

ridiculous…James and Anthony may not be ready to fill Bird and Magic‟s high-

tops just yet” (Deveney, “Deja Two”, 23).

It can be seen with Deveney‟s writing that “Comparing LeBron” is a useful rhetorical

strategy in shaping James‟ stardom. By Deveney himself doing the comparisons, there is some

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power. But, to the average reader, they would not know, like I found out through my research,

that Deveney has covered James his entire career. Therefore, in establishing ethos, Deveney

alone making comparisons is not entirely efficient in persuading readers of James‟ “star” ability.

Adding opinions from former players (some of them Hall of Famers), coaches, and analysts

gives more credibility to Deveney‟s points; but, is also more influential on readers‟ opinions of

James and his abilities.

“LeBron Over Team”

Another prevailing theme that was apparent in the readings of Deveney‟s articles was a

category I titled “LeBron Over Team.” I defined this category as: “Whenever Deveney describes

the Cleveland Cavaliers as secondary to LeBron James. This includes all instances where the

Cavaliers are referred to as possessions of James (ie. His team, James‟ Cavs, etc). Also, this

included articles where James was referenced over his teammates even though the article was

more team focused, not only highlighting LeBron James.”

This theme only came up in 16 of the 35 articles, because many of the others were

focused solely on LeBron James. However, in the 16 articles that did not pertain entirely to

James and addressed the Cleveland Cavaliers, I found 42 items that confirmed the “LeBron Over

Team” category—and only three disconfirming statements.

An example I will use to display my findings is Deveney‟s article titled: “The Man Who

Would Be King.” The 2006 article is talking about the Cavaliers first playoff appearance since

1998 against the Washington Wizards and an outlook of the 2006 playoffs. However, it focuses

almost entirely on James—with nine confirming statements, and not one piece of disconfirming

evidence. Here are the eight pieces of evidence that I categorized from this Deveney article:

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“LeBron James may be in new territory—his first NBA postseason” (24).

“Cavaliers headliner LeBron James had been patient, touching the ball only once

in the opener of Cleveland‟s series against Washington…” (24).

“There were other Cavaliers present at Quicken Loans Arena last weekend, but

make no mistake; the first Cleveland playoff game in eight years was not so much

about the resurgence of a franchise as it was about James finally playing in the

postseason” (24).

James proved he is ready to carry the Cavaliers in this postseason grind and that

he will, eventually, be a championship player” (24).

“It was just one game, of course, and it should be noted that James had the

luxury of facing the Wizards’ snoozy defense” (25).

“But it is easy to imagine that the question facing the Wizards in these opening

games of the Eastern Conference playoffs is one that will be asked for the next 15

NBA springs: How the heck do you stop LeBron James from doing what he

wants?” (25).

“When James develops his defensive skill and intensity, it is likely the rest of the

Cavaliers will respond” (25).

“Despite James’ talent, these Cavaliers are not a championship-caliber team…”

(25).

“Though LeBron James’ playoff debut was the highlight of the first playoff

weekend…” (26).

Another revealing article of this theme is one where Deveney writes about the Cavaliers

making it to the NBA Finals and how they must play the San Antonio Spurs. The article, “His

Time is Wow,” is intended to be a Finals preview, but instead, centers on LeBron James. This

piece has four confirming pieces for the “LeBron Over Team” category, and includes two out of

the total three disconfirming evidences to the theme:

Disconfirming:

“Of course, things get much more difficult for the Cavs in The Finals, where the

Spurs, champions in three of the past eight seasons, rolled through the West” (37).

“The Cavs have a chance—just not much of one” (37).

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Confirming:

“You knew LeBron James would get the Cavs to The Finals—you just didn‟t

figure it would be this year or this way” (36).

“Heading into The Finals, though, Boobie (Gibson) and the rest of the Cavaliers

will fade into the background—this is James’ moment” (37).

„“That was always the question,‟ says Cavs guard Damon Jones. „Can he do it in

the playoffs? I think he’s shown he can‟” (37).

“Well, LeBron got this far. But asking him to knock off a dominating Spurs

team might be a bit too much” (37).

The “LeBron Over Team” motif is a useful rhetorical strategy used by Deveney. Unlike

“Comparing LeBron,” this strategy is seen with the words Deveney is using. As a writer, he is

the one responsible for the framing of James amongst his team and teammates. When he is

placing the emphasis solely on James and almost ignoring the Cleveland Cavaliers, this instills

the reader to immediately think of James before his team.

Although it is undeniable that James was the center of the Cavaliers‟ franchise, some of

the articles, especially early on in his career, are a bit presumptuous on the part of Deveney.

Simply by being drafted, James seemed to take ownership of the Cavaliers—at least by the way

Deveney rhetorically shapes it—and every accomplishment by the team, is presented as an

accomplishment for James.

“The Big Three”

In reviewing the recent pieces by Deveney involving James‟ decision to join Dwyane

Wade in Miami, along with Chris Bosh, is that his rhetoric changed. In Deveney‟s most recent

two pieces on James (published in December 2010)—both covering James on the Heat—

Deveney never used the “LeBron Over Team” motif.

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The new category I created in order to code Deveney‟s rhetorical change is titled “The

Big Three” and is defined as: “Whenever LeBron is grouped with his teammates—specifically,

Wade and Bosh. Instead of elevating James above his teammates, or giving James ownership

over the team, Deveney discusses James, Bosh, and Wade as equals and sharing ownership of the

Heat.”

In the four pieces written in 2010 while James was still a member of the Cavaliers, the

“LeBron Over Team” rhetoric appears six times.

In one of the last articles published while James is still a member of the Cavaliers, the

title of Deveney‟s article “Win or Else” speaks to the ongoing notion that James is more

important than the team. If James‟ teammates are unsuccessful in getting “Bron a ring,” he will

go somewhere else to win a championship. Deveney‟s article frames the 2009-10 Playoffs in

this way: If the Cavaliers win, it will be because of James; but if they lose, it will be because of

inferior teammates:

“The Cavaliers have piled on players in an attempt to secure a crown for

James…” (Deveney, “Win or Else”, 9).

“This should have the Cavs as a whole feeling like a math geek dating the prom

queen—more than a little anxious” (Deveney, “Win or Else”, 9).

However, once James became a member of the Miami Heat, Deveney abandoned the

“LeBron Over Team” motif, and began using “The Big Three” motif. While the Cleveland

Cavaliers were a possession of James, on the Miami Heat, no one is above the team:

“How will the Big Three fit together?” (Deveney, “Starring Role”, 24).

“The arrival of LeBron James and Chris Bosh in South Beach to join forces with

friend and Olympic teammate Dwayne Wade…”(Deveney, “Even with its Big

Three, Miami faces a trio of issues”, 16).

“The three are ready…”…” (Deveney, “Even with its Big Three…”, 16).

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“Both Wade and James have excellent credentials as fourth quarter closers and

clutch shot makers” …”(Deveney, “Even with its Big Three…”, 16).

Deveney‟s rhetoric changes from James having success despite his team, to James working with

his teammates in order to win. Also, James is no longer elevated above his teammates—now,

Wade and Bosh (Wade especially) are displayed as James‟ equal. The “Big Three” are trying to

win in Miami, not “James and Co”—as Deveney portrayed throughout James‟ time in Cleveland.

The “LeBron Over Team” motif was effective when James had inferior teammates, but

continuing to use it while James is a member of the Heat could potentially cause a rift amongst

the team. Also, because another “star” (Dwyane Wade) has been a member of the team (and

won a championship) prior to James‟ arrival, calling the Heat “James‟ team” would be hard to

defend. By using “The Big Three” motif, Deveney never concedes James‟ stardom to Wade or

Bosh, yet can still discuss James as one of the league‟s best.

“LeBron as a Commodity”

The final theme, which I categorized as “LeBron as a Commodity” was defined as:

“Whenever LeBron is discussed as a commercial good—something that is coveted, used, traded,

marketed, etc.”

Just like the “LeBron Over Team” theme, evidence of this category was not prevalent in

every article. However, it was highly prevalent in Deveney‟s articles written early in James‟

career (before he was drafted), and in recent articles (with his pending 2010 free agency). Of

Deveney‟s 35 articles, Deveney uses nine articles to speculate on LeBron James‟ future.

Deveney writes five articles—“2010 Odyssey,” “2010 vision,” “A Free-Agent Free-For-All Is

Coming,” “Win or Else,” and “Let‟s Play LeBroninoes”—speculating on LeBron James 2010

free agency. He uses another four articles—“Bury with care,” “Crystal baller,” “Deja Two,”

“Ready for prime time”—to discuss the impact of LeBron James being drafted.

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In the article, “2010 Odyssey,” an article published January 19, 2009 (with James‟ 2010

free agency still a season and a half away), Deveney exhibits six pieces of evidence confirming

the “LeBron as a Commodity” theme, and no disconfirming evidence. The following are some

examples:

“LeBron James can‟t become a Knick—or a Piston, or a Net, or a Bull—for

another 18 months, but the chase is already on for the NBA’s most prized player”

(32).

“Cleveland needs James…Even in a small market like Cleveland, James has

become the third richest sports endorser, making $28 million annually from

advertisers” (32).

“It‟s understandable that the Knicks would focus on James…He has fondness for

New York, and the Knicks, even with their flimsy recent history, are the most

valuable franchise in the NBA. „Add LeBron James,‟ says Bob Dorman, vice

president of Baker Street Partners, a sports marketing firm, „and that value

soars‟” (35).

As a way to show the similarity between recent comments that fall under the “LeBron as

a Commodity” theme, and how Deveney covered him prior to being in the NBA, I used the

article “Ready for Prime Time.” This was published in Sporting News on July 26, 2003 (exactly

a month before LeBron James was drafted). There are five confirming pieces of evidence to the

“LeBron as a Commodity” motif in this article—and, again, no disconfirming evidence:

“LeBron James will be taken first in the draft, his team determined in a lottery

shifted to nighttime to capitalize on its popularity, but his No. 1 status likely has

as much to do with ticket sales as talent” (3).

“Usually, the lottery is harmlessly wedged into the halftime show of a Sunday

afternoon playoff broadcast, but this year it has been stretched into a half-hour,

prime-time show that ABC will put up against Thursday night staples Friends and

CSI. There‟s only one reason this lottery has landed in prime-time: It’s the

LeBron-a-thon…” (3).

“Imagine the team with the top pick taking someone other than James? It can‟t

happen. James played in three high school all-star games and sold out all three.

Where the EA Sports Roundball Classic drew 5,712 fans to Northwestern

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University in Evanston, Ill., two years ago, it drew 19,678 to Chicago’s United

Center in March. That’s the power of LeBron James” (24).

The idea of “LeBron as a Commodity” is one of the more effective rhetorical strategies

that Deveney employs throughout his articles. With the more recent articles regarding James‟

2010 free agency, there is more merit. James has proven to have NBA success at this point—

although speculating on his future almost two years prior is a bit excessive.

But, for Deveney to talk about James in almost the same way while he is still an 18-year-

old high school player is feeding to his stardom. Deveney‟s talk about what James could mean

to a franchise is purely his opinion. Deveney‟s extrapolation of James‟ high school talent

creating NBA revenue is premature, yet effective in convincing readers on James‟ immediate star

quality.

Even more interesting, and worth pointing out, is how Deveney—throughout all his

speculation—never anticipated James going to the Miami Heat. In all of Deveney‟s predictions,

it is James that is the link to making “all the dominoes fall.” Just a month before free agency,

Deveney paints three scenarios: James resigning with the Cavaliers, James signing with the

Chicago Bulls, and James signing with the New York Knicks. In each scenario, James is the

cornerstone of the team—and his decision effects where other free agents (most notably: Chris

Bosh, Carlos Boozer, Amare Stoudemire, and Joe Johnson) sign:

“If LeBron signs with the Bulls…Chain reaction: Chris Bosh joins James in

Chicago in a sign-and-trade with the Raptors” (Deveney, “Let‟s Play

LeBroninoes”, 14).

Deveney‟s scenarios deal with the two looming questions: What team will James choose to join?

And, what will happen as a ripple effect?

What is so fascinating is that never once did Deveney speculate that James would choose

to go to a team that already has a “superstar” of his caliber (such as joining the Miami Heat to

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play with Dwyane Wade). It was as if a “star” of James‟ magnitude would never think of joining

forces with someone of comparable ability. The Miami Heat, to Deveney, are Dwayne Wade‟s

team—just as the Cleveland Cavaliers were James‟ team—and James‟ free agent decision would

only effect the Heat, not help them. James was illustrated as the “commodity” when, in fact,

James himself viewed Wade as the commodity dictating his free agency decision.

Stylistic Analysis

Throughout the readings of Sean Deveney‟s 35 articles I counted the number of stylistic

elements Deveney uses when describing LeBron James. I discovered 16 occurrences where

Deveney uses writing style to enhance the stardom of James. These 16 descriptions were divided

into three categories: “Anecdotes,” “Metaphors/Similes,” and “Larger-than-life language.”

For the first category, “Anecdotes” I counted three times where Deveney uses a story

about James in order to paint a star image:

“He took a bow before the adoring mass at Quicken Loans Arena and finished the

game on the bench. An off-night had become a 16-point, 11-assist, 10-rebound

triple double” (Deveney, “2010 Odyssey”, 32).

“When James opened the season with a brilliant 25-point performance, his

stardom was confirmed” (Deveney, “Deja Two”, 22).

“In front of more than 11,000 fans, a national television audience…he scored 31

points on 12-25 shooting, grabbed 13 rebounds, dished out six assists and led St.-

Vincent-St. Mary of Akron, Ohio, to a 20-point win over Oak Hill (Va.) Academy

only added to the Legend of LeBron” (Deveney, “Let the LeBron-a-thon begin”,

10).

The next category was “Metaphors/Similes” where I also found three examples of how

Deveney used these stylistic strategies:

“In the first quarter, diminutive referee Derrick Stafford called a timeout because

a balloon had floated over the court, James spared Stafford the embarrassment of

jumping after the balloon by grabbing it himself, like a fireman rescuing a kitten

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from a tree. The crowd then chanted, „MVP MVP!‟” (Deveney, “The man who

would be king”, 25).

“His talent is obvious—he’s a 6-8 bull with trampolines in his shoes and a body

by Rodin” (Deveney, “His time is wow”, 37).

“(LeBron) is having a limestone bas-relief sculpture of his head made (headband

included) to decorate the entryway, much as Ramses the Great once did at Luxor

temple” (Deveney, “The house of James”, 11).

The final category I described as “Larger-than-life language.” Basically this was any

stylistic method Deveney used that did not fit into the other two categories, yet shaped LeBron

James as an exceptional basketball player. I found ten examples that expressed this

characteristic:

“James—the NBA’s Savior, King, Chosen One, or whatever your preferred

sobriquet” (Deveney, “His time is wow”, 37).

“This was not so much a debut as an unveiling, a revelation, a coronation, a sort

of NBA apocalypse after which nothing would quite be the same” (Deveney,

“The man who would be king”, 24).

“He is a prodigy, a kid whose transition into the league from high school has been

a breeze” (Deveney, “The man who would be king”, 24).

“Basketball in Cleveland might just go on life support (If James leaves)”

(Deveney, “Win or Else”, 16).

The stylistic analysis of Deveney‟s writing was useful in pointing out the surface

adulation that each article reveals for James. Even the standard reader would be well aware of

these rhetorical strategies, whereas the other themes were made more apparent through coding.

By consistently using flowery language when discussing James, it engrains a certain

persona of the player in the mind of readers. If a professional writer covering the NBA describes

James with words like “prodigy,” “legend,” or “Savior,” a reader is more likely to regard James

in a similar light. Especially early on in James‟ career, using these words impacts James‟

stardom because he has yet to prove himself in the NBA, but is being dubbed with language fit

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for a player who has already transcended the sport. This rhetorical strategy plays an important

role in shaping James‟ stardom to readers.

While there was no evidence of Deveney using his previous motifs when James joined

the Miami Heat, there is one example of “Larger-than-life language.” Deveney cites a quote

from his current coach, Erik Spoelstra, to continue to shape James‟ stardom:

“He (James) has already proved his greatness” (Deveney, “Starring Role:

LeBron James,” 31).

This quote used by Deveney suggests that although James is not playing on a team with other

“stars,” his superior skills are still evident and can be continued to be acknowledged.

Discussion

Throughout my discourse analysis, it was revealed that sports journalists do utilize

rhetorical strategies in the shaping LeBron James‟ stardom. Since this was such a specific study,

you need to be careful in generalizing from these findings. However, although this study did just

focus on Sean Deveney and his articles about James in Sporting News, these findings can not be

overlooked entirely.

Besides the rhetorical categories Deveney‟s articles adhered to, the finding that is highly

intriguing is Deveney‟s shift in writing once James decided to play for the Miami Heat. Although

Deveney never questions James‟ talent, or his decision to go to Miami in any of his articles, it is

clear that a change took place in Deveney‟s rhetoric. In examining Deveney‟s two articles

dealing with James playing for Miami, none of the rhetorical categories that were prevalent in

Deveney‟s previous 33 articles were evident in the two articles written about James on the Heat.

While it would be ideal to have a larger sample size of articles of James on the Heat, the two

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articles alone help demonstrate an adaptation in Deveney‟s recent rhetoric surrounding his

shaping of LeBron James‟ stardom.

Sporting News is a nationally recognized magazine dedicated to covering sports. And

throughout 35 articles written by one of its writers, Deveney employs numerous rhetorical

strategies when discussing LeBron James. While it is just one magazine and one writer, it is

clear that rhetorical strategies are used, and used abundantly throughout his writing. Again,

creating generalizations is not desired, but, it would be safe to say that Deveney is not the only

one writing about LeBron James in this way. The impact of these findings cannot be ignored just

for the simple fact that they reveal, at the very least, one journalist is using rhetorical strategies to

contribute to shaping James‟ stardom.

It also must be noted that there are multiple aspects of the media that are contributing to

James‟ stardom—not just Deveney, and not just sports journalists. It is quite possible that each

aspect of the media has influenced each other in shaping the stardom of James—more of a

conglomeration, rather than just one particular part of the media.

One thing that would be useful to enhancing my particular study would be to have other

researchers sample my data set to see if similar findings were revealed. This is not to say that

there was bias in my interpretation of the data, but it would help enhance the credibility of my

findings. As the researcher, I may have been seeking data that positively answered my research

question—taking less notice of disconfirming data.

Another study that would be useful in expanding on this research is to study the pictures

that accompany each article. Most of Deveney‟s articles were accompanied by a picture, and it

would be interesting to see how the photographs helped to further Deveney‟s rhetoric. The

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combination of written and visual rhetoric could help to further enhance the reader‟s perceptions

of James‟ stardom.

Other research that would have been effective toward enhancing this study is if I did a

discourse analysis on another sportswriter besides Deveney. There are other sportswriters who

have covered James as extensively as Deveney, and comparing their rhetorical strategies (if they

both used them) would be effective to achieve additional confirmation on my findings.

Finally, I think a useful strategy to help create more reliability and solidify the findings in

this study would be to read other articles by Deveney that covered other players besides James.

This would help reveal whether Deveney is isolating his rhetorical strategies of shaping stardom

to James and not using them when describing other players. It could also possibly reveal that

Deveney utilizes similar rhetorical strategies when covering all NBA players. Performing such a

study would be a good way to reveal more about my particular study, while still keeping the

focus and data set on Sean Deveney.

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Making Us Witnesses:

The Visual Rhetoric Shaping LeBron’s Stardom

Written: March 25, 2011

Introduction

National Basketball Association (NBA) player LeBron James initially became the focus

of my research on rhetoric because his career as a professional—which began at the age of 18—

has been closely covered through the lens of the media. In order to determine what effect

journalists have on shaping James‟ stardom, I chose to examine the rhetorical strategies of

Sporting News journalist, Sean Deveney, because he covered James throughout his entire

professional career in a mass distributed, weekly sports magazine.

In the spring of 2010, I performed a quantitative study to determine what impact

Deveney‟s rhetoric had on shaping James‟ stardom. For my study, I used researcher Richard

Vatz‟s (2009) contemporary definition of rhetoric:

Rhetoric is not generated by situations, it is generated by rhetors or persuaders. In

this perspective, the production of rhetoric is an agent-centered, continuous

competition to seek to establish the agent‟s own (in today‟s terminology) agenda

and spin by making different situations and facts salient and infusing them with

meaning and significance to interpret the saliencies for chosen audiences (p. 173).

To create my data set, I collected 35 articles published by Sean Deveney in Sporting

News where LeBron James was the subject of the piece—ranging from July 2002 to December

2010 (all the articles Deveney published throughout James‟ NBA career). For the purposes of

my study, I analyzed the pieces thinking of Deveney as the rhetor attempting to shape James‟

stardom to his readership.

Using the empirical method of discourse analysis to critique whether Deveney‟s rhetoric

contributed to shaping LeBron James‟ stardom, I carefully read through each of the pieces,

themeing the data set. I relied heavily on researchers Blakeslee and Fleisher (2007) who

emphasized “creating categories in a flexible and recursive manner, are important first steps in

the analysis stage of research” (p. 175).

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After I had themed the data, I coded Deveney‟s work into four distinct categories:

“Comparing LeBron,” “LeBron Over Team,” “The Big Three,” and “LeBron as a Commodity”

(each of these categories are discussed further in my methodology section). I coded by marking

“all of the occurrences of the particular themes and categories” that I identified as important and

demonstrated with these categories “how particular words, phrases, and segments of the data

support the theme” (Blakeslee & Fleischer, 2007, p. 177).

Besides these two methods of discourse analysis, I also performed a stylistic analysis of

Deveney‟s articles; noting “techniques such as comparison of the number of elaborative elements

(eg. metaphor, simile, anecdote, personification, etc.) in newspaper articles…” (MacNealy, 1999,

p. 137).

My research concluded that Deveney did utilize rhetorical strategies in the shaping of

James‟ NBA stardom. I found that Deveney continually used motifs which I was able to identify

and categorize when he was describing James.

Background

Currently in his eight NBA season, James has become arguably one of the league‟s best

and most polarizing players.

After his first seven seasons in the league, James was named to six All-Star teams, won

two Most Valuable Player (MVP) Awards, and was the NBA Scoring Champion. However,

before James had even accomplished these tangible feats in the NBA, he was being touted as a

future star—being compared to current and former great players—by not only journalists like

Deveney, but others in the media.

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Daniel Boorstin, author of The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America, categorized

adulation similar to what James was receiving as “a human psudo-event” where he articulated a

distinct difference between a “sport hero” and “celebrity athlete”:

“Sport heroes were recognized by virtue of their accomplishments that were real and

admired, and celebrity athletes—the creation of media promotion—were famous because

their images were well known…heroic recognition was rooted in greatness, and celebrity

recognition was rooted in fame” (Boorstin, 1982, p. 45).

When James failed to win a title after the 2009-10 season he left the Cleveland Cavaliers

to join the Miami Heat. He announced his free-agent decision on July 8, 2010 in a highly

publicized way—an hour-long ESPN special titled, “The Decision.” Then, the next night, the

Miami Heat organization greeted his arrival with a spectacle of fireworks, fog lights, and 13,000-

plus fans (Broussard, 2010).

James was highly criticized for his actions, causing the public to began to have torn

opinions on James and whether his stardom was the product of “media promotion”—as Boorstin

described.

Research Question

The recent events surrounding James offered me a kairotic moment to go back and revisit

my previous research on Deveney‟s rhetoric. Revisiting Deveney‟s written rhetoric “post-The

Decision” and looking at his recent pieces on James strengthened my initial conclusions and also

create a new rhetorical category, “The Big Three.”

However, studying the written rhetoric of Deveney also led me to further questions

regarding the way it was being used to shape James‟ stardom. While I acknowledged Deveney‟s

use of rhetorical strategies, my conclusions had me inquiring about additional studies that could

be done on Deveney‟s Sporting News articles. In the heuristic of my initial study, I explained

how analyzing the visual rhetoric—the pictures accompanying his articles—would useful to

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understand how the images accompanying Deveney‟s articles impacted his rhetoric used to shape

James‟ stardom (Hollister, 2011, p. 25).

Literature Review

Early research relating to visual rhetoric was done by Roland Barthes (1977). Through

his essay, Rhetoric of the Image, Barthes used images in advertising in order to emphasize his

claim that visual rhetoric consists of three messages: the linguistic, coded iconic, and non-coded

iconic (Barthes, 1977, p. 154).

Regarding the linguistic message, Barthes believed that “anchorage is the most frequent

function of the linguistic message and is commonly found in press photographs and

advertisements” (Barthes, 1977, p. 157). The linguistic message can be either connoted

(expressed or stated indirectly) or denoted (a sign or indication of). This is important because

with each image, there is a series of signs—some are explicit and some are uncertain.

Anchorage created by the linguistic message helps to bring together the multiple signs, signifiers,

and signifieds of an image.

Barthes argued that the photograph “is able to transmit the literal information without

forming it by means of discontinuous signs…” (Barthes, 1977, p. 158). The photo denoted a

“consciousness of having-been-there” (Barthes, 1977, p. 159). Barthes‟s definition of the

rhetoric of an image contended that what is photographed, and how it is photographed is a set of

“connotators, or a rhetoric” that may be expressed through a “the classification of its

connotators” (Barthes, 1977, p. 161).

In order to examine the photographs of LeBron James accompanying Deveney‟s Sporting

News articles, it is important to get a more contemporary perspective on the rhetoric surrounding

photo images.

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An article by Cara Finnegan (2001) offered a modern perspective on photography that

indirectly contested Barthes contention that a photo denoted reality. Finnegan examined the

controversy surrounding the photographs by Arthur Rothstein of a cow skull in North Dakota.

In 1936, Rothstein—who was a member of Resettlement Administration found by the

FDR administration—took the picture to illustrate the drought of the west. As the picture

circulated and FDR made “political visits” to the west, newspapers began to question the

authenticity of the photograph (Finnegan, 2001, p. 137).

Rothstein later acknowledged in a 1961 interview for Popular Photography magazine

that he “manipulated the photograph…experimenting with textures and shadows, I took many

pictures then moved the skull…to a grassy spot near a cactus where I could get another effect”

(Finnegan, 2001, p. 137).

Finnegan claimed that images created a naturalistic enthymeme where the audience “fills

in the blanks of the argument” (Finnegan, 2001, p. 143). She contended that through

manipulation of an image—either by the photographer, an editor, or by framing a particular

image—the reality can change. By changes in lighting, placement of the figure in the image,

camera angle/position, closeness, the message depicted the verbal argument can be interpreted

differently (Finnegan, 2001, p. 144).

Robert Hariman and John Lewis Lucaites (2003) continued to discuss how photograph

manipulation contributed to creating visual rhetoric. Analyzing several images that included the

girl from the photograph “Accidental Napalm”—an iconic image of a Vietnamese girl burned

badly during an explosion—Hariman and Lucaites discussed the various ways the image made

rhetorical appeals.

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Just as Finnegan critiqued aspects of a photograph that manipulated the argument being

made, Hariman and Lucaites created categories surrounding the girl that they contended help

create appeal. They took into consideration the gaze, camera angles, body positioning, and facial

expressions: “this direct address defines her relationship to the viewer: she faces the lens, which

activates the demanding reciprocity of direct, face-to-face interaction, and she is aligned with the

frontal angle of the viewer‟s perspective” (Hariman & Lucaites, 2003, p. 40).

Although this analysis moves closer to understanding the rhetoric surrounding an image,

neither Finnegan‟s or Hariman and Lucaites‟s principals for analyzing photographs would be

comprehensive for my study of the images accompanying Deveney‟s articles.

In order to analyze the visual rhetoric of my images, I relied on Jessica Borhart (2005)

and her use of Kress and van Leeuwen‟s theory on visual design. Much similarly to my question

of whether images impact the shaping of LeBron James‟ stardom, Borhart asked if Sports

Illustrated’s covers were “reflecting and perpetuating attitudes towards females in sport and

whether female athletes are presented stereotypically and as objects or subjects” (Borhart, 2005,

p. 8). In order to answer her question, she employed Kress and van Leeuwen‟s five categories of

an image, stating that they “look at not only the signs used in an image, but also what the sign-

makers may have intended the image to mean. Since sign-makers use strategies when creating an

image, we can now interpret meaning from the images using visual design theory” (Borhart,

2005, p. 17).

Methodology

Kress and van Leeuwen‟s (2007) discussion of representation and interaction is what I

used in order to analyze the visual rhetoric surrounding Deveney‟s articles. Each photograph I

chose consists of “represented participants (the people, the places and things depicted through

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images) and interactive participants (the people who communicate with each other through

images, the producers and viewers of images)” (Kress and van Leeuwen, 2007, p. 114). These

participants have three relationships, according to Kress and van Leeuwen: “(1) Relations

between represented participants; (2) relations between interactive and represented participants;

and (3) relations between interactive participants” (p. 114).

For the purposes of this particular study, the represented participants are LeBron James,

other NBA players, the court, or anything else in the photographs. The interactive participants

are Sean Deveney (although he did not take the photos, a conscience rhetorical decision was

made to include specific images with the articles) and me—the audience.

Photographs create detachment between represented participants and interactive

participants. Because of a lack of face-to-face communication, when confronted by an image,

the relationship is only represented. Kress and van Leeuwen contend that “whether or not we

(the audience) identify with the way we are addressed, we do understand how we are addressed,

because we do understand the way images represent social interactions and social relations” (p.

116).

In order to understand the rhetorical functions of the images accompanying Deveney‟s

articles, it is necessary to look at the five strategies Kress and van Leeuwen described that give

meaning to images.

The Image Act and The Gaze

One way an image establishes a relationship with viewers is through gaze. When LeBron

James looks directly at a viewer‟s eyes, contact is made; when this does not occur, no contact is

made. Also, James can gesture at viewers. Gestures are considered image acts. The direct gaze

and direct gesture are how James can demand something of the viewer—“the image wants them

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to do something or to form a pseudo-social bond of a particular kind with the represented

participant” (Kress and van Leeuwen, 2007, p. 118).

The lack of gaze or indirect gesture establishes no contact with the viewer, but instead

James is offering himself as “the object of dispassionate scrutiny” (Kress and van Leeuwen,

2007, p. 118). An indirect act could be categorized as a photo of James simply playing

basketball.

James‟ facial expression also creates visual rhetoric with viewers. Depending on his

expression (smile, cold glare, or arrogant grin), James creates rhetoric as to what relationship the

viewer should have with him.

Finally, whether James is attempting to make contact with the viewers needs

consideration. A posed photograph of James demonstrates that he knows a viewer is looking,

while a photograph of him playing basketball during the game represents James is unaware at the

moment he is being photographed and is making no attempt to connect with the viewer.

Size of Frame and Social Distance

Depending on how James is photographed—extreme close-up, close-up, medium close-

up, medium long shot, long shot, and very long shot—determines the relationship the viewer has

with James. The closer the camera is to James, the more intimate the relationship; the farther

away the camera is, the less intimate. Also, the size of the frame and what it displays of James‟

body has a rhetorical role. Close-ups can showcase specific attributes (muscles, legs, face),

while distance shots convey less.

Perspective and Subjective Image

The point of view from which James and others in the images are shot is also another

way of creating visual rhetoric. An image can be shot with either central perspective or without

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central perspective. Images shot for a central perspective are subjective and offer what there is

to see “only from a particular point of view” (Kress and van Leeuwen, 2007, p. 130). Central

perspective creates realistic images. James photographed in the moment of a game, or in a real

life situation conveys central perspective. However, images shot without central perspective are

objective and do not depict reality. A “Photoshoped” imaged of James is one without central

perspective.

Involvement and the Horizontal Angle

James‟ positioning in an image can be either frontal or oblique to the viewer. The

difference between the two angles “is the difference between detachment and involvement”

(Kress and van Leeuwen, 2007, p. 136). Frontal angles invite the viewer to share in James‟

world, while an oblique angle creates a distinction between „his‟ world and the viewers‟ (Kress

and van Leeuwen, 2007, p. 136).

Power and Vertical Angle

James can be photographed from high, low, or eye level angles. Angles dictate who has

the power in the relationship. If James is photographed from a low angle, the viewers are

looking up at him—giving him power. If James is photographed from a high angle, the viewer is

looking down on him, giving power to the viewer. Finally, an eye level angle creates an equal

distribution of power between James and the viewer (Kress and van Leeuwen, 2007, p. 140).

Applying Kress & van Leeuwen’s Strategies

Using Kress and van Leeuwen‟s five strategies for my image analysis, I gathered 32

pictures of James from Deveney‟s 35 articles as my initial data set. From those 32 pictures, I

made deliberate choices and decided on eight images that either explicitly or implicitly enhanced

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Deveney‟s four written rhetorical motifs used to shape James‟ stardom throughout his articles

(Hollister, 2011, 11-19):

“LeBron over Team”

Whenever Deveney describes the Cleveland Cavaliers as secondary to LeBron

James. This includes all instances where the Cavaliers are referred to as

possessions of James (ie. His team, James‟ Cavs, etc). Also, this included articles

where James was referenced over his teammates even though the article was

about the team, not LeBron James.

“The Big Three” “Whenever LeBron is grouped with his teammates—specifically, Wade and

Bosh. Instead of elevating James above his teammates, or giving James

ownership over the team, Deveney discusses James, Bosh, and Wade as equals

and sharing ownership of the Heat.”

“Comparing LeBron” “Whenever LeBron James‟ skill, playing style, abilities, work ethic, or any other

trait important to basketball success is compared to an NBA player or another

superior athlete. Comparisons will be counted if it is done by Deveney himself,

as well as fellow teammates, coaches, analysts, former players.”

“LeBron as a Commodity”: “LeBron as a Commodity” was defined as: “Whenever LeBron is discussed as a

commercial good—something that is coveted, used, traded, marketed, etc.”

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Analysis

Visual Examples of “LeBron Over Team”

An example of an image

explicitly enhancing Deveney‟s

“LeBron over Team” motif is the

image (Fig 1) from the piece “His

Time is Wow.”

Throughout the piece, which

discusses the Cleveland Cavaliers

berth to the 2007 NBA Finals,

Deveney uses the “LeBron Over

Team” motif multiple times—

writing how “LeBron got the Cavs this far” and that “you knew LeBron James would get the

Cavs to The Finals” (Deveney, “His Time is Wow,” p. 34). Deveney even speculates that once

The Finals come, “…the rest of the Cavaliers will fade into the background—this is James‟

moment” (p. 35).

The photo reinforces Deveney‟s motif. James is shot from an oblique angle, with his

back to the viewer—clearly making his name and number visible. He is not engaged with the

viewer at all. The photograph is taken from a high angle from a distance of a medium long shot.

The distance of the shot allows the viewer to observe the fans‟ adulation of James. All eyes are

on him—fans cheering, clapping, taking pictures, and smiling at his presence. James knows he

is being photographed from the fans, but, presumably, does not know he is being photographed

from behind. He is putting on a show for the fans that the viewer is observing. They are not

Fig 1

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cheering the Cavaliers, the fans are cheering James. The photo insinuates that if “you” (the

viewer) were there, you would be cheering James too.

The photograph (Fig 2) is a less explicit example of Deveney‟s “LeBron Over Team”

motif. This image is included alongside the piece “Win or Else.” The entire focus of the article

is on the Cleveland Cavaliers winning a championship for James and what repercussions it will

have on his pending free agency decision.

Deveney explains how “James‟ (for now, at

least) Cavaliers” need to win a championship in order

to keep him in Cleveland (Deveney, “Win or Else”, p.

9). The team spent money to “ensure James get the

ring he so badly wants,” and coming up short in the

playoffs could mean James leaving Cleveland (p. 9).

Deveney explains how “selling a LeBron-less roster to

Cleveland” would be nearly impossible (p. 10).

This photograph is shot at a high vertical angle

and shows James performing an indirect image act of

dunking the basketball. He offers an indirect gaze. James is not attempting to make contact with

the viewer through this image. The high perspective, combined with the medium long shot is

giving the viewer power and freedom to observe the whole image.

James is literally above his team in this photograph. They are seen as tiny—trailing him

and trying to keep up. The photo implicitly shows the discrepancy between James and the rest of

his teammates. James is better than them and must win despite them. This playoff run is all

Fig 2

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about winning for James, so his teammates—whether they perform well or not—will always be

below and in the background.

Visual Example of “The Big Three”

The image (Fig 3) illustrates Deveney‟s

shift in rhetoric once James chose to play for the

Miami Heat with fellow “stars” Dwyane Wade and

Chris Bosh.

His piece “Even with its Big Three, Miami

Faces a Trio of Issues,” reveals a sudden shift to a

new rhetorical motif. In Deveney‟s previous

articles, his “LeBron Over Team” motif was

prevalent. However, now, instead of the Heat

being “LeBron‟s team” they became “The Big

Three.” Deveney writes about “the arrival of

LeBron James and Chris Bosh in South Beach to join forces with teammate Dwyane Wade”

(Deveney, “Even with its Big Three, Miami Faces a Trio of Issues,” p. 16). Deveney presents

James, Wade, and Bosh, as equals (Wade especially); “Miami now features two players, Wade

and James, who need the ball in their hands” (p. 16).

Deveney‟s distinct change in rhetoric is also accompanied by a distinct change in the

visual image he used to accompany his piece. Instead of an image just of James, a photograph of

James, Wade, and Bosh is used.

The medium long shot frames all three players. James and Bosh are on either side of

Wade, facing the camera at an oblique angle. While each player offers a direct gaze and smile

Fig 3

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that invites the viewer, Wade—who has played for the Heat his entire career—is featured in the

center, holding the basketball. This direct gesture and his frontal positioning to the camera help

the viewer read the word “HEAT” on his chest; visually representing him as the center of the

team and establishing his as the image‟s (and team‟s) focal point.

Visual Examples of “Comparing LeBron”

This image (Fig 4) is another example that

utilized the gaze in order to explicitly enhance the

written rhetoric in Deveney‟s piece. The image is

from the article, “The Man Who Would Be King,”

which utilized all three of motifs, but relied heavily on

“Comparing LeBron.”

Deveney discusses James‟ first postseason

game of his career as “an unveiling, a revelation, a

coronation, a sort of NBA apocalypse after which

nothing would quite be the same” (Deveney, “The

Man Who Would Be King”, p. 24). He compares James to NBA Hall of Famers Elgin Baylor,

Oscar Robinson, and Michael Jordan. Deveney uses the quote from Hall of Famer Rick Barry to

support his claim that James is a prodigy; “I fantasize about LeBron‟s ability. He is the best

player I have ever seen at this age.” (p. 25).

Using an eye level gaze, the photo is demanding the viewer to look at James. James

gives the viewer an extremely confident look. He knows he is being photographed and therefore

made a conscious decision to make that facial expression.

Fig 4

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The close up shot creates intimacy with the viewer. The framing of James‟ head and

neck resembles that of bust sculptures often made to honor royalty. Without central perspective,

the digitally added words “KING” align perfectly with James‟ sweatband to create a symbolic

crown for his head. The image demands the viewer to observe James and his greatness, as if he

were a king.

This image (Fig 5) is another example of Deveney‟s “Comparing LeBron” motif.

Although it is much less explicit, it still offers visual rhetoric that reinforces Deveney‟s point in

his article “Player of the Year: LeBron James.”

Deveney names James Sporting News’ NBA Player of the Year. He defends his decision

by claiming that James has “catapulted himself from among the elite of today‟s NBA players,

into a mix of all-time greats” (Deveney,

“Player of the Year: LeBron James”, p. 8).

Deveney quotes Hall of Famer George

Gervin to reinforce point; “He‟s incredible.

The combination of speed and power and

athleticism is something you just don‟t

see” (p. 8). The photograph showcases the

“power and athleticism” that Gervin marvels and also provides visual rhetoric for Deveney‟s

claim that James in the best in the league.

Using an indirect gaze and indirect gesture, the photograph is creating no contact with the

viewer. Instead, the indirect gesture and gaze—combined with medium distance—offers the

viewer to observe the specimen that James has become.

Fig 5

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James is shot at an oblique angle to the viewer and his gesture of flexing his muscles

shows his domination over the NBA. Also, by covering his teammate in the background by his

bicep, James is demonstrating his superiority over his teammates and fellow players in the NBA.

This image (Fig 6) is from Deveney‟s piece “Kobe or LeBron?” While the image offers a

visual companion to the debate, it also implicitly reinforces Deveney‟s rhetoric in the piece on

how he thinks James compares to Bryant.

Deveney used a poll and quotes from a panel of

28 Hall of Famers in order to debate the argument.

Although Bryant is ranked number one, the piece

indicates that James is very close to Bryant‟s talent;

“he‟s in the upper-echelon of special people—Bo

Jackson, Deion Sanders, people like that…the world is

at his feet, but he‟s a year or two from owning it”

(Deveney, “Kobe or LeBron?”, p. 45). Deveney uses

former NBA greats to justify his ranking of James

compared to Bryant and other current NBA players.

This photograph uses the direct gaze and direct gesture—demanding the viewer‟s

attention. Bryant and James are smiling at the camera forming a pleasant bond with the viewer,

but they don‟t seem to be acknowledging each other‟s presence.

James, who is 6‟8, appears shorter than Bryant who is 6‟6—demonstrating that the two

players were not photographed together and that it was taken without central perspective.

However the height discrepancy and James‟ oblique body position toward Bryant seem to be

rhetorical decisions made specifically to create a sense of rivalry between the two players. But,

Fig 6

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since they are both smiling (James almost grinning from the oblique angle), the rivalry has a “big

brother, little brother” playfulness to it. Right now, Bryant appears taller because he is number

one, but James is not far behind.

Visual Examples of “LeBron as a Commodity”

The image of James (Fig 7) is an

implicit visual representation of Deveney‟s

“LeBron as a Commodity” rhetoric from his

piece “2010 Vision.”

Deveney‟s piece revolves around

speculation of what team James will decide to

play for once free agency arrives. He writes

that “NBA front offices everywhere are

salivating” (Deveney, “2010 Vision”, p. 6).

Deveney lays out a list teams and the reasons

James would chose to play there; “Every team

has LeBron fever…but in the end, only a

handful of teams will have a shot at LeBron” (p. 6).

Using a low vertical angle shot, the photograph gives James power over the viewer. Not

only is he above everyone on the court, he is also above the viewer. Also, the long shot creates

distance between with the viewer. James is not attempting to make contact with the viewers.

Like Deveney‟s rhetoric, this image signifies that James has all the power over his free

agency decision. While every team would want James, he is fully in control of his situation.

Also, the image act of dunking the basketball is symbolic of the power he has in going to the

Fig 7

145

team of his choosing. Like the fans and players, the viewer must sit back and watch as James

decides how he wants his 2010 free agency to unfold.

The image (Fig 8) was included in Deveney‟s piece title “Let‟s Play LeBroninoes”—an

article written just before James‟ free agency. Like previous articles, Deveney offers

speculation on 2010 free agency and how “identifiable stars are pulling up their roots and

heading elsewhere, potentially devastating some markets—most notably the prospect of LeBron

James leaving Cleveland” (Deveney, “Let‟s Play LeBroninoes”, p. 14). Deveney speculates that

“whatever James does will set off a domino effect—maybe more like a tsunami effect—around

the league,” both competitively, but also financially (p.14).

This image is shot without central perspective in order to give an explicitly visual

representation of what Deveney is describing in his article. There are multiple photographs of

James shot at eye level, giving a direct gaze to the camera and smiling. The image was clearly

Fig 8

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manipulated in order to put James in the jersey of one of his potential future teams. This creates

a bond with the viewer and helps them visually see Deveney‟s speculation become a reality.

Additionally, James and other NBA free agent‟s images are superimposed on domino

chips. The viewer is looking down from a high vertical angle giving them the power to see the

eventual “domino effect” of James‟ free-agent decision. The use of the dominoes also

commodifies James and the other players—turning them into playing pieces that impact certain

teams depending on how they are manipulated.

Placing James as the head domino reinforces Deveney‟s rhetoric that James is the most

important free-agent commodity—it is not until his decision that the rest of the dominoes will

fall. It gives a visual representation of Deveney‟s premises in his piece: Where will James

decide to go? What will happen as a result?

Never in the piece does Deveney speculate on James‟ decision being reactive to another

player‟s—James is always the decision-maker. The combination of the three direct gaze images

of James, juxtaposed next to the domino hypothetical, continues to enhance Deveney‟s rhetoric

that James is the one with the power. While his placement at the front of the domino line

illustrates his status as a free-agent commodity, it also visually emphasizes how Deveney sees

James‟ talents in comparison to the other 2010 free agents. James‟ decision effects everyone

else‟s decisions, because he is the best.

Conclusions

Using a sampling of eight photographs, it is clear that the images accompanying

Deveney‟s articles further contribute to his rhetoric in the shaping of James‟ stardom. Again, as

was said before, although Deveney did not take the photos of James, a rhetorical decision was

made to include a particular image with a particular article.

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What I found to be most interesting is that each of the photographs included with the

articles added either an explicit or implicit example of Deveney‟s written rhetorical motif. This

finding strengthened my initial research and provided confirmation to the coding I made of

Deveney‟s rhetoric.

Unfortunately, Deveney only has written two articles with James on the Miami Heat (the

other had no image). With such a small sample size, it is difficult to definitively determine

whether James will always be portrayed with “The Big Three” when Deveney employs that

particular motif. A larger—more time-tested—sample size is necessary to draw that conclusion.

Kress and van Leeuwen‟s strategies for understanding an image were highly effective in

providing criteria for classifying the visual rhetoric underlying each image. Throughout my

research, I have developed such a close relationship with Deveney‟s work, making it possible

that I used Kress and van Leeuwen‟s strategies to positively confirm many of my previous

findings. Therefore, having other researchers perform the same analysis would be a suggestion I

would have to create more reliability within my research.

Also, although it is a stretch, another addition to this research would be to contact

Deveney and ask him what the decision-making process was in the incorporation of images with

his articles. This would provide insight as to who was making the rhetorical decisions to

accompany a specific article with a specific image.

While it is problematic to generalize from this study, my research on the visual rhetoric in

Deveney‟s Sporting News articles has provided evidence that there are other factors—besides

written rhetoric—that sports journalists use in their articles that influence the shaping of LeBron

James‟ stardom.

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