Graduation Semester and Year

2011

Language

English

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy in English

Department

English

First Advisor

Kevin J. Porter

Abstract

This dissertation suggests that the question of whether or not America should employ torture as a means of fighting a post-9/11 War on Terror was not so much debated as it was asserted (in the affirmative) by the presidential administration of George W. Bush and the news media contemporary to his administration. Building on an observation by media researcher Sasha Torres, who recognized a representation of thinking on television that served to counter the Bush Administration and the media, this dissertation investigates how television functioned as an alternate forum for a debate on torture by examining the narratives of three serialized television programs which largely aired during the years contemporary to the Bush Administration: FOX's 24; ABC's Lost; and the SyFy Channel's reimagined Battlestar Galactica. Building on various theories from the fields of rhetoric, narratology, and critical theory, this dissertation proposes a theory of narrative rhetoric (TNR) designed to trace a narrative's progression and function; TNR is then utilized to analyze the three television programs to demonstrate how each program effectively advanced and maintained an anti-torture stance.

Disciplines

Arts and Humanities | English Language and Literature

Comments

Degree granted by The University of Texas at Arlington

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