Imagining U.S. Democratic Values in Commencement Addresses

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Author(s): Jay P. Childers (University of Kansas, USA)and Mark Wonnacott (University of Kansas, USA)
Copyright: 2014
Pages: 17
Source title: Communication and Language Analysis in the Public Sphere
Source Author(s)/Editor(s): Roderick P. Hart (University of Texas - Austin, USA)
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-5003-9.ch005

Keywords: Communications Theory / Information Science Reference / Literacy and Language Studies / Media & Communications

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Abstract

This chapter begins with an assumption that while democracy means the people rule, how the people are supposed to rule is both always in need of articulation and subject to change over time. Given this, this chapter explores the rhetoric of commencement addresses delivered at various colleges and universities between 1935 and 2012 to examine the ways in which democracy is imagined. What an analysis of these 158 speeches reveals is that democratic citizenship has increasingly become understood as the ability to pursue individual happiness and success. Moreover, such a vision of citizenship has been given to young adults through the increasing use of personal narratives instead of arguments derived from shared or universal values. Such changes in how the American people imagine democracy ultimately present the nation with some important challenges for self-governance.

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