Guy McHendry, Erika Kirby, and Jay Leighter (Department of Communication Studies) co-authored the chapter, John Oliver’s Long Rants: Teaching the Modes of Persuasion in an Online Public Speaking Class.
“John Oliver’s long rants on Last Week Tonight gain notoriety for taking poignant and urgent stands on pressing social issues amidst humor and entertainment. In 10-20 minute monologues, Oliver works to hail his audience to think, believe, and at times take action; this results in funny, sad, and/or complex examples of persuasion. These rants provide relevant examples of the modes of persuasion in action and when shown to students the rants can be used to make the abstract appeals (ethos, pathos, logos, mythos) identifiable and understandable. We use these rants to help teach the modes of persuasion in our basic communication studies course—a one credit online course that is, in part, designed to ask students to think about theories of speaking and persuasion. The purpose of this activity is to engage students in the study of the modes of persuasion through the use of one of John Oliver’s long rants.”
