Chapter 7 Rhetoric as Rhetorical Health Citizenship: Rhetorical Agency, Public Deliberation, and Health Citizenship as Rhetorical Forms:
Rebecca Kuehl, Sara Drury, and Jennifer Anderson
What is the most important takeaway from your chapter? That rhetorical agency, public deliberation, and health citizenship are all different rhetorical forms that intersect into what we call rhetoric as rhetorical health citizenship. Rhetorical health citizenship brings together these existing rhetorical forms to illustrate how rhetoric is operating in praxis through deliberation about health issues.
If you were making discussion questions for students (advanced undergraduates or early graduate students) to go along with your chapter, what would they be?
- What are the practical implications of rhetorical health citizenship? How does this idea explore individual actions and social or organizational actions in how we practice health in our communities?
- What other health issues, besides breastfeeding support and substance abuse, do you think might be explored through this idea of rhetorical health citizenship?
- What health issues are important in your own lives or in your own communities? How might you approach these issues through the concept of rhetorical health citizenship?
What questions do you feel your chapter leaves un-examined or where would you go with it next? What other health issues might work with this approach of rhetorical health citizenship? More studies with different health issues need to substantiate our analysis of the different rhetorical forms (rhetorical agency, public deliberation, health citizenship) and how they combine into this concept of rhetorical health citizenship.
Is there anything that you want those new to the field to know about RHM? RHM is an interdisciplinary community and is strengthened by its valuing of lay and expert opinions and perspectives. Many RHM scholars use rhetorical field methods or collaborative research methods that include scholars from a wide variety of disciplines and methodological approaches. Many RHM scholars partner with community organizations to try to improve health communication and how we use public discourse to articulate different health issues on both an applied and a theoretical level.
What is the most important takeaway from your chapter?
Rhetoric can operate in praxis through deliberation about health issues, expanding notions of rhetorical agency and health citizenship.
If you were making discussion questions for students (advanced undergraduates or early graduate students) to go along with your chapter, what would they be?
- How does agency relate to public deliberation? How might such agency enhance deliberative rhetoric? How might such agency create conflict with public deliberation?
- What are the challenges of creating inclusive deliberative spaces for rhetoric around health-based issues?
What questions do you feel your chapter leaves un-examined or where would you go with it next?
- How can deliberation over health issues be more inclusive and continue to reduce barriers?
What is the most important takeaway from your chapter?
Persuasive communication about health issues can be accomplished not only through strategic campaigns, but also through public deliberation and dialogue. What’s more, the public deliberation and dialogue approach inherently takes a community-based participatory approach to addressing health issues, involving multiple stakeholders to be part of the whole process and take ownership of it.
If you were making discussion questions for students (advanced undergraduates or early graduate students) to go along with your chapter, what would they be?
1) How might these methods be used to address other health concerns in our communities?
2) In what ways do public deliberation and dialogue methods contrast with traditional communication campaign design? In what ways are they similar?
3) How could these methods be combined with others (quantitative, qualitative) or used in other modalities (social media, apps, etc.) to better address complex health problems?
What questions do you feel your chapter leaves un-examined or where would you go with it next?
1) How do we know when health citizenship is happening? What does it look like across contexts? Can it be measured?
2) To what extent (if any) is health citizenship behavior related to specific actions? E.g., involvement with community groups, voting behavior, etc.
3) What individual differences (or community influences) motivate individuals to engage in health citizenship?
Is there anything that you want those new to the field to know about RHM?
Rhetorical field methods are an incredible tool for building multi-methodological approaches to address complex health issues in communities. They are extremely easy to combine with qualitative and quantitative methodologies. And they create fascinating new insights that cannot be achieved or captured through traditional quantitative or qualitative methods.