University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

"""You can fool some of the people some of the time"": perspective by incongruity in Ballyhoo magazine, 1931-1932"

Cooper, Troy

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Troy_Cooper.pdf

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/72796

Description

Title
"""You can fool some of the people some of the time"": perspective by incongruity in Ballyhoo magazine, 1931-1932"
Author(s)
Cooper, Troy
Issue Date
2015-01-21
Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)
Finnegan, Cara A.
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
Finnegan, Cara A.
Committee Member(s)
  • Ono, Kent A.
  • Murphy, John M.
  • Stole, Inger L.
Department of Study
Communication
Discipline
Speech Communication
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Date of Ingest
2015-01-21T19:48:17Z
Keyword(s)
  • Perspective by incongruity
  • Ballyhoo
  • Parody
  • Visual rhetoric
Abstract
This study analyzes two years of images from Ballyhoo magazine (1931-1932) as a form of visual rhetoric. I analyze the visual rhetoric of Ballyhoo to illustrate how it treated three important issues of 1930s America. First, Ballyhoo portrays Prohibition as a detrimental policy and scapegoats its creators and maintainers. Second, Ballyhoo comments on the Great Depression by both ridiculing the wealthy and powerful and identifying the ironies of living poor amid the Depression. Finally, in its critiques of consumer culture, and especially advertising, Ballyhoo employs parody to rhetorical effect by mocking the entire advertising enterprise. This study contextualizes, analyzes, and interprets Ballyhoo’s production of perspective by incongruity on the most pressing issues of the early 1930s. Ultimately, Ballyhoo succeeded in constructing a critical rhetoric of incongruity that was both timely in the 1930s and foundational to contemporary critiques that employ perspective by incongruity.
Graduation Semester
2014-12
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http://hdl.handle.net/2142/72796
Copyright and License Information
Copyright 2014 Troy Cooper

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