Don’t forget to upload your Rhetoric of Fear Analysis essays by Thursday, 5/4, on Canvas.
Plan for the Day
- Finish up stuff from last week
- Why American Fascism is on the Rise
- American Fascism And The Groomer Panic
- Focus on “everyday” rhetoric of fear
- Presentations
20/20: “The Devil Worshippers,” 16 May 1985 {Parts 1, 2, 3}
Sorry for the spoiler, but this news story was 99% fake news…maybe Trump’s on to something. Here’s a general timeline of the Satanic Panic (aka. Satanic Scare). You’ll notice that 20/20 “journalist” Geraldo Rivera eventually apologized for his fear mongering.
- Mike Warnke: Debunked Former Satanist
- Legacy of Satanic Panic to QAnon…
- Michelle Remembers
Jesus Camp (2006)
After watching that Morgan Spurlock video where he interviewed the kids from Jesus Camp years later, I was curious if there was more, and there is. I found these sources interesting:
- The Kids of Jesus Camp, 10 Years Later (6 July 2016)
- Where Are the Kids From the Jesus Camp Documentary Now? (Just last week)
- The Fire Center closed down months after the documentary came out (8 Nov 2006)
Job Losses and the Rhetoric of Fear
The threat of losing one’s job–the person’s livelihood–is certainly an anxious state of mind. Although we often think about it from personal perspectives as in, “my job…my career,” as opposed to a bigger picture perspective, “my industry is going away,” both have potential fear appeals associated with them. For as long as I remember being aware of the news, job growth and loses are some of the oldest stories I remember, and they’ve been the most consistent stories–more consistent than communist or terrorist fear mongering! I went back and read several articles about early- to mid-1980s future job loses and compared them to an article I read a couple days ago. I made a separate page for this.
Next Week
Well, there’s no class meeting, but you’ll have your presentations to upload to Canvas by Tuesday, 5/9, 11:07pm. Have a great summer (even if you can’t do 6 weeks in Italy), and I hope to see you in the future.
Works Cited
Brackett, John. “Satan, Subliminals, and Suicide: The Formation and Development of an Antirock Discourse in the United States during the 1980s.” American Music, vol. 36, no. 3, Fall 2018, pp. 271-302. JSTOR (opens if signed into Atkins)
Himmelstein, Jerome L. “The New Right,” in The New Christian Right,