Requiem for the "Rhetoric of Doom"

• Published in: Peace and conflict 1996-03, Vol.2 (1), p.89-91
• Main Author: McOmber, James B.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Foreign Policy Making; Government Policy Making; Human; Mass Media; Nuclear War; Political Issues; Rhetoric; Social Issues; Social Movements; Weapons
• ISSN: 1078-1919; 1532-7949
• DOI: 10.1207/s15327949pac0201_8

Reviews the book, The nuclear freeze campaign: Rhetoric and foreign policy in the telepolitical age by J. Michael Hogan (1994). This book offers a conservative analysis of the persuasive strategies of the nuclear freeze movement of the early 1980s. Framed as a cynical response to the movement's claims for grass-roots legitimacy, The nuclear freeze campaign: Rhetoric and foreign policy in the telepolitical age argues that the movement's rhetorical strategies brought about both its temporary success with the media and its failure to promote the freeze as public policy. Hogan claims that he has no intention of taking a position on the freeze itself. He further suggests that he merely wishes to apply the same standards to the freeze campaign that liberals have applied to the vacuous rhetoric of Ronald Reagan. Yet the reviewer believes one cannot read this book without concluding that its author respects neither the freeze nor its advocates. Hogan portrays the originators of the freeze as professional leftists, their strategies as laden with a "rhetoric of doom" that left the public with little room for hope, and their educational campaigns as biased and factually incorrect. Even though he claims on the first page of the book that he "does not question the good intentions" of movement activists, Hogan later contends otherwise. Perhaps one should consider this book not as a critique of freeze advocates, but as a critique of the way the media coopted the movement. Indeed, Hogan's conclusion focuses not so much on persuasive strategy within the freeze movement, but on the dilemma that all movements face in the age of televised journalism: "how to sell their ideas without selling out". (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)