Communication Studies graduate Barden presents paper at annual NCA conference

Hannah Barden, a 2023 Communication Studies graduate, presented her paper, “Museum Exhibition Consumerism Critique through the Lens of Burke’s Pentad and Ratios,” at the National Communication Association's 2023 convention.

The National Communication Association advances communication as the discipline that studies all forms, modes, media and consequences of communication through humanistic, social scientific and aesthetic inquiry. The annual convention was held Nov. 16-19 in National Harbor, MD.

Ms. Barden presented her paper as part of the Lambda Pi Eta Undergraduate Paper Session. 
In the 2022-2023 academic year, Barden served as president of the SUNY Fredonia’s chapter of Lambda Pi Eta. Lambda Pi Eta (LPH) is the National Communication Association’s official honor society at four-year colleges and universities.

LPH represents what Aristotle described in rhetoric as three ingredients of persuasion: logos (Lambda), meaning logic; pathos (Pi), relating to emotion; and ethos (Eta), defined as character credibility and ethics.

Barden’s paper was the outcome of COMM 302: Rhetoric and Criticism, a course taught by Department of Communication Associate Professor Angela McGowan-Kirsch. The paper examines a consumerism-critiquing rhetorical act – a 2011 museum exhibit created by social commentary artist Miguel Januário – by applying dramatistic theory. Through her research, Barden discovered that while there are many relevant elements encompassed by a given tenet, each tenet contains one element that plays a dominant role in the rhetorical act.

These dominant elements lend power to the act. Such an analysis is useful because it presents a unique tenet-oriented application of Burke’s classic theory.

Barden, who was the 2023 class president and a Commencement speaker, is currently a visitor experience specialist at Visit Ithaca.

SUNY Fredonia’s Department of Communication strives to foster an understanding of the role, process and practice of communication through teaching, research/creative work and service. This is of necessity a multidisciplinary task, drawing on ancient and modern rhetoric, social sciences, aesthetic theory and technique, and moral philosophy, to mention just a few of the disciplines.