Sound-Bite Saboteurs: Public Discourse, Education, and the State of Democratic Deliberation

Sound-Bite Saboteurs examines the emergence of a multifaceted, multimedia culture that encourages the use of sound bites to silence one’s opponents at the expense of democratic deliberation and debate. No simple partisan phenomenon or mere attempt to spin” a particular issue, sound-bite sabotage is, the authors argue, a sophisticated and media-savvy effort by public and private elites to destroy the grounds of public discourse, higher education, and democratic argument. By displacing democratic debate with political spectacle, sound-bite saboteurs attempt to keep citizens more entertained but less informed, more cynical but less engaged, more adept as consumers but less adept as agents. In a broad-based and integrated analysis of this phenomenon, the authors argue that sound-bite sabotage can and must be resisted both within the classroom and beyond.

Julie Drew is Associate Professor of English at the University of Akron. She is the coauthor (with William Lyons) of Punishing Schools: Fear and Citizenship in American Public Education and the coeditor (with Gary A. Olson) of Landmark Essays on Advanced Composition. William Lyons is Professor of Political Science at the University of Akron and is also the author of The Politics of Community Policing: Rearranging the Power to Punish. Lance Svehla is Associate Professor of English at the University of Akron.