The American Dream as Communication Process

The department of Media and Communication
Faculty of Humanities
is pleased to invite you to the lecture

The American Dream as Communication Process

by prof. Susan Opt
The lecture will be held on Monday, November 23, 2009,
at 10:15 a.m.
at Jinonice, room 2080

Abstract

The presentation applies William R. Brown’s Rhetoric of Social Intervention model to understand how U.S. Americans create and maintain American dream ideology, despite its apparent inconsistencies and contradictions.

The lecture will cover:

• What is the American Dream?
• How do U.S. Americans symbolically constituted the dream in discourse?
• How do U.S. Americans deal with the inconsistencies in the dream?
• What is the future for the dream?

Short bio of Prof. S. Opt

Susan K. Opt is chair and associate professor in the Communication Department at Salem College, Winston-Salem, North Carolina. She currently is a Fulbright Scholar at Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic. She holds a Ph.D. in Communication from the Ohio State University, an M.A. in Journalism from the Ohio State University, and a B.F.A.  in Theatre Arts Management from Wright State University. She has experience teaching a wide variety of undergraduate and graduate courses including communication theory, communication research, intercultural communication, public relations, public speaking, organizational communication, journalism, and the rhetoric of social intervention.

Her work has been published in journals such as Communication Quarterly, Journal of Radio Studies, Journal of Psychology, and the New Jersey Journal of Communication. She has also authored or co-authored four book chapters. In 2009 she was lead co-author on the book The Rhetoric of Social Intervention: An Introduction. Prior to becoming a full-time academic, Opt worked in the publishing industry as a journalist, typesetter, and book production editor.