2016 Presidential Debate Lecture Series

Presentation Title: How Might Debates Matter beyond Effects?: Candidate Accountability and Performances of "Democratic Leadership"

Presenter: Dr. Kathryn M. Olson, Professor and Chair, Department of Communication, University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee

Lecture Date & Time: Tuesday, 10/11/16, 4 p.m.-5 p.m. in Greenpun Hall Auditorium

Abstract: This lecture focuses on functions that presidential debates might play for citizens beyond particular election outcomes, including requiring candidate performances of the values of democratic leadership.  Debates are sites for viewers to assess candidates as they enact accountability to the citizenry and attempt to negotiate Americans’ paradoxical expectations that an acceptable president act simultaneously as “one of the people” and “a superior leader.”  Such performances re-affirm our democracy’s values even as they test presidential aspirants.

As part of the Presidential Debate Lecture Series, Dr. Kathryn Olson, professor and chair of the Communication Department in the College of Letters & Science at University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee will discuss how presidential debates might function or matter to citizens beyond the popular questions of debates’ effects on particular election outcomes or voter learning.

Olson uses rhetorical criticism and argumentation to examine American texts, issues, movements, images, and debates with public consequences.

Link to Dr. Olson's faculty page: https://uwm.edu/communication/people/olson-kathryn

Link to Dr. Olson's CV: https://uwm.edu/communication/wp-content/uploads/sites/150/2014/11/olson_cv.pdf

• Olson, Kathryn M. “Unqualified Support: Joe Biden’s Disturbing Performance of Leadership, Loyalty, and Laughter in the 2012 Vice Presidential Debate.” In Disturbing Argument: Selected Works from the 18th NCA/AFA Alta Conference on Argumentation. 

   

  Edited by Catherine H. Palczewski, 219-224. New York: Taylor & Francis, 2014.
• Olson, Kathryn M. “Framing Silence and Absence Regarding Presidential Debates: Successful and Unsuccessful Performances of Democratic Leadership.” Argumentation and Advocacy 49 (2013): 167-194. 

   
• Expert Panelist, “Beyond Wins and Losses: A Citizen’s Guide to the 2012 Debates,” Knight TV Studio Newseum, Washington, DC, October 1, 2012, Live on C-SPAN, 

   
• Olson, Kathryn M. Book review of Jim Lehrer’s Tension City: Inside the Presidential Debates, from Kennedy-Nixon to Obama-McCain (2011), Presidential Studies Quarterly 42 (2012): 668-669. 

   
• Webinar Panelist, “Do Presidential Debates Matter in Contemporary Politics?” sponsored by NCA’s Research Board and advertised to the national and political media and via CRTNET, September 23, 2008. 

   
• Olson, Kathryn M. “Analyzing Televised Political Debates in the 2004 Election Cycle.” Argumentation and Advocacy 41 (2005): 191-195. 

   
• The Racine Group (David S. Birdsell, Diana B. Carlin, Edward A. Hinck, Kathleen E. Kendall, Michael Leff, Kathryn M. Olson, Shawn Parry-Giles, Michael Pfau, David Zarefsky, and Jennifer R. Considine). "White Paper on Televised Political Campaign Debates.