Social Fragmentation and the Decline of American Democracy

Robert E. Denton, Jr., holds the W. Thomas Rice Chair in the Pamplin College of Business and is Professor and Head of the Department of Communication at Virginia Tech, USA. Denton is the author, co-author or editor of 25 books on the presidency and political campaigns. His most recent volume is entitled Political Campaign Communication: Principles and Practices, 8th Edition (with Judith Trent and Robert Friendenberg). Ben Voth is Associate Professor and Director of Debate and Speech programs in the Communication Studies Division of the Meadows School of the Arts at Southern Methodist University, USA. He is a leading national scholar on debate and the power of the human voice. He is the author of The Rhetoric of Genocide: Death as a Text (2014). He is currently an Advisor to the Bush Institute, USA, and the Debate fellow for the Calvin Coolidge Foundation in Vermont, USA. He is an officer in the American Forensics Association and served on the editorial board of Argumentation and Advocacy.

A Divided and Selfish Nation:  A United States of America No More .- Democracy and the "Social Contract:" Prescription for Freedom and Equality .- Generational Change and Social Values .- The Postmodern Culture and Political Implications .- The Epistemological Poisoning of America .- De-mock-racy: Comic Framing as Political Wrecking Ball .- Making Black Lives Matter Today .- What Can We Do? An American Renaissance Predicated on Communicative Idealism .- The Practice of Politics Today and the Greater Tomorrow.