Stephen Klien
Stephen Klien
Dr. Stephen A. Klien serves as the Director of Undergraduate Studies for the Department of Communication. He teaches courses in introduction to communication, argumentation, political communication, and rhetorical studies. He also has professional experience in faculty development and is a current Faculty Fellow for MU’s Teaching for Learning Center (T4LC) specializing in the evaluation of teaching. His current work is focused on the development of training resources for improving the collection, interpretation and use of student feedback survey data by faculty. His other research interests lie in the criticism of contemporary political rhetoric, with particular attention paid to the constitution of public character and citizen agency. This work has focused on the rhetorical construction of ideology and agency by conservative popular media, as well as on the constitution of citizen agency in post-9/11 war films.
Comm 2500 – Introduction to Communication
Comm 3572 – Argument and Advocacy
Comm 4491 – Political Public Address
Comm 4573 – Political Communication
Comm 4940 – Internship
Klien, S.A. (2015). Cinematic simulacra and the prospect for public agency: Constructing the citizen-soldier in post-9/11 war films. In E. Sahlstein Parcell and L.M. Webb (Eds.), A communication perspective on the military: Interactions, messages, and discourses (pp. 373-390). New York: Peter Lang.
Klien, S.A. (2013). O’Reilly’s war on the “war on Christmas”: Diatribe, culture war and conservative ideology. In C. Rountree (Ed.), Venomous speech: Problems with American political discourse on the right and left (pp. 269-298). Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO.
Klien, S.A., and Farrar, M.E. (2009). The diatribe of Ann Coulter: Gendered style, conservative ideology, and the public sphere. In J.L. Edwards (Ed.), Gender and political communication in America: Rhetoric, representation, and display (pp. 63-85). Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
Klien, S.A. (2007). Complexity and ideology in televisual war rhetoric: The air war over Iraq in Campaign 2004. In D. Zarefsky and E. Benacka (Eds.), Sizing up rhetoric (pp. 181-199). Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press.
Klien, S.A. (2005). "Leave no man behind": The construction of public character, institutional legitimacy, and citizen agency in Black Hawk Down. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 22, 427-449.