Award Date
5-15-2026
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
Communication
First Committee Member
David Gruber
Second Committee Member
Emma Bloomfield
Third Committee Member
Tzu-Chiao Chen
Fourth Committee Member
Benjamin Burroughs
Number of Pages
85
Abstract
This thesis develops the concept of ideology as lived rhetoric. It approaches ideology through participation, perception, and affective orientation, asking how rhetorical forms become experientially durable through ritual practice. Drawing on rhetorical criticism and genre theory, the project examines military commemoration in professional soccer as a civic performance through which ideological attachment acquires experiential force. Focusing on MLS Military Appreciation Nights and Premier League Remembrance rituals in 2025, the analysis unfolds through a comparative structure that places a shared genre of military commemoration into direct relation across contexts. Comparison operates as a method of visibility. Through intercultural positioning across European and American sport cultures, analytic clarity emerges from practices that might otherwise appear natural. When similar ritual forms are situated within distinct institutional and historical conditions, genre clarifies how perception is organized, how intensity is regulated, and how civic attachment takes shape. Across discursive, non-discursive, and political economic dimensions, commemorative rituals emerge as more than symbolic expressions. In MLS, gratitude organizes an affirmative mode of civic recognition, while Premier League remembrance rituals rely more heavily on restraint, loss, and historical continuity. Together, these contrasting forms reveal how ideology becomes felt, normalized, and reproduced through ritual participation. The comparative framework shows how commemorative form stabilizes distinct moral atmospheres while sustaining recognizable genre conventions. Ideology persists here as a lived rhetorical condition, sustained through repetition, participation, and the patterned continuity of genre.
Keywords
Commemoration; Genre; Ideology; Lived Rhetoric; Ritual; Sport
Disciplines
Communication | Philosophy | Rhetoric and Composition
File Format
File Size
22300 KB
Degree Grantor
University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Language
English
Repository Citation
Mayser, David Nepomuk, "Ideology as Lived Rhetoric: Ritual, Perception, and Commemorative Genre in Sport" (2026). UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones. 5582.
https://oasis.library.unlv.edu/thesesdissertations/5582
Rights
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