Jim A. Kuypers

Jim A. Kuypers, also known professionally as J. Andrew Kuypers, is an American scholar and consultant specializing in communication studies. A full professor at Virginia Tech, he has written on the news media, rhetorical criticism and presidential rhetoric, and is particularly known for his work in political communication which explores the qualitative aspects of framing analysis and its relationship to presidential communication and news media bias. As a consultant, Kuypers provides workshops, keynotes, coaching, and seminars on public speaking, leadership, strategic communication, performance anxiety reduction, conflict avoidance, and integrating human skills such as creativity and critical thinking with artificial intelligence.

Political communication Kuypers searches for media bias, and how the news media frames political news. He developed a qualitative (rhetorical) version of framing analysis designed to look for bias, and to understand how the original messages of political actors are reframed by the press before transmitted to the public. He has investigated how news broadcasts, stories, and editorials shape public understanding of issues and events in a particular direction. Quote: "Framing is a process whereby communicators, consciously or unconsciously, act to construct a point of view that encourages the facts of a given situation to be interpreted by others in a particular manner. Frames operate in four key ways: they define problems, diagnose causes, make moral judgments, and suggest remedies. Frames are often found within a narrative account of an issue or event, and are generally the central organizing idea." In relation to other theories of the press, Kuypers argues that "agenda-extension begins when media gatekeepers decide to publish a particular story because issues are often framed by station managers, producers, or editors by how they decide to tell a particular story. Although deciding what story to tell (gate-keeping) is the first step in all news reporting, the press takes a second step when determining how much attention to give to the story (agenda-setting), and a third step when they determine how to tell the story (agenda-extension).

Press Bias and Politics In his 2002 book Press Bias and Politics: How the Media Frame Controversial Issues Kuypers comparatively analyzed the speeches of five public figures, ranging from ministers to presidents from 1995 to 2000. He examined approximately 700 press reports on controversial issues that were published in 116 different newspapers. He reports finding a "left of center bias in mainstream press reporting". Kuypers puts forward four distinct journalistic practices allowing bias to seep into reporting. He concludes that only "a narrow brand of liberal thought" was supported by the press, with "all other positions shut out or shut down". Kuypers has stated in an interview with the Cybercast News Service that "this bias hurts the democratic process in general" and that the U.S. mainstream press "is an anti-democratic institution".

Bush's War Kuypers' third book was Bush's War: Media Bias and Justifications for War in a Terrorist Age. According to Kuypers, "The idea [in the book was to] look for themes about 9-11 and the War on Terror that the President used, and then look at what themes the press used when reporting on what the president said. After identifying themes, I determine how those themes are framed. Through this comparative analysis, we can detect differences in the frames presented to the American people, and determine the nature of any press bias." These results, the first combining framing analysis and moral foundations theory in this manner, reveal how journalists inject bias consciously and unconsciously into hard news stories, and that their moral foundations act to privilege liberal concerns and denigrate conservative concerns. Kuypers argues in this work that the news media framing acted to treat President Trump not as a source of news, but as a political opponent while at the same time helping the political opposition of the President. By evaluating journalistic practices through the lens of their own published ethical standards, Kuypers argues that contemporary journalistic practices are damaging the American Republic and makes the case for immediate incorporation of viewpoint diversity within news organizations.

Rhetorical criticism Kuypers edited the 2009 book Rhetorical Criticism: Perspectives in Action in which he explains rhetoric and rhetorical criticism, and presents 16 different perspectives on how to perform rhetorical criticism. Kuypers has written about "rhetorical criticism" and tried to explain "advocacy based criticism" in his 2000 article "Must We All Be Political Activists?" and the 2001 article "Criticism, Politics, and Objectivity: Redivivus".

In his latest work on rhetorical criticism, "Purpose, Practice, and Pedagogy in Rhetorical Criticism", Kuypers brings together 15 nationally and internationally recognized rhetorical critics who each contribute a chapter examining the three areas mentioned in the title of the book. According to Kuypers, the chapter authors "enter into the continuing discussion about the purpose of criticism, yet move beyond this to address on a personal level how they actually perform criticism, and also how they actually teach criticism to others. All the authors in this book agree on the societal importance of knowledge about the creation and critique of rhetoric. Additionally, the authors collectively provide wide ranging and strong justifications for teaching rhetorical criticism."

Selected publications Books

Kuypers, Jim A., ed. A Future for the News: What's Wrong with Mainstream News Media in America and How to Fix It. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2024. Kuypers, Jim A., ed. Public Communication in the Time of COVID-19: Perspectives from the Communication Discipline on the Pandemic. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2022. Kuypers, Jim A., ed. Personal and Administrative Perspectives from the Communication Discipline during COVID-19. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2022. Kuypers, Jim A., ed. Rhetorical Criticism: Perspectives in Action. 3rd ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2021. Kuypers, Jim A. President Trump and the News Media: Moral Foundations, Framing, and the Nature of Press Bias in America. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2020. Valenzano, Joseph M. III; Kuypers, Jim A.; and Braden, Stephen W. The Speaker: The Tradition and Practice of Public Speaking. 4th ed. Southlake, TX: Fountainhead Press, 2019. Kuypers, Jim A., ed. The 2016 American Presidential Campaign and the News Media: Implications for the American Republic and Democracy. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2018. Kuypers, Jim A., ed. Purpose, Practice, and Pedagogy in Rhetorical Criticism. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2014. Kuypers, Jim A. Partisan Journalism: A History of Media Bias in the United States. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014. Aamidor, Abe; Kuypers, Jim A.; and Wiesinger, Susan. Media Smackdown: Deconstructing the News and the Future of Journalism. New York: Peter Lang, 2013. D’Angelo, Paul; and Kuypers, Jim A., eds. Doing News Framing Analysis: Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives. New York: Routledge, 2010. Denton, Robert E.; and Kuypers, Jim A. Politics and Communication in America: Campaigns, Media, and Governing in the 21st Century. Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, 2008. Kuypers, Jim A. Bush’s War: Media Bias and Justifications for War in a Terrorist Age. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006. Kuypers, Jim A., ed. The Art of Rhetorical Criticism. Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 2005. Kuypers, Jim A. Press Bias and Politics: How the Media Frame Controversial Issues. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2002. Kuypers, Jim A.; and King, Andrew, eds. Twentieth-Century Roots of Rhetorical Studies. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2001. Kuypers, Jim A. Presidential Crisis Rhetoric and the Press in the Post-Cold War World. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1997.

Selected articles

Horning, Mike; and Kuypers, Jim A. “Conservative and Liberal Social Media ‘Arguments’ as Community Confirmation: A Rhetorical and Computer Assisted Analysis.” Argumentation and Advocacy 60 (2) (2024): 77–99. Kuypers, Jim A. “Ron DeSantis as Mainstream Radical.” Journal of Contemporary Rhetoric 13 (1) (2023): 30–38. Kuypers, Jim A. “The Destruction of Democracy: American Mainstream News Reportorial Practices Today.” Res Rhetorica 8 (3) (2021): 140–151. Kuypers, Jim A. “‘Scientific Rhetoric’: Kenneth Burke’s The War of Words and the Detection of the Conscious and Unconscious Biases of the Mainstream News Media.” The Kenneth Burke Journal 15 (1) (2021). Kuypers, Jim A.; and McDaniel, Caitlin. “The Inaugural Address of Donald J. Trump: Terministic Screens and the Reemergence of ‘Make America Great Again.’” The Kenneth Burke Journal 14 (1) (2019). Bakke, Peter; and Kuypers, Jim A. “The Syrian Civil War, International Outreach, and a Clash of Worldviews.” The Kenneth Burke Journal 11 (2) (2016). Goldman, Adria Y.; and Kuypers, Jim A. “Contrasts in News Coverage: A Qualitative Framing Analysis of ‘A’ List Bloggers and Newspaper Articles Reporting on the Jena 6.” Relevant Rhetoric 1 (1) (2010). Kuypers, Jim A.; Cooper, Stephen; and Althouse, Matthew. “The President and the Press: A Rhetorical Framing Analysis of George W. Bush’s Speech to the United Nations on November 10, 2001.” American Communication Journal 10 (3) (2008). Kuypers, Jim A.; and Cooper, Stephen. “A Comparative Framing Analysis of Embedded and Behind-the-Lines Reporting on the 2003 Iraq War.” Qualitative Research Reports in Communication 6 (1) (2005): 1–10. Kuypers, Jim A.; Young, Marilyn J.; and Launer, Michael K. “Composite Narrative, Authoritarian Discourse, and the Soviet Response to the Destruction of Iran Air Flight 655.” Quarterly Journal of Speech 87 (3) (2001): 305–320. Kuypers, Jim A. “From Science, Moral Poetics: Dr. James Dobson’s Response to the Fetal Tissue Research Initiative.” Quarterly Journal of Speech 86 (2) (2000): 146–167. Kuypers, Jim A. “Doxa and a Critical Rhetoric: Accounting for the Rhetorical Agent through Prudence.” Communication Quarterly 44 (4) (1996): 452–462.