Balancing the Audiences of the AFL-CIO: The Challenge of Creating Identification

• In Event: Rhetorics of the Economy, Class, and Materiality

Abstract

At the American Federation of Labor and Industrial Congress (AFL-CIO), Sweeney faced two different audiences: “lower-class” and “middle-class” audiences. His rhetoric identifies primarily with the lower -class , who are more likely to identify with economic issues, but the “middle-class” or “upper-class,” find these issues less salient. As a result, a large portion of his audience is unmoved by his appeals, and his success is limited.

Author

• Amber Burkett Peplow, Wright State University