TY - JOUR AB - <span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Georgia, serif;">Grounding assumptions about the function of public discourse are critical to the formation and functioning of society. One way of examining those assumptions is through analyzing how public discourse gets represented in popular culture. Patricia Roberts-Miller</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Georgia, serif;">’</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Georgia, serif;">s (2004) taxonomy of models of public spheres serves as a template for the analysis of the film <i>Thank You for Smoking</i> (2006). This analysis demonstrates how the film both advocates for and contributes to the evolution of a post-truth public sphere by obscuring the historical controversy over tobacco. Truth and knowledge are not merely hidden or ignored but neutralized, and </span><span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Georgia, serif;">“</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Georgia, serif;">spin</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Georgia, serif;">”</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Georgia, serif;"> is therefore normalized and ultimately justified as a necessary protection of individual rights in a libertarian democracy.</span> AU - Michael Dennis Donnelly DA - 2022/1// DO - 10.17077/2151-2957.31096 IS - 2 VL - 16 PB - The Project on Rhetoric of Inquiry (POROI) PY - 2022 TI - Representing Rhetoric: Post-truth and the Example of Thank You for Smoking T2 - Poroi UR - https://pubs.lib.uiowa.edu/poroi/article/id/31096/ ER -