A nation that chuckled over the Carter administration's creation of a cabinet-level Department of Symbols, as depicted in the Doonesbury comic strip, is not likely to be startled by the announcement that political communication has a symbolic, corporate character. But we might be jolted by Hart's display of discontinuities between our common-sense understanding of this facet of political discourse and the more specialized conceptions that often guide analyses and appraisals of political messages. The fundamental question that Dmid L. Swansoti (Ph.D., University of Kansas. 1971) is an associate professor of speech communication. University of IIlinois, Urbana, Illinois 61801,
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