Cultural Topoi in Public Relations

A topos is a line of argument that can be adapted to a variety of subjects and audiences. Since Aristotle's time, communicators have used lists of topoi to generate arguments relevant to their persuasive tasks (→ Argumentative Discourse; Persuasion). In addition to introducing the cultural topoi perspective, this entry describes a set of topoi that are widely used: cultural premises about the social world and how human relationships should be organized (see Leichty & Warner 2001 for a detailed description).