During a year-long ethnographic investigation of professional comic culture
in Tampa, Florida, I discovered that comic narratives are consistently rhe
torical, designed to persuade audience members to adopt certain ideological
positions. Further, the narratives are constructed within a classical rhet
orical framework, with comedians employing various discourse strategies. Co
medians used Aristotelian notions of ethos, as they strived to create and m
ain tain their "comic authority." They also utilized Isocrates' concept of
kairos, adapting and tailoring their narratives to their particular regiona
l audiences, and ultimately, the comedians worked within a Isocratean disco
urse paradigm, consisting of natural talent, praxis and theoria.