A major part of developing your writing voice is practicing the use of the elements of rhetoric, a discipline that's built on the notion that language matters. Rhetoric gives you a way to work within the messiness of language. It helps writers think through the varied contexts in which language occurs, giving them a way to—ideally—effectively reach audiences with very different experiences.
In this blog posting, I encourage you to explore the elements of rhetoric that you can find in an advertisement that you choose. This could be a magazine ad, a TV commercial (think of the many Super Bowl ads!), a billboard, a movie trailer—the choice is entirely up to you! Try locating the elements of rhetoric used by your ad's creators in an effort to uncover what your chosen advertisement says about American culture.
Background: Imagine an alien race has been collecting intelligence about Americans entirely through a single medium: advertisements. Based on ads (e.g., TV commercials, videos, magazine ads, etc.) what would this alien species know about us? Given the prevalence of ads for pharmaceuticals, they’d have to think we were awfully frail. We must also hold something called “beer” in extremely high esteem. What if we take a closer look at a single advertisement and ask what it says about us as a culture? Sure, ads are used to sell stuff, but they sell us stuff by reflecting aspects of our culture to us.
In every advertisement, there is the surface text: “Buy this because of these reasons.” There is also subtext. This is what’s underneath the text, the underlying cultural connections that help sell the product. Think of how many beer commercials celebrate the hours after work where a person can unwind and relax with friends at the local watering hole. Since the subtexts of American ads is that work is miserable and the only relief that one gets from that misery is partying, this reason for drinking beer is readily understood by most American viewers.
Occasionally beer is seen as a reward after a hard day, but more often—as in a famous and award-winning ad for Bud Light called “Swear Jar,” in which office workers swear constantly in order to fill a “swear jar” with proceeds that will be used to purchase Bud Light—beer is the thing that liberates us from our terrible workaday lives. While the commercials are advertising beer, they are also selling an idea that Americans are expecting to actively dislike their jobs. Personally, you may find this distressing. If at all possible, people should like their jobs, especially considering the fact that during a given week many of us will spend more time working than doing anything other than sleeping. This kind of cultural reinforcement becomes cyclical; the commercial text is born out of the culture and in turn reinforces the culture it was born from. In your blog posting, try engaging in a process of observation, analysis, and synthesis in an effort to uncover what your chosen advertisement says about American culture.
The HOW of this learning activity
Try your hand at a blog posting! In your Sutori blog, try analyzing your chosen advertisement from a rhetorical perspective (e.g., locating and analyzing the elements of rhetoric you identify).Your posting could contain text, video, images, links, etc. You are considered the composer of your blog, so there is no limit to the creativity you may use!
Who is my audience? Your audience is interested in looking deeper into our experiences of the world and being shown something they didn’t initially recognize. They may have seen your chosen advertisement at least once but don’t have it memorized or anything like that.
What should I consider? Try sitting down with your advertisement and simply process your reaction to it. How do you respond? Is it persuasive? Do you have an emotional response to the surface text about what they're trying to sell you? How about the subtext (explained above)? What are you reacting to? Look more closely and make specific observations. Most advertisements have a narrative element in which they’re telling a kind of story. What’s the story of your ad? What sorts of scenes/images/words/sounds are being used by the creator? Are there people in the ad? How would you describe them in terms of demographics (age, gender, race, etc.) and personality? You’re looking for enough material to ultimately do your blog posting's rhetorical analysis.
Try drafting & revising your blog posting. Try putting all of your above observations together in order to answer some questions. Who is the ad targeting (e.g., the audience)? Why (e.g., the creator’s purpose)? What is important or valuable in the ad (e.g., the subject)? What would be viewed as good and bad in the world of the advertisement (e.g., the context)? What rhetorical appeals (e.g., logos, pathos, ethos, or Kairos) are used? Remember, your audience is expecting a rhetorical analysis of your chosen ad. It makes sense to start your blog posting with a description of the ad; this will help increase your audience’s familiarity with the text. After that, what do you think you should tell them to help them appreciate your message about the advertisement? A helpful chapter for this rhetorical analysis is Chapter 9. The Rhetorical Situation. Are you telling them something about the advertisement that isn’t immediately apparent? You want the sensation of pulling back a veil and allowing them to see the subtext (the narrative), which was always there but they didn’t recognize until you showed it to them. If you recognize that you’ve discovered something about the ad you didn’t know before, you’re probably going to do the same for them.
Here's a helpful image from Chapter 9. The Rhetorical Situation that can help you organize your blog posting:
The POSSIBILITIES in this learning activity
Reflection: Once you’ve gone through this full exercise of rhetorical analysis, you may find that you can read the subtext of other advertisements more quickly, even in real-time, as you’re watching/reading/listening. See if this happens. Watch the ads with more intention, more closely. What is really being sold? How are they selling it to you?
Remixing: Have you ever wanted to create your own advertisement or commercial? Well, you'll have the opportunity to with your Blog Posting #3—You’ve Got to Do This! (Passion Argument). Try to remember all of the elements of rhetoric that you locate in your chosen advertisement for this blog posting; you'll be able to create your own within your Passion Argument! What advertisement can you create to sell your passion to your audience?
Creativity: As the composer of this blog posting, you can choose how you want to format your writing. Can you supply the ad you've chosen? Do you want some images? Do you want to use multiple text boxes and/or headings? It's all up to you!