How to Analyze Rhetoric

1. How to Analyze Rhetoric Or how to look at things and stuff

2. We analyze through filters • Think of how you analyzed yourself (or an event in your life) in the first assignment. • How did you examine the event? Did you tell me what you thought when you were younger and compare it to your thought process now? • Often times the filters we use can be classified within the five parts of the rhetorical situation:

3. 1. Purpose • We are sometimes critical of what someone is trying to “get at.” Sometimes we don’t get it. • Look at this fine example: Rick Parry ad • How do you view this ad? What is its purpose? • Is there a right answer?

4. 2. Audience • This one can be more complicated than you expect because there are often many more audiences than the intended one. –Especially in today’s viral ecology. • Take a look at this ad: Hilton’s furniture (1:56) • Now watch it in greater context. • Who is the audience? Does it effect purpose? Is the purpose changed or complicated?

5. 3. Stance • We either agree or disagree with something we see, right? It’s the stance we have. • But what if stance is an arbitrary way to promote something else? • Genius. • Does the stance really matter here?

6. 4. Genre • We have set expectations when we are dealing with a genre. • How do we “read” something that does not fit our idea of a genre? • Check out this news story. • Again, does this distort how we view the rhetoric’s purpose and audience? Do we have stances we take based on genres?

7. 5. Media/Design • We read more than just words as you’ve hopefully come to realize. • The design of a piece of rhetoric can effect who the audience is, what the purpose is, what stance we take, how we determine genre, etc. • And this is just cool. (Think of audience and purpose as the pages morph. Whoa.)

8. So which filters should we use • We don’t. Not right away. Like everything else in English, it’s a process. –The invention process. • Very important: Do not start with a thesis. • But why not you ask...

9. Start with a Question • You may have an idea of what you want to study. Great! ...Don’t make it a thesis. • Begin to look at all the filters you can use (the five parts of the rhetorical situation). • Be sure look through the filters critically.

10. Focusing • The invention process will make you think in about a thousand different directions.* • So how do you narrow your approach and make it so you can actually produce a paper on this thing? • It’s like going to the eye doctor... *If your piece of rhetoric is substantial, that is...

11. Substantial? • Well, yes. There are some pieces of rhetoric that are pretty simple and straight-forward. Choose one of those and you’re sunk before you begin. • I’ll help you out and pick out a basic genre and design concept for you...

12. The Viral Hit • We live in a time when most everything is reappropriated and decontextualized. • Quick exercise: • Watch this & outline the RS: News clip • You probably know it better as this. Re-outline. • Then it becomes this. • Even this. • Or, at its most disturbing, this.

13. Your Assignment for Inquiry 2 • Identify the web text and its origin- Remember, you are looking at something based off a viral video. Don’t analyze Rebecca Black’s Friday—analyze the Bob Dylan parody of it. • Identify the contexts- This requires you to look critically at both audiences for both the original video and the decontextualized piece. What changes between them? How does the purpose change? And here’s a big one: How does the “newer” media effect the original? • Demonstrate your ability to research- Yes, this is not a high-minded group of texts, but they do have a tradition; there are articles about the effects of viral videos on our culture. Engage with these commentaries as part of your analysis. • (More to come on our blogsite...)