Rhetoric and Target Audience:
Advertisements use cultural imagery to appeal to the values of their target audience. For this project, you will produce a rhetorical analysis that analyzes and evaluates how a specific advertisement uses cultural symbols to make its appeals to the target audience for the ad. You will need to first carefully and concisely describe the symbols used in the ad, but avoid simple summary. The paper is not a summery; it is an analysis.
Consider carefully whether the advertisement you are analyzing makes assumptions about its target audience and then uses those assumptions to appeal to certain values. Remember that the quality of your evidence and your analysis are key to writing a successful analysis, as that these will support your claims about how the advertisement works.
Your Imagined Reader: You can assume that your ideal community of readers has some experience with reading media texts, so be sure to concentrate on your particular analysis and the evidence that supports that analysis and not on making the argument that the advertisement is trying to sell something. Your readers will know that.
What is a cultural symbol? A cultural symbol is a shared value, image or icon that we identify with because we are members of a shared culture. It is a symbol of something bigger than itself.
The image above is nothing but a smudge of black on white, and it may mean nothing to millions of people around the world. But chances are good YOU have some thoughts about what this symbol stands for. Did you also know that the Greek Goddess named Nike was a goddess who personified victory? Her Roman equivalent was Victoria. Here is a slightly older depiction of her than the black smudge above.
With a little analysis of the shoe company’s name, we can see all sorts of cultural symbols. We can also understand why and how they developed their name and trademark.
Rhetoric and Target Audience: Since all media is a form of argument, examination of how rhetoric works in the media to promote ideas and values helps us to make better choices. Imagine that you are designing an advertisement. Would you be happy that only people who legitimately need your product buy it? What if you could encourage people to believe that they need your product even if they do not? After all, did you know that you needed a cell phone that told you where the nearest coffee shop was before you saw one? How do people know that they “need” a shirt with an American Eagle logo? You might be tempted to answer that you buy these things because they are convenient, because you simply want them, and because they make your life better. Chances are that you have been influenced by the rhetoric of advertising, though, whether you are aware of it or not.
Advertisers are not just in the business of promoting their product based on its usefulness. They are also in the business of creating desire for their products, and to do that they use rhetoric. Just as you consider what values you might appeal to in order to persuade your ideal community of readers, so, too, do advertisers and the authors of televisions shows, movies, new broadcasts, songs, billboards, and newspaper articles consider their rhetorical appeals, their ideal community of readers (the target audience), and the values that audience shares.
For this paper, identify and evaluate cultural symbols, target audiences, shared belief structures, assumptions, and the arguments (rhetoric) used by advertisers to persuade consumers to buy products.
