4.3 Rhetorical analysis in popular culture
Since rhetorical analysis is a skill that allows us to more fully understand how language works on us and how we can use language to more effectively to persuade, inform, and/or entertain others, analysis beyond the written text can provide us a sense of how rhetorical analysis helps us understand many modalities of everyday rhetoric. Rhetoric is embedded in any form of communication designed to impact its intended audience and can take any form. For example, common forms of rhetorical messaging can be found in advertising, art, dance, music, our social media streams, marketing literature, podcasts, videos and other modalities. Even the popcorn scent pumped out to the front gates of Disneyland are meant to evoke memories of warm, familiar times of fun with your family and friends.
Think over sources of opinion, information, or entertainment in popular culture you particularly enjoy and examine the rhetorical elements at play. For example, consider the rhetorical messaging in music videos, TED Talks, and Youtube and TikTok videos you enjoy watching or the podcasts you enjoy listening to. Are you drawn by the messaging because of the pathos? Have you had similar experiences as the performer? Are you gathering information by following an interest-based hashtag on Twitter or a thread on Reddit? Or, is your engagement pure entertainment? What does rhetoric look like from your cultural standpoint? Most likely, you have multiple purposes for engaging with the sources and modalities of entertainment and current culture you choose.
Now, you have developed more in-depth understanding of rhetoric and rhetorical appeals, try to listen to a song you may have heard many times before, but with a rhetorical lens. This exercise highlights the face that rhetoric is ever-present and at work in our daily lives in both positive and negative or less effective ways.
Exercise 4.3: Analyzing Rhetoric in a Music Video or Other Performance
Multimodal Rhetoric Exercise: Analyzing Rhetoric in a Music Video or Other Performance
Directions: After watching the example video, Taylor Swift’s “Blank Space”, to get a gist of this exercise, please select a music video or other performance and complete a rhetorical analysis of the multimodal aspects of the performance. Take notes on the performance and write a summary and reflection as detailed below.
The prompt for your notetaking is: How do the language and the multimodal elements in this performance reflect or reinforce the performer’s, songwriter’s or other speaker or speakers’ message and purpose? Consider how the visual, auditory, physical, and other sensory elements support or emphasize the message or provide subtle hints from which you infer meaning that might not be overtly stated in the words spoken. If a transcript is provided, access it after you have experienced the performance as intended for further analysis.
Track your notes (visual elements you notice) from the video or other performance following an evidence/interpretation notetaking structure or other two column notetaking method organized as the example below. Select your evidence based on what you notice as you experience the performance; then do a second round to catch what you missed on the first. For each evidence note, write an interpretation and/or inference explaining how the visual evidence you selected supports or relates to the message of the lyrics and video.
Write a one-page explanation of how rhetorical language, appeals, and other multimodal aspects of the performance influenced or reinforced the message or purpose of the work and add a brief personal reflection paragraph afterwards to explain what you learned or started to think about as a result of this assignment. Prepare this assignment in order to share with your peers with an informal presentation or discussion board post.
| Evidence/Interpretation Notetaker | |
| NOTICING COLUMNI saw/heard/read in the “text” . . .
(images, words, placement, sound, objects, colors, fonts, symbolism, mood) |
INTERPRETATION COLUMNCritically connect or infer meaning with the visual aspect you notice in the video. (Starters: I wondered about / I made a connection to / I thought) |
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Extra: Rhetoric is embedded into every cultural and artistic critique you read. After Beyoncé released Lemonade in 2015, the internet was abuzz with discussions over just want she was really saying in the album and video. To see an example of this 2016 critique on Vox (a venue for popular culture issues and critiques), “Beyonce’s Lemonade, explained: an artistic triumph that’s also an economic powerhouse” by Marcus Moore.
