A rhetorical analysis is the discussion of a piece of text that is made to send a message. It tears apart every aspect of the text to understand the speaker’s motivation for creating the text. When a rhetorical analysis is composed it searches beyond the surface look of the text and into the persuasive details of it. The analysis looks at how the speaker appeals to the three points of the rhetorical triangle: pathos, logos, and ethos.
To start a rhetorical analysis, one must first understand the situation for which the text was composed, the exigence. You have to find out what the author’s motive was in making the text, why he created it in the first place. By understanding the occasion and context for which it was writing, you can then analyze the author’s intentions better. Along with this, you need to decide who the speaker is. Whether it is a company, a private sponsor, or the government, who the text is coming from makes a big difference on how we interpret it. When look at the author one should also interpret how he establishes his personal credibility. How does he make people think they should listen to him?
The speakers intended audience should also be considered. Is the text directed toward the general population, kids, parents, or maybe business people? This also reveals how the speaker appeals to certain aspects of the audience’s personality and takes advantage of their opinions to create a more persuasive ad.
Next, the author’s intention and message should be analyzed. You need to see why the author created it: out of anger, concern, to convince you to buy something, etc. You can also analyze how he uses certain techniques to portray the message in a persuasive manner. It is important to understand his message and how he makes it appeal to us because we can easily be sucked into things if we don’t take the time to step back and analyze it.
In my rhetorical analysis, I plan to first describe the surface information presented in the video. Then I will analyze the intent of each aspect and what the producer was appealing to when he created it. I will include information about who the speaker is and how he speaks to his audience. I will also incorporate who the intended audience is and what opinions they have that the author appeals to. I will talk a lot about the producers appeal to pathos because the video is very emotional and that appeal is the strongest. I will also analyze how the producer could have better appealed to ethos because that is the weakest. Although the video was persuasive, it could be more effective with stronger appeals to logos and ethos.
A complete rhetorical analysis includes information on the speaker, audience, message, and persuasive methods. It is important to analyze the rhetoric of ads, or any text, so we can understand how the author appeals to our personalities in order to persuade us.
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