Visual Rhetorical Analysis with Commercials

Purpose: Use the same visual rhetoric knowledge you used to analyze an advertisement to analyze a commercial . Performing this analysis will help you to strengthen your critical reading and thinking skills. Furthermore, being able to identify and make a compelling argument about subtextual ideas will help you not only in this class but also in your other classes and your career.

Commercials:

https://youtu.be/pbWeH9cztHw

https://youtu.be/cpMH2IpG0mk

https://youtu.be/eSBFw93V3Rg

https://youtu.be/owGykVbfgUE

Task: Your job is to explain clearly and carefully how all or part of the commercial uses rhetoric to persuade the audience to buy their product.

Choose one of the commercials above and answer the following questions:

• Who is the speaker? Or, if there are multiple speakers, who are they?
• Who is the audience?
• What is the situation? What is the story being told? What is the context of the ad?
• What is the explicit argument? What is the implicit argument?
• What does the text want you to feel?
• What does the text want you to believe?
• What does the text want you to do?
• How is the text creating the argument? How is the case being made? How is something being promoted?

Finally, write a 1-2 sentence thesis, creating an argument about the commercial’s use of rhetoric.

Criteria: Your post will be evaluated based on the following criteria:

• Your understanding and analysis of visual rhetoric. Your answers demonstrate thorough and original thought, and your thesis presents a well-crafted argument.
• Your focus and specificity: your answers should reference both parts of the commercial as well as the visual rhetoric elements and/or logos, ethos, and pathos.
• Your use of language: your writing should be clear, well-organized, and free from spelling and grammar errors.