Video issue ads, such as the ones produced during the debate over the Walker proposal, exemplify how rhetorics and arguments, can be limited to reducible tag line arguments, but also shows how arguments and rhetorics are multi-layered, intertextual, and interconnected textual performances that stretch and challenge the notion of the argument as a binary. This study rhetorically analyzed seven issue ads that came out during the Walker Proposal Debate up until the passage of a modified version of his policy that effectively stripped unions of their collective bargaining rights. Additional texts that were analyzed were linked to the issue ads by their reference or symbolism within the ads, or they were included in the ads themselves, such as: an interview Walker gave with a reporter/blogger whom he thought to be David Koch, a video recording of the passage of the anti-collective bargaining legislation, an interview with a protester in reference to a flag seen in one of the ads, as well as the collections and combinations of sounds, videos, photos, and other texts and symbols found within the ads.
Each campaign advertisement was analyzed in an effort to understand its rhetorical components and constructs, such as: the ads sponsor(s), speaker(s), audience(s), message(s), and its context. When conducting a rhetorical criticism with visual and audio rhetorical texts it is important to expand analysis beyond the spoken word and the idea of a single rhetor. Rhetorical analysis of advertisements generally is the analysis of multiple layers of rhetoric. These rhetorical constructs and texts, bleed into one another. Analyzing layered visual and audio rhetorics showed how each ad presented and framed its arguments, how it used multi-layered video and textual performances to construct their video messages and to produce arguments with depth and complexity, while concurrently keeping the messages within the ads simple and the symbols familiar.
No comments:
Post a Comment