Assignment : Analyzing Visual Arguments (650-700 words; TNR 12, double space)
Today the average person in the United States is saturated with advertisements on television, billboards, buses, buildings, magazines, and newspapers. Advertisements are usually used to sell commercial products, such as toothpaste, cereal, tissue paper, shampoo, soap, jeans, shoes, t-shirts, soft drinks, etc. How many of these products feature brand names? Why do people want Calvin Klein's name on their underwear, "Levi's" on their back pocket, or a favorite team logo on their caps? How does advertising these brand names influence our shopping habits? Why are some ads more successful in selling a product than others? All of these questions and many others will be pertinent to the writing of the next paper.
Because advertising works by appealing to viewers’ values and beliefs in order to persuade them to buy or support something, it is crucial that today's informed citizen carefully analyze the strategies used in advertisements. Through the critical analysis of various kinds of commercial communication, the informed citizen can address such fundamental questions as the following:
• What is the ad really trying to “sell”? This goes beyond the product or service being advertised to a set of values associated with a lifestyle or aspirations viewers are judged to hold in common.
• What visual and verbal strategies are used to convey the ad's message?
• Are the message and its visual and rhetorical means both honest and ethical?
Your job, then, is to write a thesis-driven rhetorical analysis that examines the effectiveness of a visual argument. Basically, you need to write about how the formal elements of an advertisement produce meaning.
Evaluation Criteria for the Essay
The visual analysis should
• identify the ad’s purpose, audience, and context (place and time)
• contain a clear and interesting thesis supported by specific, concrete details
• provide sufficient description of and insightful comments about the ad
• avoid stylistic errors that distract reader's attention; be organized logically