 The communication world in which we live is based on symbols, right? Sometimes it's literal symbols like the ones you see on the screen here, but really as we're going to talk about all communication is symbolic. So the words that we use, the letters that we have, a language like that, that's all symbolic as well, as well as our gestures. Everything is symbolic. So if we're going to really study media and artifacts through critical media studies, we have to consider the use of symbols in those artifacts as well, which is where we come into rhetorical analysis. Rhetorical analysis is a particular type of critical lens that we can use in critical media studies. So that's what we're going to examine today. What is rhetorical analysis? How is it used? And so forth. So rhetorical analysis simply examines artifacts in relation to the effort to use symbols to influence and move the audience. So what symbols are a part of that artifact? How are they used? Why were they chosen? So artifacts are full of symbols. And so we're going to examine in rhetorical analysis what those symbols are intended to represent, what they do represent, what action they may take or make an audience take or push an audience toward. Philip Holman said, everything has meaning if we could only read it. Everything has a meaning if only we could read it. And that's what we're doing in rhetorical analysis, understanding that every choice, every item included in that artifact, everything used is part of a message there and has a meaning. So the major premises of rhetorical analysis start with, as I mentioned, all communication is symbolic. Everything about communication is symbolic. Even the letters that you see on the screen here really are just symbols. They represent something. They represent an idea and collectively together when they're placed in this order they represent a specific idea. That's how we form words and sentences and so forth. But whether it's the letters on the screen, whether it's your gesturing okay or whatever it is you're doing, whether it's an emoji or a symbol you're using, a graphic emoji like that or graphic symbol like that, all communication is symbolic in essence. It's just representative of some other idea. Meaning then is specific to an individual. When we come across those symbols and all communication is symbolic, we make meaning of it. We interpret it as individuals and that's going to be unique to every person. Meaning is specific to an individual based on your frame of reference and all kinds of other factors but meaning is specific to that individual. Some people see the same word, see the same symbol and have different reactions to it or different interpretations of it because meaning is specific to an individual. We also know that symbols are often grouped together and there are a variety of ways that this happens that symbols are grouped together and used in conjunction with one another. So for example you could have a cluster of symbols in this advertisement for this vehicle. You see that we have a cluster. We have contrasting things happening in this in this image right. There are animals and the idea of being out in the wild and that this vehicle can handle that type of thing but it's also appropriate for the city life. We have the imagery of people in the city and you know dressed up and so that it has both the ability to be classy and live in that world and to be wild out with the animals. That's what you know and then we have the vehicle itself. There's a cluster of multiple symbols at work here right. So we have a cluster of symbols. We can do that with symbols. We also have the ability to use form and structure and pattern in the way that we use symbols. So we see this in the media oftentimes through like procedural shows like CSI which have kind of a specific formula they use right when they're when you watch a show like CSI or NCIS or really anything like that we expect it to unfold in a certain way because there is a form to that particular kind of program. So they use those symbols in a specific way in a specific pattern for those types of procedural shows and other shows like that as well. We also then can divide it into genres. We use symbols to group things into genres so we have for movies for example we have horror movies and we have comedies and we have rom-coms and we have dramas those are all different genres of movies right. I would argue that Hallmark has its own genre of movie in our house they're very very popular and they're very there's very much a form there but they're very there's a very appeal to a very specific kind of audience and they have the specific genre that they've made for themselves. The Hallmark movie deserves its own category as far as I'm concerned. But then we also have the basic idea of a narrative right. A narrative happens within rhetoric as Burke would tell us if you study Burke right we have the story we have narration we have a voice we have discourse we have all this narrative that unfolds as part of a rhetoric as well and that there's identifiable elements when they're grouped together in that way so there are a variety of ways that we can examine symbols and that they are oftentimes grouped together. In a contemporary sense we need to consider a few things first of all that that now more than ever symbols can be used for what we call affect affect right. How does this make us feel how does make us respond physiologically and emotionally and different things like that so now we can literally get that affect you know when you're watching a horror movie and that the killer's creeping in somewhere and you know they're around or a mystery or something like that and the hair may stand up on on your arms right that would be affect right how does this how do these symbols make us react physically and what do they kind of prompt us to do. We saw the same thing as well if you are familiar at all with the idea of Woodstock 99 that concert it's kind of a revival of the Woodstock the original Woodstock and all these bands were there one man in particular Limp Bizkit played and things were getting rowdy and they played their song Break Stuff and people literally started to break stuff it had such an impact on the crowd that people were going nuts and there were there were not only you know lots of physical destruction but there was sexual assaults and different you know people getting beat up and things like that because you know they were responding to that song not only the lyrics but the the rhythm and the music and just the the general vibe and it just caused this kind of mob mentality that had this affect right the symbology there though it can have a real it can manifest itself in a real way we also think about aesthetic and how things look you know and we're getting more and more of this as we as we advance technology in the way to to really increase exposure to these things so when we talk about aesthetic we're talking about things like color and lighting and editing and movement framing and sound and all of these things so you're going to look for one kind of aesthetic for example in an Adam Sandler movie you know in the classic happy Gilmore's got one kind of you know there's a there's a style there's a way that that it's shot and presented and framed and a way that the characters are are portrayed here through aesthetic the way they dress and things like that that's different for example from a batman movie a batman movie is going to have a very different tone very different mood based on the way that it looks it's going to be darker the explosions are going to be huge and it's going to be you know framed in a certain way so you see things differently and it's just shot differently right though that aesthetic is very different for those movies and and so that's you know choices that were made there that we're going to look at in terms of rhetorical analysis the same thing is true you know i grew up in the 90s so i'm a gen X kid and i grew up on grunge music i was there for the the whole thing in grunge music right so he had nirvani had allison chains and there was a very specific look there was the torn jeans and the plaid shirts and the baggy clothes right and then there was also this idea of where whatever you want because that's the whole idea of you know kind of this anti-establishment thing but there was definitely a look you could tell who were the the kids that were in the grunge at that time who were the people that were in the grunge they dressed a certain way and had a particular attitude but they had that aesthetic going for them too and you can see that you know we would identify people who were into the goth stuff right and the were the black and things like that was you know part of that as well but so we see different aesthetics for people trying to fit into different genres and that's that's part of rhetorical analysis as well that we're going to examine so okay so now we have this idea what is rhetorical analysis let's take a look at some of the common questions let me just say once again we're just scratching the surface here these are some basic questions some broad broad questions there's much more involved in rhetorical analysis and it's just but we're just trying to give you an idea here so common questions include things like what symbols are used what symbols can you identify as part of this this artifact that you're looking at what are the symbols that are there what do they represent what what do you think they're intended to to do or to be and to represent what are there is there an idea that there's that they're you know showcasing and why are those symbols there and not others why were they chosen again why are they there why are other symbols not included what you know what what was left out that can be important to but what why were they chosen in in in favor of other possible symbols that could be used there what's the desire to factor how come what do you think the the person is trying to do here with these things what is it that they're they're hoping to accomplish by putting these symbols together then okay so these are some of the common questions that we see and we can see it in a variety of things for for example this is something that kind of passed me by a little bit at the time but I do remember the the hubbub about the teletubbies so if you remember teletubbies things that they were huge back in the day and kind of like the early 2000s and things but there was a huge thing about there are symbols in the teletubbies one of them you know they had these symbols on top of their heads you can kind of see there and you can't see the one but one of them had a triangle and people you know went nuts because they said well that triangle represents homosexuality you know and so they're trying to influence small children to be gay or to accept you know homosexuality more freely by using that symbol making by normalizing that symbol people went nuts about that and the different colors and the language that they used the talk that that they used all meant something to these people and they were reading into all of this looking at the symbols that they were using there and saying what they represented and that you know the I mean that was a huge huge deal back in the back in the day people really went kind of nuts about that whether it's accurate or not I'm not really taking a stance on that I guess I don't know enough about it but another example is from the The Dark Knight Rises right the Batman movie The Dark Knight or Dark Knight I'm sorry and so one of the scenes and one of the things that happened in that movie is that Batman put together this ability to monitor like the entire city to monitor their their communications and things like that so that he could identify in his mind he could identify what was where but his his his kind of cohort there Lucius Fox had a problem with that because he felt like it violated privacy and there were some issues with that so and so beyond that then people looked at and said oh this is the director Christopher Nolan this is his effort to say that the government is overreaching at that time we you know not too far after 9-11 it happened and we had all these things you know something called the Patriot Act for example that gave the government wider abilities to monitor you know and cell phone communications and different things like that and some people were concerned about is this overreaches the government going to be able to is this you know 1984 the big brother monitoring us at all times and listening in and and so forth and and and and so was that what this symbology represented in that movie that was quite some people would say this symbol this symbol was used to represent and this represents the government reaching into our own lives what Batman is doing essentially what the government was doing that's what they would say that that's what those symbols represent that why were they chosen they were chosen because Christopher Nolan according to this theory wanted to expose that and really highlight the government doing that to people and the desired effect was that people would object to that and have concerns and really question whether or not the government needed all these powers and and needed the ability to do all these things and should we be more restrictive about what the government can do in terms of monitoring these these outlets and things so um so people I remember at that time read into that and and said well this is what it represents you know again there's there's an argument for that to be sure but that's what rhetorical analysis is it examines this and says well why is this what is the director here trying to say with this or the the musician what are they trying to say with these these lyrics in this song and and what are they trying to what's what effect are they trying to have with that hopefully this gives you a better idea of what rhetorical analysis is and and some you know just skimming the surface here about what it is but it's really fascinating and and something that we can do virtually all the time I know we can get too caught up in this a little bit at times but but I think it's important that we examine you know why were these choices made and and what was the intended outcome in choosing this symbol over others if you have questions about rhetorical analysis or any of the other critical lenses that we're examining as part of critical media studies please feel free to email me and I'd be happy to chat with you in that way in the meantime I hope you get out there and check out the symbols that you're seeing in these different artifacts why were these chosen why were these choices made and start to examine these types of things a little more closely as we use rhetorical analysis and add that to our tool belt of critical lenses that we use in critical media studies