Week 6: The Ancient Art of Rhetoric and Persuasion

Question 1: Before coming to class, bring a print advertisement that you believe persuades the reader rhetorically. Explain your case using the concepts learnt this week.

Ever heard "rhetorical question" being dropped in casual conversation? Honestly, if you've realised it yet, its just a way of pointing out the obvious, but in question form. It's the speakers way of saying – “I know what I'm saying is right, so don't question me!” By now, you might be wondering, “where's she trying to go with this?” or “and your point is..?”. The answer, this entry will deal with Rhetoric. Don't think that rhetorical questions or statements only exist in verbal communication. It extends to visual communication. How do you think advertisements become successful?

Rhetoric, according to Blair (2004, p. 41), “is the study and use of instruments of persuasion”. Dr. Chris Woo has also done us the courtesy of bolding the definition of rhetoric in bright red in our lecture slides.

print screen from lecture slide

For the purpose of this week journal entry, I will be using a print advertisement which I've selected from google images, and will use the components of visual rhetoric learned in class to explain why the advertisement sells (at least to me). The advertisement I selected is a McDonald's ad:

From the advertisement, you can assume that it is trying to say that McDonald's serves fresh fries which is just that good. How can you reach this assumption? The advertisement does not lay it out on a silver platter to you. Instead, it makes you connect the dots. In relation to the previous entry, this would not succeed if you do not have the schema for french fries.

So, how exactly does the advertisement do this? The advertisement is enthymemic in nature. 'Enthymeme' means incomplete truth – the arguments served to audience is only partial and that rest is to be assumed by the audience (byu.edu, n.d.). The McDonald's advertisement makes you assume the intended message by only supplying you with a series of transformations of a potato. The advertisement provides you with the argument: 

• French fries that are freshly made are from potatoes which are good.
• McDonald's french fries are made from potatoes.
• Therefore, McDonald's french fries are delicious because they are made fresh from potatoes.

Another reason which can explain why the advertisement is persuasive is because of the medium it uses. This falls under the claim that rhetoric in advertising prioritizes the style over the content (McQuarrie & Philipps, 2007, p. 4). The advertisement would not be as convincing if it were disseminated via other mediums. For instance, if this were on television, it would not be as well received because the 'language' of television is different from that of print advertisements.

Last but not at least, linking back from Week 3 topic which is Semiotics. This advertisement would not have been persuasive if the captions did not exist. This is called 'anchoring'. 'Anchoring' is when a texts link the picture to the intended message (Sells & Gonzales, 2002). Without the captions, the picture would not make sense because it would just be a picture of a potato, french fries and an almost finished package of french fries. If the pictures didn't make sense, then the ad would fail in trying to capture people's attention and persuade their audiences.

In conclusion, the advertisement is persuasive because it captures people’s attention by making them make cognitive links by being enthymemic in nature, prioritizes the style over the content and by using the semiotic tool, anchoring.

Though I think part of the reason why this print advertisement sells to me is because 1) I'm hungry and 2) I crave McDonald's!

References:

Blair, J. A. (2004). The rhetoric of visual arguments. In C. A. Hill & M. Helmers (Eds.), Defining visual rhetorics (pp. 41-61). New Jersey, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

byu.edu. (n.d.). Enthymeme. Retrieved from http://rhetoric.byu.edu/figures/e/enthymeme.htm on 20th September, 2012

McQuarrie, E. F., & Phillips, B. J. (2007). Advertising rhetoric. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, Inc.

Sellers, P., & Gonzales, S. (2002). The language of advertising. Retrieved from http://www.stanford.edu/class/linguist34/Unit_03/anchor-relay.htm on 20th September, 2012