Description
As we continue, we’d like to keep on thinking about how we can add to our vocabulary that helps us understand rhetoric, how design creates effect.
Let’s stop and review for a second:
Rhetoric = the study of persuasion. Rhetoric looks to understand how the design of communication generates an effect, rather than testing communication to see if it is true or false. As the study of persuasion, rhetoric is interested in what communication does.
If rhetoric is interested in how the design of communication creates an effect, then it is also interested in the situation where communication occurs.
Rhetorical Situation helps describe how communication relates to context. Audience, purpose, and strategy help us think about how design choices are often situational.
A shorthand formula like Audience + Purpose = Strategy helps direct our attention to how communication looks to achieve its effective goal in light of its audience. .
With this in mind, we can continue to expand our vocabulary for rhetoric.
Tropes = common strategies or design choices that are found in similar rhetorical situations. “Tropes” are often easily recognizable and help determine who the intended audience might be and what the intended purpose might be.
With all of this in mind, please consider the following:
Articulate a single trope that you think you can find in at least three different texts. Give the trope a “name” even if it’s a provisional one and describe its general features and patterns. For example, you might think that various public service announcements use the “gross out” trope to get people to stop their behavior.
Find at least 2-3 texts where this trope is present. Like the other assignments, be sure to include the text or a link to the text in the canvas post.
Explain for each text how you see the trope in that text. Are there changes that occur from text to text? If so, what are they?
For the first bullet point, consider writing approx. 150 – 200 words. Then for the third bullet point consider writing approx. 250 words.
