What are Rhetorical Strategies?

• Elements of a text designed to have an effect on an audience – to get people to agree, care, act, or pay attention. They often combine to make a reader trust, believe, or feel emotionally connected to the author.�
• Strategies can be “big” or “small.” Word choice is strategic, as is organization and tone. (See textbook on �
• You can identify strategic choices in almost any element of a text.

• Evidence, definitions, categories, word choice, style, tone, metaphor, story, syntax, rebuttals, metadiscourse, organization, tropes, frames, etc. can all be used strategically.

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• Those (and other) elements combine to create appeals - ethos, pathos, logos.

Strategies are everywhere

• Photos of SDSU student election campaign signs - student posters are mostly seeking to be memorable, but also to persuade. What strategies can you identify? Are they effective?��(https://sdsuwriting.pbworks.com/Strategies_student_election_signs)

Why examine strategies?

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• To help us understand how the text works and what it is trying to do
• To generate a rhetorical analysis
• To evaluate the argument - to judge its strengths and weaknesses
• To foster critical thinking - determining whether we ought to be persuaded
• To consider how we might use similar strategies in our writing.
• To understand how the appeals are constructed (ethos, pathos, logos).

The rhetorical appeals (ethos, pathos, logos) are also strategies, but they are “higher level” strategies that emerge out of many smaller moves or strategies.

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When analyzing appeals, it’s useful to take a “bottom up” approach in order to examine how smaller elements and choices contribute to the appeals.

A “bottom-up” approach to appeals

• Students often talk in very general terms about appeals, and jump straight to the first example that seems to fit. The student may write that the author establishes ethos and thus credibility because she cites many respected sources.
• But most serious authors cite respected sources, so this tells us little. It doesn’t tell us the specifics of what an author does to appear knowledgeable, trustworthy and credible.
• However, by looking at strategic choices we can build to a more sophisticated, detailed, “bottom-up” analysis of appeals.

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• If you start with smaller strategic choices, and smaller uses of language, this can help show how the author builds a persona, tries to make herself seem trustworthy, well-informed, reasonable, fair, knowledgeable, etc. All these components can establish credibility and connection with an audience. This is a “bottom-up” approach.�
• So looking at tone, word choice, style, imagery, metaphor, rebuttals, how the author addresses the reader, etc., can help us think about the author’s ethos.

How do we analyze strategies?

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• Identify the rhetorical strategy in the text and give an example of it
• Describe how it works.
• Describe why it is used – what purpose does it accomplish?
• Discuss how the strategy helps the author develop and support the argument.

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Why examine the Aristotelian appeals?

• They are an important part of how persuasion works.

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• What makes an argument persuasive? A) the author’s credibility and trustworthiness, B) the author’s use of logic and reasoning, and C) how the author makes us feel, and how we relate to her.�

Notes on appeals

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Authors may focus on one or two appeals. They may use different “ratios” of appeals depending on genre, context and audience.

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The appeals often overlap - they don’t come in neat packages. Credibility may be achieved in part through reasoning and logic, in part through establishing trustworthiness, and in part through the emotional connection we experience to the author.

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When ads used a lot of logos

Today’s ads often use different appeals

• “You get a lot to like: filter, flavor, flip top box

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• "MARLBORO: THE FILTER CIGARETTE IN THE FLIP-TOP BOX" �
• Small Print: "You get the man-size flavor of honest tobacco without huffing and puffing. This filter works good and draws easy. The Flip-Top Box keeps every cigarette in good shape. You'd expect it to cost more, but it doesn't."

What do you notice about this ad?

Anti-Smoking Ads: Examining Strategies

• As part of a legal settlement tobacco companies were forced to produce ads persuading kids not to smoke. But they were often subtly designed to be ineffective.

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• Examine these 4 ads – which do you think is likely by a tobacco company? Which is most/least effective?

• A) “Hooked”

b) “Joe Chemo,” & �c) “Don’t wipe out”

4. “Throaty McThroatington”

• C) “Don’t Wipe Out” was produced by Tobacco companies as part of a legal settlement. It is the least effective advertisement.

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• PSAs – too much logos, wrong pathos, rhetorically ineffective (teens not afraid of risk)

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• Government public service ads struggled to be persuasive, especially those directed at smoking, drug taking, and safety.

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• However, a British ad campaign directed at young smokers was very effective. Here is an example of one:

• Ads that work use the strategy of “social rejection” and fear of being uncool. Many 14 year olds aren’t afraid of long term health risks, throat cancer or wrinkles – but they are often terrified of seeming uncool, facing ostracism or questions�regarding sexual adequacy.

■ Text reads: “Did you know there’s

A valve in your penis that traps blood

inside so you can get an erection?

That every time you smoke this valve

is damaged? That if you don’t quit

now, it might stop working �altogether? You do now.” �

Text HARD to 84118 for a free

Information pack.

www.stayinghard.info

Anti smoking campaigns show poor understanding of rhetoric

• “Some anti-smoking ads are simply ineffective, while others actually make youth more likely to light up.” (rebel sell)��
• Recent research suggest that successful ads work “by enhancing perceptions that smoking poses severe social rejection risks. Other messages increased health risk severity perceptions, but such perceptions either had null or counterproductive effects on non-smoking intentions, due to adolescents' perceived invulnerability to health risks.” (Pechmann, C., G. Zhao, M.E. Goldberg and E.T. Reibling (2003), "What to Convey in Antismoking Advertisements for Adolescents? The Use of Protection Motivation Theory to Identify Effective Message Themes," Journal of Marketing, 67 (April), 1-18.

Evaluation: balance in the appeals

• A BALANCE of the ethos, pathos, logos, is often important.�Too much of one may produce an argument that readers will either find unconvincing or that will cause them to stop reading.
• Each appeal potentially affects the others. An overwhelming emotional argument may make us feel that the author is relying exclusively on emotions rather than offering solid reasoning. An argument contains only facts and figures and no emotional appeals, we may simply get bored. All these defects may, in turn, affect the author's ethical appeal: how can we trust a writer who appeals only to our emotions? What common ground do we have with a writer who doesn't appeal to our emotions at all? 
• Research in cognitive psychology, animal behavior, neurophysiology, and other fields suggests that morality, values and emotion play a big part in how we reason. See it in Damasio - studies of people who lose ability to feel emotion or morals – makes it hard to make decision (rather than Spock-like ability to efficiently decide on things). Human nature is back in vogue.
• SPOCK, KIRK AND COMMANDER PIKE – reason, passion and authority

Ethos, pathos, logos & Star Trek

• Logos, Pathos Ethos

Pike is ethos - Kirk won’t listen to any authority figures, in fact he delights in rebelling against them. But Pike represents a particularly�credible, authentic form of ethos. He is noble, brave, & self-sacrificing. �He appeals to Kirk’s sense of duty, desire to serve a larger cause

and challenges him to live up to his father’s example.

Ethos, pathos & logos in TNG

• Some occupations come with an expected ethos. There is a kind of institutional persona – ways of talking, dressing, and values we expect to encounter. For example – while we may expect a stockbroker to be all about chasing profit, to be entrepreneurial, brash, etc., we might not expect this from a doctor.

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• What sort of ethos do we expect from a doctor? What qualities of character do we expect?

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• The TV show Scrubs creates comedy by subverting the expectations we have about the ethos of a doctor. Example: Cole, a student at Winston University Medical School, talking to his teacher http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZVwejBhpRs

Ethos

• Aristotle’s term ethos refers to the credibility, character or personality of the speaker or author or someone else connected to the argument.
• Ethos brings up questions of ethics and trust between the speaker or author and the audience.
• In analysis, answer the following questions:
• How and why is the speaker / author trying to get the audience to trust her or him?
• What specifically does the author do to obtain the audience’s trust?
• How does the author/speaker show fairness? Understanding of the topic? Trustworthiness? Consideration of the audience’s needs?
• How does the author/speaker construct credibility for his/her argument?

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Evidence of an author’s ethos:

• References to the author’s background, profession, previous work, guiding philosophy, etc.

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• Comments that indicate sincerity, fair-mindedness, expertise, likeability, moral vision, etc.

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• Concessions to the opposing arguments. (Or, for signs of lacking ethos, places the author fails to acknowledge such arguments or evidence.)

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• Use of appropriate evidence, language and style in light of the targeted audience.

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Logos

• Refers to the use of logic , reason, facts, statistics, data and numbers.
• Logos often seems tangible and touchable, so much more real than other rhetorical strategies.
• In analysis, answer the following questions:
• How and why does the other chose logos?
• How does the author show there are good reasons to support his or her argument?
• What kind of evidence does the author use to construct logos, and how does this further the argument?

Pathos: Appealing to Emotions

• Words or passages that activate emotions, usually because they relate to readers’ or hearers' deeply held values or beliefs.

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• Pathos is not necessarily a strategy of writing about emotional subjects or of describing strong emotions. It is a strategy of using language in ways that evoke emotions in audiences.

Pathos

• Refers to feelings.
• The author/speaker wants the audience to feel the same emotion that he/she is feeling, whether or not they actually agree with the topic.
• In this way, the audience is more likely to eventually agree with the author/speaker later on.
• In analysis, answer the following questions:
• What specific emotion does the author invoke? How?
• How does he/she use emotion as a tool to persuade the audience?
• How does the use of emotion help further the argument?

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpTb2RjbMn4

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Pathos: Appealing to Emotions

• Words or passages that activate emotions, usually because they relate to readers’ or hearers' deeply held values or beliefs.

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• Pathos is not necessarily a strategy of writing about emotional subjects or of describing strong emotions. It is a strategy of using language in ways that evoke emotions in audiences.

ARISTOTLE’S APPEALS

Aristotle defined three types of appeals that a speaker or writer uses to attempt to persuade an audience.

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• Ethos
• Pathos

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• Logos

ETHOS�Appealing to the Reader’s Trust

• The character of the speaker or writer as it comes through in his or her words.

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• Certain words or passages can create an ethos of trustworthiness, fair-mindedness, credibility, kindness, or humanity.

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• An author must establish ethos in order for a reader to buy into his/her claims.

Ethos is the character that emerges in the writer’s work through the references made & evidence used:

• References to his/her own impressive work and to the work of other credible people show commitment to the issue through previous work and diligent “homework.”

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• References to worthy goals he/she has show an ethical character.

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• A considerate, unbiased, fair-minded approach in presenting evidence and showing various viewpoints lends credibility to his/her claims.

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Evidence of an author’s ethos:

• References to the author’s background, profession, previous work, guiding philosophy, etc.

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• Comments that indicate sincerity, fair-mindedness, expertise, likeability, moral vision, etc.

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• Concessions to the opposing arguments. (Or, for signs of lacking ethos, places the author fails to acknowledge such arguments or evidence.)

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• Use of appropriate evidence, language and style in light of the targeted audience.

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The effect of ethos:

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• Lead the reader to TRUST & RESPECT the author.

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• To foster CREDIBILITY.

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Pathos: Appealing to Emotions

• Words or passages that activate emotions, usually because they relate to readers’ or hearers' deeply held values or beliefs.

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• Pathos is not necessarily a strategy of writing about emotional subjects or of describing strong emotions. It is a strategy of using language in ways that evoke emotions in audiences.

Evidence of pathos in writing:

• Information and anecdotes that elicit an emotional response in the reader, such as fear, sadness, joy, patriotism, humor, sympathy, empathy, and so on.

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• An emotional tone or language used by the author does not necessarily indicate a pathos appeal by the author: it is the effect on the reader that matters.

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When assessing the possibility of a pathos appeal, ask yourself: was this (example, info, story) intended to make the reader FEEL something?

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The effect of pathos:

• To cause an emotional response in the reader that will cause him/her to CARE about the issue.

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• Pathos is necessary for creating a desire on the part of the reader to DO SOMETHING about the issue.

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Logos: Appealing to the Intellect

• The argument itself.

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• The reasoning that a writer

uses.

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• Claims and reasons, examples and evidence, information and data, and conclusions drawn from them.

Evidence of logos in writing:

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• Logical claims supported by verifiable evidence, such as statistics, factual data, research, historical anecdotes, etc.

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The effect of logos:

• Evokes a rational, intellectual (as opposed to emotional) response.

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• Causes the argument to “make sense.”

The Appeals Work Together….

Each category of rhetorical strategy works alongside the others.

For example, well-chosen examples make an argument seem reasonable (using logos), but they could also tap into beliefs, values or experiences in an emotional way (using pathos), and they could also show the writer to be a person of a certain kind of character (establishing ethos).

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The rhetorical effect of the appeals results from RHETORICAL STRATEGIES.

• For example: When an author chooses to support a claim with a touching personal story, the strategy of choosing that type of evidence results in a pathos appeal to the reader’s emotions, an ethos appeal by showing the writer to be a caring person, and a logos appeal by showing the reasonable conclusion arrived at when connecting the story to the claim.

Ethos, pathos, logos

• "Ethos" refers to the writer's "ethical appeal," that is, how well the writer presents herself. Does she seem knowledgeable and reasonable? Does she seem trustworthy? Does she seem credible? Ethos can be divided into two parts: authority (credibility) and character (trustworthiness). You may find an argument unpersuasive even if they claims and reasons are strong, if the speaker has poor ethos.
• "Pathos" refers to the argument's "emotional appeals," that is, how well the writer taps into the reader's emotions. Many times, this appeal is how a writer will make an argument "matter" to readers. Advertisements do it all the time. Perhaps a writer will offer an anecdote to illustrate suffering or appeal to readers as parents concerned for their children. Does the writer appeal to your emotions—feelings of sadness, pride, fear, being young, anger, patriotism, love, justice?

• "Logos" corresponds with the argument's "logical appeals. Effective arguments will probably include facts and other supporting details to back up the author's claims. They may contain testimony from authorities and will demonstrate the writer's carefulness in choosing and considering evidence. Questions to consider: What is being argued here, or what is the author's thesis? What points does she offer to support this idea? Has she presented arguments that seem logical, or does she seem to be jumping to conclusions?

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Metaphors, Similes, Analogies

• Commonly referred to as “figurative language”
• Comparison of two parallel terms or situations in which the traits of one are similar to another – often one relatively firm and concrete, and the other less familiar and concrete.
• Simile is an analogy that use “like” or “as”
• These allow the author / film maker to use concrete, easily understood ideas to clarify a less obvious point.
• In analysis, answer the following question:
• What two things are being compared?
• How does the author’s / film maker’s use of figurative language help further the argument? Help the audience view the argument in a new way?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pk7yqlTMvp8

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All the world’s a stage,

And all the men and women merely players;

They have their exits and their entrances;

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Shakespeare

from the play As You Like It

Style as strategy: making your words memorable

• Politicians like to use figures of speech that will help audiences remember them - that “imprint” themselves on the ear.
• In the 2008 election cycle, the trope du jour was antimetabole (an-tee-meh-TA-boe-lee), a rhetorical device in which words are repeated in transposed order (also called chiasmus)

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Examples of antimetabole

• "I meant what I said, and I said what I meant. An elephant's faithful, one hundred percent!" Dr. Seuss, Horton Hatches an Egg.
• “Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country.” JFK
• "The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence." Carl Sagan
• "Whether we bring our enemies to justice or bring justice to our enemies, justice will be done."-- George W. Bush, 9-20-01.
• "Who sheds the blood of a man, by a man shall his blood be shed" (Genesis 9:6)

• "We were elected to change Washington, and we let Washington change us."

• "People the world over have always been more impressed by the power of our example than by the example of our power."

• "In the end the true test is not the speeches a president delivers, it's whether the president delivers on the speeches."

• "Freedom requires religion, just as religion requires freedom."

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Style: Tricolon creates a sense of unity and connection

• Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness….
• Sex, drugs, and rock and roll…
• Red, white and blue,
• I came, I saw, I conquered
• One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them, One ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.

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• What strategies can be inferred from the design of the following spaces/objects?

Why design seats this way? How does this constrain behavior, & whose behavior is targeted?

The rise of the “bum-proof” bench in Los Angeles

• "One of the most common, but mind-numbing, of these deterrents is the [L.A.] Rapid Transit District’s new barrelshaped bus bench that offers a minimal surface for uncomfortable sitting, while making sleeping utterly impossible. Such ‘bumproof’ benches are being widely introduced on the periphery of Skid Row. Another invention...is the aggressive deployment of outdoor sprinklers. Several years ago the city opened a ‘Skid Row Park’ along lower Fifth Street, on a corner of Hell. To ensure that the park was not used for sleeping--that is, to guarantee that it was mainly utilized for drug dealing and prostitution--the city installed an elaborate overhead sprinkler system programmed to drench unsuspecting sleepers at random times during the night. The system was immediately copied by some local businessmen in order to drive the homeless away from adjacent public sidewalks.“Mike Davis, City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles, p. 233.

Why design walls & curbs this way?

Architects explain how they design spaces to discourage skateboarders (& other undesirables):

• “Because I was curious about how the designers of some of these details felt about them, I took a trip to the San Francisco Department of Public Works where I introduced myself as an editor of Urban Action. I spoke to two landscape architects both of whom were very solicitous. One was acutely aware that "San Francisco is the most famous skatespot in the world"—this was the architect in charge of everything-proofing the city: skateproofing, bumproofing, graffitiproofing, and so on. (She is also the architect who told me that the anti-skate metal clips are called “pig ears.”)…you try to predict the behavior of undesirables and obviate those behaviors with subtle design techniques: bright lights in corners, narrow benches, rigid circulation patterns, and so on.”

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Strategies in Sculpture: Maya Lin’s Vietnam War Memorial�

Why these choices for a memorial – what strategies might they represent?

• The Vietnam war memorial is black
• It is made of reflective black granite. When a visitor looks at the wall, she will see the engraved names and her own reflection
• The monument is built along a pathway that requires people to move along the small corridor of space
• Unlike many monuments, it lists all the names of U.S. soldiers who died, and it does so in chronological rather than alphabetic order (Lin has she wanted the wall to read “‘like an epic Greek poem’ and ‘return the vets to the time frame of the war’)
• Information about rank, unit, and decorations are not given
• The wall is V-shaped, with one side pointing to the Lincoln Memorial and the other to the Washington Monument. Lin's conception was to create an opening or a wound in the earth to symbolize the gravity of the loss of the soldiers

2003: One of the greatest acts of “political stagecraft”

“Going far beyond the foundations in stagecraft set by the Reagan White House, [the Bush administration] is using the

powers of television and technology to promote a presidency like never before.” ELISABETH BUMILLER, NYT, 2003.

For more on the history of political image making see http://www.pbs.org/30secondcandidate/index.html

Political Imagery & Rhetorical Strategy

• “George W. Bush's ‘Top Gun’ landing on the deck of the carrier Abraham Lincoln will be remembered as one of the most audacious moments of presidential theater in American history. But it was only the latest example of how the Bush administration, going far beyond the foundations in stagecraft set by the Reagan White House, is using the powers of television and technology to promote a presidency like never before.” (“Keepers of Bush Image Lift Stagecraft to New Heights” Elisabeth Bumiller, New York Times, May 16, 2003)
• The photos took place in San Diego Bay, and required a lot of maneuvering to get shots that did not include the San Diego skyline or city – and thus appeared far out at sea.

• “Officials of past Democratic and Republican administrations marvel at how the White House does not seem to miss an opportunity to showcase Mr. Bush in dramatic and perfectly lighted settings. It is all by design: the White House has stocked its communications operation with people from network television who have expertise in lighting, camera angles and the importance of backdrops.
• “Media strategists noted afterward [the Aircraft carrier pictures] that Mr. Sforza and his aides had choreographed every aspect of the event, even down to the members of the Lincoln crew arrayed in coordinated shirt colors over Mr. Bush's right shoulder and the ''Mission Accomplished'' banner placed to perfectly capture the president and the celebratory two words in a single shot. The speech was specifically timed for what image makers call ''magic hour light,'' which cast a golden glow on Mr. Bush. ''If you looked at the TV picture, you saw there was flattering light on his left cheek and slight shadowing on his right,'' Mr. King said. ''It looked great.''

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• The White House efforts have been ambitious -- and costly. For the prime-time television address that Mr. Bush delivered to the nation on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, the White House rented three barges of giant Musco lights, the kind used to illuminate sports stadiums and rock concerts, sent them across New York Harbor, tethered them in the water around the base of the Statue of Liberty and then blasted them upward to illuminate all 305 feet of America's symbol of freedom. It was the ultimate patriotic backdrop for Mr. Bush, who spoke from Ellis Island.

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• On Tuesday, at a speech promoting his economic plan in Indianapolis, White House aides went so far as to ask people in the crowd behind Mr. Bush to take off their ties, WISH-TV in Indianapolis reported, so they would look more like the ordinary folk the president said would benefit from his tax cut.”

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Drink “provokes the desire but takes away the performance.” William Shakespeare

Analogy

• The argument: invading Iraq has helped recruit supporters to Bin Laden’s cause, has not advanced the fight against terrorists and has instead set this effort back significantly.
• What strategies are used in this image?

War poster in fascist Italy (WWII)

• War posters are interesting as they distill myths, symbols and narratives of national identity with particular persuasive intensity.
• They often represent “others,” playing off various cultural and racial stereotypes

Poster produced in Italy during WWII vilifying

American troops & exhorting Italians to resist

them.

Point of view (and other rhetorical strategies)

This can include such elements as:

• Framing
• Distance from the subject (is the image a close-up, medium shot or long shot, and how is this used to suggest importance, relationships, etc?)
• Point of view (“Eyes the prize”; how does the author position herself?) A low angle shot tends to make the subject look powerful, whereas a high angle shot can reduce the size/importance of the subject
• Foregrounding/backgrounding
• Selection
• Use of visual tropes
• Arrangement of elements
• Juxtaposition of images – what relationships are inferred?

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The gaze

• In “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” Laura Mulvey argues for the concept of a “male gaze.” The audience is “required” to see the action and characters of a text through the perspective of a heterosexual man; events which occur to women are presented largely in the context of a man's reaction to these events. Mulvey argues that the male gaze denies women agency, relegating them to the status of objects. The female viewer experiences the text secondarily, by identification with the male.
• Mulvey’s work has been highly influential, although it has also been criticized and reworked significantly, particularly from scholars doing audience analysis, reception studies and anthropological work.

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• What do you notice about these movie posters from the 1950s?

• HORROR movie posters in the 1950s regularly focus on a scene of attack, with a woman in peril. The posters put the viewers in the position where they are asked to take action and to imagine themselves doing something to save the woman. The main scene in each poster spills over the edge of the poster, making it seem as if we, the audience, are there in the frame – we are incited to act. For example, in the creature from black lagoon poster, the rescuers are far away – “we” are closer. Conversely, women always are always victims and powerless. If they have any power, this is demonized. �

Fear of a visual planet?

• Concern about centrality of the visual (Postman, “peekaboo world” infantilizes and confuses; television and the “dumbing down” of America)
• Argument by association – sidesteps reasoning but has impact in our frantic, fragmented, image filled world? (Cf Tufte’s famous “The cognitive style of powerpoint”)
• Echoes concerns about oral culture, which also tends to work by association and juxtaposition
• Digital media is shifting dramatically to the visual. Do we need a new media literacy?
• Do we need to re-imagine composition so that visual more important?

When ads used a lot of logos

Today’s ads often use different appeals

ARGUMENT BY ASSOCIATION�

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• With the predominance of the visual, do we move to the era of “persuasion by association,” or “one of these things is a bit like the other one”?

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• PERHAPS works by enthymeme, inference, implication, or abduction?

Visual Argument

• Argument by association (analogy?)

Images & Cultural/Rhetorical Analysis

• What information do images provide us about culture?
• How can we use images to engage in rhetorical and cultural analysis?

Media studies & effects

• Example: Gerbner’s “Cultivation theory” attempts to understand how "heavy exposure to cultural imagery will shape a viewer's concept of reality“
• Gerbner’s work points to large scale patterns in movies, advertisements, television and other forms of popular entertainment.

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1. Patterns

• Masculine ideals in the 1980s

Shifting ideals for men

Masculine ideals in the 2000s

Ken: 1950 vs 1988

Changing beauty standards

• In 1957, Miss America was 5'7" and weighed 150 pounds.

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• In 2002 Miss America was:
• 5'9''
• 117 pounds

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Reading the (visual) patterns

• Goffman: the positioning of bodies suggests social roles for the genders. A person's behavior and appearance can be expressive and symbolic, communicating to observers their social identity, their inner states and feelings, their intentions and expectations, and the nature of their relationships with others. �
• Goffman observes that in every culture symbolic codes are developed  which express idealized social identities and relationships. Images of women and men together in the media often draw on these codes.

• Women are pictured more often than men in what Goffman calls the "recumbent position... one from which physical defense of oneself can least well be initiated and therefore one which renders one very dependent on the benign-ness of the surround...Floors also are associated with the less clean, less pure, less exalted parts of a room-for example, the place to keep dogs" (p. 41)

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What patterns can you identify?

(top left) Giorgione, (top right) Titian, (above) Goya, (left) film still, Titanic.

RECLINING NUDES 1509 - 1997

• Most nudes depicted in art are female. A fairly small number of nudes are male. What are some of the differences in the way male and female nudity is represented?

What patterns can you identify?

• Goffman argues that women are often posed bending their heads or bodies at an angle, or "cant." The effect of cant, he says, is that the "level of the head is lowered relative to that of others, including, indirectly, the viewer of the picture. The resulting configurations can be read as an acceptance of subordination, an expression of integration, submissiveness, and appeasement." (p. 46)

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What do gesture & bodily arrangement communicate?

Reversing roles

• Why does it strike us as odd, bizarre or humorous when roles are reversed?
• What does this tell us about the cultural construction of gender – of the qualities are associated with images of masculinity and femininity and the accepted boundaries between them?

• According to Kilbourne, women are more often shown “dismembered” (just parts of their bodies shown), associated with products, shown as smaller than a man, engaged in various forms of ritualized subordination, prostrate or recumbent, bent or leaning back, infantilized (with finger coyly in their mouth, standing pigeon-toed, wearing little girl clothes, sucking on lollipops, etc.), looking dreamy and introverted, overcome with emotions, or symbolically silenced with hand over the mouth.

The Cultural indicators project�(Gerbner & cultivation theory)

• Gerbner dean of communications at the Annenberg School of Communications
• Cultivation theory attempts to understand how "heavy exposure to cultural imagery will shape a viewer's concept of reality“
• Gerbner’s work points to large scale patterns in movies, advertisements, television and other forms of popular entertainment.

Denouncing the Celluloid Ceiling

See “Behind-the-Scenes Employment of Women in the Top 250 Films of 2004”

Martha M. Lauzen, School of Communication, San Diego State University