Rhetoricians,
Interesting conversation today. So you see that Porter is suggesting that the power of the individual speaker or writer is significant only in the context of a community ("discourse community"). Great. This is a huge revision of the usual ways we think about meaning, the writer, and texts. Now let's put his techniques to work.
For Thursday, I want you to bring in a print ad from a magazine. I put one example up on the elearning page for Rhetoric (http://webct8.cortland.edu/webct/logon/5361273700001) called "Monsanto." It's just an example.
So here is your homework: read again the back pages of Porter and his "discourse community analysis" stuff. Find and tear out a good ad from a magazine you have lying around. Then, just as you did in class, writing down on paper (typing is good) for your small group what discourse communities sponsor that ad (by "sponsors," I mean the discourse community that the ad is building on, resisting, or arguing for). I'm not interested in the one brilliant ad writer who composed the ad; I want to know the environment of discourse that made it possible and necessary to produce the ad.
Write down also the "traces" you see in the ad, the allusions and "fragments of meaning" (just as were buried in the Kent State report). Bring that crucial piece of paper to class Thursday.
I'll be talking about the Monsanto ad, but the principles we cover will also apply to your ad.
See you soon.
David Franke
No comments:
Post a Comment