Chapter 11 · Content Analysis: Understanding Text and Image Additional Resources

Logos are the facts, statistics, and example statements that holds up the argument in any argumentative writing piece. In Fast Food Nation Schlosser had plenty of statistics to advance his argument, "In 1970, Americans spent

Contemporary visual media contributes to the social construction of gender in that the way that men and women are portrayed in advertising is vastly different.

Across the nation, millions of Americans of all races turn on the television or open a newspaper and are bombarded with images of well dressed, articulate, attractive black people advertising different products and representing respected companies. The population of black professionals in all arenas of work has risen to the point where seeing a black physician, attorney, or a college professor are becoming more a common sight. More and more black people are holding positions of respect and authority throughout America today, such as Barack Obama, Colin Powell, Condelezza Rice and many other prominent black executives. As a result of their apparent success, these black people are seen as role models for many Americans, despite their race.

The mode logos mean "It is normally used to describe facts and figures that support the speaker's topic". Logos also means "Having a logos appeal also enhances ethos because information makes the speaker look knowledgeable and prepared to his or her audience.". Some examples from the commercial is that that Wendy's said "We believe you get juicier hamburgers that way" so this implies that they are trying to convince you that the way they are making their burgers tastes a

We live in a media saturated environment where everything we know and what we consider to be important is often based on stories produced and displayed to us by the media, Brooks and Hebert (2006). Much of what we know and care about is based on the images, symbols and narratives in radio, television, film, music and other media systems. How individuals construct their social identities, how they come to understand what it means to be male, female, Black, White, Asian, Latino and Native America is shaped by commoditised texts produced by media for audiences that are increasingly segmented by the social construction of race. In short the media are central to what ultimately come to present our social realities. For example for many Whites and people from other races and ethnicities the media’s portrayal of young black men is the primary bias for their knowledge and reaction. With a few notable examples in politics, most media present young black men as figures to be admired for their athleticism, artistic, entertainment talent or feared for their criminality. However this essay will focus on the way young black men are portrayed in news.

As the modern civil rights movement grew, visual culture became and important force for combating the negative view of African Americans and counteracting the dangerous effects of stereotypes. The birth of the modern African American pictorial magazine in the 1940s and 1950s provided an outlet to disseminate positive images of African Americans to a large African American audience. These images inspired activism, bolstered self-esteem, and acted against the damaging effects of prevailing stereotypes. Positive images of African Americans were also present in primarily “white” media. The presence of these images was intended

Logos: Appeal based on reason or logic. Logical reasons or examples/the logic used to support a claim (induction and deduction); can also be the facts and statistics used to help support the argument.

Diversity is now, more than ever before, at the forefront of the American conversation. Black people have been slowly but surely making gains in today’s society and in ways that were not possible before. African Americans are more educated and more affluent, and more important as consumers than ever before. By 2017, they are expected to have a spending power of 1.3 trillion dollars (Resilient, 2013). Young, influential, and brand loyal, this group should be the target of many companies. Interestingly enough, there has not been much of an effort on the part of marketers to appeal to this growing group. Additionally, the lack of diversity as well as the alienation of black people in the media is not doing much to allow a wider range of companies to reach them. Black Americans are a powerful group, and smart marketers will put a focus on investing in them to increase their market share.

Logos: It is an appeal to the mind with the use of logic, rationality and critical reasoning to persuade the audience. The author uses logos in his article to make a logical connection with the topic. For example, the author uses the explanation of ideas in the article and employs lots of diagrams in each parts of the topic to show the visualization to support his evidence which is very informative because the visuals give lots of information about what the article is about and that to get attention of the audience.

Finally the last element which Burke discusses is agency which is the theoretical points, he claims that the whole lot is realised through language. From these elements Goffman then went on to develop his own ‘dramaturgical’ investigations based on six themes: the performance, the team, the region, discrepant roles, communication out of the character and impression management. Nothing of Goffman’s dramaturgical world is quite what it seems. Rather, people are all portrayed as performers enacting rehearsed lines and roles in places that are carefully constructed in order to maximise the potential of deception. He then goes on to suggest that as performers people both ‘give’ and ‘give off’ impressions. It has been suggested that Goffman’s dramaturgical world is thus one of misdirection in which general suspicion is necessary; he developed an interest in espionage practices mainly because he recognised these as extensions of everyday behaviour. Goffman then went on to identify five moves in social interaction which are the ‘unwitting’, the ‘naïve’, the ‘covering’, the ‘uncovering’ and finally the ‘counter uncovering’ move (1959: 11-27). Each of these moves is designed either to achieve some advantage directly, or to reveal the strategies of other players. These moves are used in social worlds, or as Goffman called them, ‘situated activity systems’. Each is regulated by adopted norms known by system’s members. Rather than concentrating on the production of meanings, the

Burke's Pentad includes five categories, which help classifying arguments as dramatic actions. The first part is the "act"; What is done by the unit? The second part of his evaluation is the "scene"; What is the history behind the "act"? The third category of Burke's Pentad is the "agent"; Who is the source of the message? How the "agent" accomplishes its "act" is defined as the "agency" in the fourth term of the Pentad. The final piece to Burke's analysis is to the define the "purpose" of the action.

There are five elements to the pentad: agent, act, scene, agency and purpose. The pentad is necessary when trying to develop an argument, as it can produce several possibilities that can have relation to each other.

The first analysis being used are Burke’s Pentad which analysis the drama of the ad. It finds the motive of the ad. It shows what the marketers are selling to the consumer. The five parts of Burke’s Pentad are the act, scene, agent, agency, and purpose. The ad being analysis is Habitat for Humanity “Man burrow”.

Kenneth Burke is known for the knowledge of human symbolic behavior. He was associated with many narrative theories. He focused on language as it is used to persuade people to an action, and defined persuasion as “the use of language as a symbolic means of inducing cooperation beings that by nature respond to symbols.” (Burke, 1970, Grammar, p. 43) This active cooperation is induced by what he called identification which is very similar to Aristotle’s “common ground” and our use of “co-creation” (Larson, 2007, p. 127) According to Burke, identification develops through the linguistic of sharing what he called sub-stances. He had divided the word into its prefix, sub meaning beneath and stances meaning places. Burke noted that these sub-stances or places emerge in the words we use to define things, persons and issues. Kenneth Burke uses common ground by physical things like for example branded clothing. According to Larson, Burke indicates that, “all words have emotional shading and reveal the feelings, attitudes, values, and judgment of the user. For example, he uses the word manipulate which can potentially carry a negative meaning by changing people’s minds.”

The New York Times’ article uses a plethora of logos, especially in statistics. Logos is logic used to persuade the reader. It is apart of the Aristotelian model. An example from the