Selling Chocolate: Rhetoric, Representation and Agency

Introduction

In the last chapter we emphasised how students' rhetorical study of texts could help them to explain their aesthetic effects. In this chapter we look at the rhetorical strand more broadly, and at how it can account for the kinds of messages conveyed in advertising. As we have seen, Aristotle's model of rhetoric incorporated three elements – ethos, logos and pathos – which can be broadly aligned with conceptions of institutions, texts and audiences in modern rhetorical studies, and media studies in particular.

Again, critical engagement is seen here in tandem with creative production work, rather than opposed to it, as students make their own TV advert. Television advertising is an important area of the ...