Rhetorical analysis - Essay Example

As a function of this particular means of analysis, this student will seek to provide feedback and analysis of personal reaction, a description and discussion of the audience that this announcement is appealing to, the underlying purpose, and the means by which individuals within the announcement are ultimately represented. In seeking to address each of these rhetorical issues, the student can hope to gain a more appropriate and well nuanced understanding of the motives and mechanisms that lie at the very heart of this specific public service announcement.

Furthermore, by attempting to draw inference on each of these issues, it is the hope of this student that the reader and/or researcher will better to be able to understanding the public service announcement through the lens of analysis which will be presented. Firstly, with regards to this student’s reaction to the given piece, it was one that was immediately drawn to the high definition portrayal of a given setting with seemingly infinite small details occurring in rapid order within the field of vision of the viewer.

This particular technique helped to build the suspense, in conjunction with the melodramatic music which was playing throughout the Public Service Announcement (PSA), and lead the viewer to focus solely on trying to locate the “reportable incident” that the text, speech, music, and setting foreboded. Similarly, with respect to the given audience for this Public Service Announcement (PSA), the viewer can assume that this extends to all citizens of responsible age. Such a broad generalization can of course be made due to the nature of the information that the PSA is trying to integrate with the viewer.

As such, maximizing shareholder input is of course a primary interest to the individuals responsible for making the film (See Something Say Something Campaign, 3). Although each of the rhetorical levels of analysis which will herein be included are important, it is arguable that the very most important one is that of the rhetorical appeals that the PSA makes upon the viewer. The most powerful of these is the way that the PSA tugs upon the emotions of the viewer. This is affected by representing situations in a seemingly normal way; however, through utilizing sinister motives, references to the prior attacks of September 11th, the way in which our current world has changed, and the strong and ever-present feeling that there is something lurking beneath the surface, the PSA is able to engage the emotions of the viewer in a way that would otherwise not be possible.

Moreover, by using images and slight of hand camera work that tells a story within a story which ultimately has a connection to a larger story (terrorism), the viewer is even further engaged as to the means whereby they can stand to affect a difference on this action being perpetrated within the world in which they live. This is interesting and powerful due to the fact that the PSA does not make any mention of a particular time or place. Instead, the instance itself and the ramifications thereof is enough to engage the shareholder to give up information to the authorities as a function of protecting themselves and society.

With regards to the purpose, as has been stated up until this point, the purpose is to shock the viewer and spur a degree of future action based upon the representations that are alluded to on the screen. In this way, the filmmakers seek to