Commercials are great for visual rhetoric, but what are some good readings to help students go beyond the usual “logos, pathos, ethos” critique?
The essay, “On Reading a Video Text,” introduces students to a robust framework for visual rhetoric and ideological critique. The article is a great example close-reading of a Budweiser commercial, in which Scholes helps readers understand the “pleasure and power” of video texts in reinforcing our sense of cultural membership. Students can work to define his terms, such as “narrativity,” “cultural reinforcement,” “storehouse of cultural information,” “ideological criticism,” “surrender,” and “recovery.” Students can then be challenged to walk through this framework to critique other commercials or advertisements.