The Art of the Audio Essay
PWR 2 Fall Quarter 2007
Jonah G. Willihnganz
Stanford University

Rhetorical Analysis
In-Class Presentations
Audience: Your Classmates

What a rhetorical analysis is:

A rhetorical analysis is an examination of how a text persuades us of its point of view. It focuses on identifying and investigating the way a text communicates, what strategies it employs to connect to an audience, frame an issue, establish its stakes, make a particular claim, support it, and persuade the audience to accept the claim. It is not, as we have noted, an analysis of what a text says but of what strategies it uses to communicate effectively. You must, of course, begin your analysis with what the text says—its argument—but the work of the essay is to show how the text persuades us of its position. You might think of the piece you choose as a particular kind of engine whose machinations produce particular results. An analysis of the engine examines all the parts, how they work in isolation, together, etc. to see how the engine does what it does, or makes what it makes.

Your task:

Create a 10-12 minute presentation that performs an analysis of one of the audio essays listed (and linked) below. This analysis should begin with what you take to be the main point of the piece (its argument or point of view) and then develop an case about what is used to make that argument or point of view persuasive. Your presentation should be argument-driven—that is, the analysis of the text's strategies should serve an overall claim about what makes the piece persuasive. You can play a short clip or two of the piece during the presentation, but be mindful of length—probably no more than two clips and no more than 1 minute total.

Your argument will emerge only after you do substantial analysis, so I suggest that you begin by listening to your chosen piece several times and taking copious notes. I would also suggest that you separate this analysis into two parts, the audio and non-audio elements of the piece:

Qualities not specific to audio form of the piece might include:

• traditional rhetorical appeals (logos, pathos, ethos)
• structure and organization of material (introduction, conclusion, arrangements of description, dialogue, etc.)
• evidence (of any kind—examples, analogies, etc. count)
• rhetorical strategies such as establishing common ground, anticipating objections, posing a question, using motifs, creating associations, disarming the audience, etc.

Qualities specific to audio from of the piece might include:

• voice quality (distance, inflection, specific intonations to indicate meaning, etc.)
• voice pacing (rate, variation, use of pauses, etc.)
• language (diction, alliteration, assonance, repeated words, phrases, or syntactical structures, etc.)
• music (kinds, patterns, relation to narration or dialogue)
• sound (kinds, patterns, relation to narration or dialogue)

This division should make the process of analysis simpler, but it is a bit artificial since, for example, choices about narrative structure or use of a particular rhetorical appeal (to ethos, for example) may be driven by the piece's audio format. You may not maintain the distinction between qualities not specific/specific to audio when you develop your argument and present evidence for it.

For this assignment please meet, as a group, with an Oral Communication Consultant (OCT). Make an appointment via this page or go to drop-in hours (Sunday through Thursday, 7:00 to 9:00 p.m.) Oral Communication is in Sweet Hall, Room 303.

Here are the five audio essays for analysis. Everyone will listen to all of them, but your group will analyze just one.

Group 1: Ward, Yarborough, Taylor, and Lyf, "Oakland Scenes" (in Youth Radio's Violence section)
Group 2: Jack Hitt, "Mapping the Ambient World" (Act II of TAL show on Mapping)
Group 3: Jonathan Mitchell, "City X" (from prx.org)
Group 4: Jeremy Richards, "Behind the Man" (scroll down to find the piece)
Group 5: Radio Lab, "One Eye Open" (Part I of episode on Sleep)