This paper is asking you to analyze a cultural artifact and argue about what it reveals about the larger culture it is apart of. What ideas does your artifact represent and how are those ideas expressed? Think about the effect of the artifact on its audience.
Your artifact may be a specific video game, music video, movie, TV show, advertisement, book, album, podcast, a holiday, a cultural celebration, a piece of clothing, a viral trend or video, a social network platform, and many, many other options. Think about the cultural meaning of your artifact. For instance, what ideas, beliefs, or stereotypes are being represented through the rhetoric of the artifact?
You will need to analyze the artifact, thinking about its rhetorical elements:
What is communicated, both explicitly and implicitly? (message)
Who is communicating the message? (consider all the communicators)
Who is the audience(s)?
Where/when is the message being communicated? (context)
Why is the message being communicated? (purpose)
How is the message being communicated? (tone, style)
What rhetorical devices are being used? (logos, ethos, pathos)
Of course, you do not have to answer all of these questions.
As you analyze the example/text with these questions, you will need to think about the example/text in relation to the larger idea of the artifact and to culture. The ambiguity of the concept of culture is notorious. In your essay, however, you will need to provide a particular definition of culture for this project. If you find difficulty in giving a definition, you may use this one:
a group of people who share commonalities (knowledge, beliefs, paradigms, values, language and language practices, etc.) that construct individual social identities of those people (race, gender, sexuality, class, nationality, age, abledness) and primarily influence individual behaviors and decisions
In your essay, you will need to connect the answers from the above questions to parts of this definition of culture. The final essay should provide both a description of the artifact and an analysis that situates the artifact in relation to culture and cultural meaning.
Final essays should be about 4 pages,
have a beginning that allows readers to know what your analysis is about—namely, a detailed description of what the general artifact is
clearly make a major claim/argument about the artifact and its relation to culture
situate and analyze the rhetoric of the artifact in relation to cultural beliefs and/or values
conclude with some ideas for how others might think differently about the relationship between the artifact and culture
use at least one secondary source, other than your artifact, to assist in your analysis
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