Rhetorical Analysis pt 1& 2

RHETORICAL ANAKYSIS pt. 1

http://www.hulu.com/watch/147972/saturday-night-live-census

What is the video about? This video is basically about a woman (Tina Fey) who is going around attempting to poll people for the 2010 Census. Betty White’s initial reaction to Fey is like most people, to close the door and ignore her. White agrees to answer a few questions and, of course, throws out a few jokes. Fey attempts to remain calm and collected, asking the typical questions like: What is your race? How many people live in this residence? and What is your name? White fires back with some pretty funny answers. In response to ‘What is your name?’ she replies, Blarfengerrr Blarfengerrr. For the question ‘How many people live in this residence’ she counts off names that sound like it would be for a pet, but after Fey leaves Whites apartment, we find out she was actually referring to homeless men wearing fur coats.

What is the central message of the video? The main message is making fun of the Census. Most people ignore any mail or forms related to the Census, others fill it out at their leisure. People who have become annoyed with the Census may even fill out random, funny information.

What do you like/dislike? I love how White answers the Census questions in a humorous way because most people understand how annoying Census workers can be, and it is refreshing to see someone who can make light of this situation. I didn’t think this video was one of the funniest things I’ve seen, but I did appreciate the humor. I think anyone who has been in any predicament with the “Census people” can relate and be thankful for SNL making light of the situation.

RHETORICAL ANALYSIS pt. 2

I will be looking at how ColinK’s post and Joel’s post differed from my own.

Colin: Most obviously, how we formatted our posts is different. I didn’t write that Betty White was senile, but I do agree that in this skit, she was. I didn’t take the same perspective he did on the census, but I can see where he is coming from. I also didn’t know that Betty White was nominated for an Emmy! That is interesting, and I am interested in which television program it was for because I have only seen her more recent films and appearances on most recent shows.

Joel: I definitely agree with Joel about his perspective on the central message. I like how he made references to what types of information people fill in on the census and then linked specific instances – thought that was a creative idea. Though I didn’t include this in my post, I agree that over the years, SNL has been decreasingly worse in terms of what content is on show.

Polysemy is defined as: the notion that a text is open to multiple interpretations and meanings. Anything that is opinion-based could be considered polysemy. I think this because it is opinion, and the author obviously intended it to be perceived a certain way. However, other readers may view a writer’s opinion differently than the author intended, because it is opinion, not fact.

Polyvalence is defined as: the notion that a text has a relatively unified meaning that is valued differently by different audiences. An example of this would be Joel’s opinion on the decline of SNL over the years. Some may agree or disagree with this statement, however the meaning of this his interpretation is fairly unified. His statement may be valued differently by different audiences, depending on their opinion of SNL throughout the years.

Individual responses converged, because most interpretations of the video were similar. The video was less than three minutes in length and only so much can be said about a short video clip. The message in the video was also fairly straight-forward and most people who posted had similarities in their perspective of what the central message of the video was. Interpretive communities is defined as, groups who interpret texts similarly because they share similar social positions and experiences. I am assuming that most of us in this class are about the same age, and therefore, grew up in the same generation. We most likely interpret media so similarly because we have all watched similar types of media and have grown up together in this sense. We are all, also, most likely students at Ohio University in the School of Media Arts and Studies. So, we most likely share commonalities in receiving our college education.

I found the definitions for dominant, negotiated and oppositional codes on this website: http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem08c.html. I could not find anyone with an oppositional reading because most of us understand the census and that was the aspect of the video clip that we focused on. Many of our posts had a dominant reading because we stated the obvious of the clip, and gave straight-forward interpretations. Some of us read this clip from a negotiated perspective because we were asked to share our opinions. Some shared their knowledge of the Census but not many gave specific references or examples to their own experiences.