Major Assignment Three Paper

For major assignment three, I decided to create a video with the major argument being about survival.  I wanted to create a visual message to my audience about the importance of living no matter how hard situations get.  Survival and living is a daily challenge for some people and I’ve had personal experiences so I knew that the rhetorical situation I wanted to address was this.

            My purpose was to convince my audience that life is important and survival is worth the hardships.  There are two main audiences for my project.  The primary audience is my classmates and my professor while the secondary audience is anyone who views my video through YouTube which is the source that I chose to upload my video to.  My video was created with both audiences in mind.  I wanted to leave an air of ambiguity with my video so that both audiences could create their own interpretation of the piece.  I feel that by leaving the monster in my video a mystery it makes my video more relatable because the audience can create their own monster. 

            Bitzer states rhetoric as such, “A mode of altering reality, not by direct application to energy to an object, but the creation of discourse which engages reality through the mediation of thought and action.”  In my video I tried to create a sense of fear and urgency through the choice of music as well as the action of the two characters.  I kept the monster’s face hidden because I want my audience to create their own idea of what might be chasing my main character.  This is creating a rhetorical situation through action (the action of the two characters) and thought (allowing the audience to create their own monster).

            Concerning the content of my video, I wanted to create a simulation, as Jean Baudrillard would say, of fear.  I wanted to layout the buildings of urgency and fear to help my audience feel like they were really frightened and panicked.  I was trying to avoid giving every detail to my audience because I really wanted them to create their own interpretation.  I feel that this way it makes the video content interesting and more relatable.

            Because my video was originally presented in a university setting, my video does not contain anything profane.  Even though most university settings are accepting of almost anything I also had to think about the secondary source where my video is being presented.  YouTube is an open setting and some viewers may not be as accepting of certain content.  I tried to avoid anything that might ruffle some feathers whether it is in the classroom or online.

            I hope that the context of my video is received well.  The ambiguity of my project is to help make the audience relate better.  It does not apply to the message.  I tried to make my major argument clear as well as the rhetorical situation that I am addressing which is simply the importance of living.

Sources Mentioned:

The Rhetorical Situation by Lloyd F. Bitzer
Simulacra and Simulations by Jean Baudrillard