Video Rhetorics: Televised Advertising in American Politics - Softcover

Nelson, John; Boynton, G R

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0252066480 ISBN 13: 9780252066481

Publisher: University of Illinois Press, 1997

Synopsis

The aim of this book is to teach us how to better understand political ads (telespots) by attuning ourselves to their video rhetoric--their themes and stories, atmosphere and characterization, feelings and images, and their use of popular genres--from film to fiction, from MTV to game shows. Video Rhetorics is both a call for, and an example of, a new kind of political analysis.
     
Supplemented with Hot Spots: Multimedia Analyses of Political Ads, a sixty-minute video of multimedia advertising studies, the book presents lucid analyses of particular campaign ads to illustrate how music, text, metaphor, genre, image, color, delivery, tempo, and location all combine to "orchestrate" political meaning. The authors also show readers how to comprehend dynamics of contemporary political life that remain mysterious within traditional accounts of how citizens learn about politics. In the authors' view, electronic politics is here to stay, like it or not, and we cannot afford simply to dismiss or condemn political ads.
 
 

About this title

About the Author

John S. Nelson is professor of political science at the University of Iowa, Iowa City.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Illinois Press
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0252066480
• ISBN 13: 9780252066481
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 296