We live in an increasingly visual culture. For example, visual advertisements are
everywhere: from roadside billboards to television, movies, newspapers, and, of
course, the Internet. Often a mixture of text and images, these range from the
hilarious to the controversial to the downright annoying. Hence, such visual texts
are anything but neutral; they are meant to convey explicit as well as implicit
messages that affect and influence particular audiences. So we must ask: Why
do such visual texts affect us? How do they affect us? Who is “us”? (In doing so,
we expand our understanding of a “text” to mean all materials that can be read,
analyzed, and interpreted.)
Essay Assignment: This essay requires you to use ideas from “Monster Culture”
and “Masters of Desire” to analyze and interpret a static visual advertisement in
order to make an insightful argument. The advertisement you select should either
depict an explicit “monster” or something that the intended audience would
arguably perceive as “monstrous.” Your goal is to decode your exhibit’s explicit
and implicit messages and the methods by which it conveys its message(s). As
in the first essay, you must also characterize the intended audience for your
selected advertisement. You must also consider how analysis of your exhibit
complicates or extends the intellectual conversation occurring between “Monster
Culture” and “Masters of Desire.”
Imagine that you are writing to be considered for publication in an upcoming
issue of a respected scholarly student journal focused on modern visual culture.
The journal is distributed to colleges and universities around the country.
Goals:
Continue to work on the goals from the first assignment: using the introduction
to orient the reader and identify an intellectual problem or question; formulating
a strong claim; establishing a motive; maintaining a coherent structure; using
evidence fairly and persuasively.
Integrate your sources with deliberation and purpose. The sources can be used
to articulate the motive, establish the intellectual conversation, provide context or
key terms, analyze evidence to support your claim, or argue with other
interpretations. Document sources using the MLA in-text citation method. Include
a works cited page. Practice ICE: introduce, cite, explain.
Have cohesion and coherence in your prose on the sentence level and on the
paragraph level. Your diction should be precise. Avoid clichés of language and
clichés of thought.
Have an interesting and informative title.
Adhere to all relevant formatting guidelines described in the course syllabus.
When you choose and post your potential exhibits, please keep in mind The Solomon and Cohen articles on advertising and monsters. Try and think of your exhibits as possible examples for their ideas.
Sample Solution