This document discusses analyzing artifacts and provides examples of cultural and rhetorical artifacts. It describes how to analyze a rhetorical artifact by choosing one from an abundant location, finding its deeper meaning, and considering its audience and purpose. The document includes a case study where the author analyzes exhibits in a wildlife hall suggesting they promote family values, and discusses futuristic artifacts like the iPod, Avatar movie, and an assignment to analyze an innovative artifact.
2. What is an Artifact? Artifacts are all around us – they are found in homes, in cities and in communities. Anything that is manmade can be considered an artifact. There are two different types of artifacts: cultural and rhetorical.
4. Examples of Cultural Artifacts Works of Art (i.e. paintings, drawings, sculptures, etc.) Buildings (political buildings, churches, historical structures) Movies Music (not just mainstream music; consider traditional instruments) Written Works (novels, plays, poetry, journals, newspapers, blogs, etc.) Speech (consider speeches at political rallies, or famous speeches such as the Gettysburg Address or Franklin Roosevelt’s Fireside Chats)
5. Rhetorical Artifacts Rhetorical Artifacts are Cultural Artifacts. However, being as these artifacts are rhetorical, their primary objective is to communicate and persuade. Think about a Rhetorical Artifact as a Cultural Artifact with a “deeper meaning.” Look at the pictures of the Egyptian Sphinx, White House, and Iron Man 2 poster on the previous slide. What do each of these artifacts subtlety reveal? Think about it – I will present a case study of how to analyze a rhetorical artifact later.
6. How to Begin Your Analysis Start off by picking a place where Cultural Artifacts are abundant. This could be a bookstore, a museum, or a city (although it is not limited to these three options). Find an artifact that speaks to you. It is okay if you haven’t found the deeper yet. If you have trouble finding an artifact hat speaks to you, try to find an artifact to which you can personally relate. For instance, if you are passionate about political science, you may want to find a political speech or a building in Washington, D.C. to analyze.
7. How to Find a Deeper Meaning This is the hardest part about analyzing an artifact because this is the unobvious part. Once you have chosen an artifact, try to determine the message it conveys. Is this message symbolic of a cultural ideal? You are looking for something that could be easily overlooked in the artifact of your choosing. Your job, although not an easy one, is to figure out the hidden message living in your artifact.
8. Other Elements to Consider Consider the audience of your Rhetorical Artifact. WHO the artifact is speaking to can many times help reveal the hidden message. Some artifacts have general audiences while others have very specific ones. Exigency is key. Exigency refers to an issue that requires a call-to-action. When analyzing your artifact, it is imperative that the artifact itself acts as a persuasive tool for a specific audience to carry out some sort of a task.
9. Case Study: Wildlife Halls When I had to rhetorically analyze an artifact, I felt that the museum would be a great place to find something with a hidden message. I began my tour of the museum in the Wildlife Halls, which had been my favorite part of the museum since I was young. As I looked around, I noticed that all of the wildlife, regardless of species, were setup so there was a mom, a dad, and little babies working together to successfully live life. Does that sound unusual to you?
10. My Initial Reactions Animals are not like humans, and for the most part do not have familial values. Most father animals (and even some mothers) abandon their young once they are born. Independence is an essential skill in the Animal Kingdom, regardless of age, and that was never conveyed in the exhibits. Family values are something that are being threatened in society. For some reason, they are being preserved in the Wildlife Halls (a place where they are inherently unnatural). The main audience of the halls are families, especially little children.
11. My Claim/Analysis Claim: The museum, through the setup of the Wildlife Halls, is trying to enforce their understanding of positive moral values onto those who look at the exhibit in hopes to preserve these threatened values. Since I found it funny that the museum chose to equate dead animals with human life, I chose to make a pseudo-Public Service Announcement “promoting” the museum’s views (preserving traditional marriage, right to life, etc.). My argument was subtle, yet I was able to be effective because most listeners recognized the satiric tone of the announcement.
12. Futuristic Artifacts In the world today, there is a constant need to advance some aspect of society farther into the future. Evidence for this sort of futuristic revolution can be found in a variety of different fields, including (but not limited to) technology, movies, music and architecture. Apple is an example of a company that lately has incessantly been revolutionizing technology. They first did it with the iPod and Macbook computers. Lately they have gone a step further by creating the iPad. What are the consequences of these technologies?
13. iPod Although the iPod revolutionized the music industry, it has come along with some negative effects. In the music industry, albums are no longer selling like they used to; most artists are lucky these days to have their album go platinum, simply because the iPod has created a preference to purchase (or even illegally download) singles rather than entire albums. The iPod can also cause hearing loss, which begs the question: is sporting this futuristic artifact worth the long-term risks? I will now present another example of a futuristic artifact…
14. Avatar “Avatar” is the highest grossing movie of all time and will revolutionize cinema. The film takes place in a futuristic world where humans can transform into Avatars. Its 3D graphics were unlike anything ever before seen in American cinema.
15. Possible Negative Effects of “Avatar” “Avatar” cost over $400 million to make and market. Since movie studios will want to outdo the graphics of “Avatar” in future films, they will have to spend hundreds of millions of dollars. A big budget, however, does not guarantee box office success. If studios spend $400 million on a movie that only takes in $100 million, this results in a substantial budget deficit that has potential to bankrupt movie studios.
16. Your Assignment: Innovative Artifacts Your job is to find a Rhetorical Artifact that you believe to be innovative for the future. Perform an analysis of the artifact, focusing on the deeper meaning of the artifact’s innovativeness. Make sure to incorporate audience and exigency, and consider what society is poised to gain or lose as a result of this futuristic artifact. Be creative.
