Burke’s Dramatistic Pentad offers us a useful tool for deciphering the motivations behind the barrage of food advertising to which we've become accustomed. Food advertisements, as we know, that hold tremendous sway over consumers’ purchasing and eating habits. Below you will find three sets of commercials from different segments of the food industry: health food, soft drinks, and fast food. You will use the Dramatistic Pentad to identify specific rhetorical elements in one commercial from each group. Additionally, you will analyze the ratio between two elements.
Directions:
1. Choose one commercial from each of the three groups. Also, choose one ratio with which to examine all three ads (e.g. purpose:agent, scene: agency).
2. Using the Dramatistic Pentad, identify what you believe to be each of the five elements (agent, agency, etc.) for each commercial (or “artifact”), using this model below:
Commercial:
Kellogg’s “Start the Day Write”
Description:
A
boy sluggishly wakes up for school. After a bowl of Kellogg’s Frosted
Flakes, the he is more animated. Later at school, the boy
enthusiastically answers his teacher’s questions thanks to the boost he
got from the cereal. The Dramatistic Pentad:
1. Act: A boy’s morning sluggishness is only helped by eating a bowl of Frosted Flakes cereal.
2. Agency: In order to pep up her sleepy son, the boy’s mother purposefully serves him a sugary breakfast cereal.
3. Agent: The boy’s mother, who serves her son a sugary cereal in order to wake him up.
4. Scene: Split between his home and his classroom.
5. Purpose: The boy’s mother, needing an efficient means to ready her sleepy son for school, feeds him a bowl of sugary cereal. She succeeds in that he is very engaged soon after in school.
2. Agency: In order to pep up her sleepy son, the boy’s mother purposefully serves him a sugary breakfast cereal.
3. Agent: The boy’s mother, who serves her son a sugary cereal in order to wake him up.
4. Scene: Split between his home and his classroom.
5. Purpose: The boy’s mother, needing an efficient means to ready her sleepy son for school, feeds him a bowl of sugary cereal. She succeeds in that he is very engaged soon after in school.
3. In one page, examine how your chosen ratio functions in each of the three commercials. For example, what is revealed by examining the ads through this specific ratio? Are there similarities? What are the differences? You might also consider how this particular ratio informs us versus another.
Choose one commercial from each of the following groups for your analysis:
Health food companies-
- "Plant-Powered Cereal" from Kashi
- "You Can See Our Quality" from Bob's Red Mill
- "We Believe in Real Food" from Whole Foods Market
Soft drink companies-
- "Break Up" from Coca Cola
- "Puppymonkeybaby" from Mountain Dew
- "LeBron James is a Sprite Endorser and So is His Friend Lil Yachty" from Sprite
Fast food companies-
- "Bacon 3-Way Burger 'Fantasty'" from Carl's Jr.
- "Or Something" from Panera Bread
- "Feast - $1 All Day" from Taco Bell
Requirements:
- MLA Style
Due: Wed 3.1 (or Mon 3.6)
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