UPDATE: 01.28.10

1) For your fifth blog post, you will write a 300-500 word response to the video you selected for your fourth, context-centered post that will focus on the rhetorical strategies of logos, pathos, and ethos. As I mentioned in class, you will not be able to adequately cover all three, nor every instance of even a single appeal. As such, I would like to develop one particular moment in the video that works with one or two of these rhetorical devices, using specific examples from the video to support your claim. In addition to the word count, please incorporate one image (not video) and two hyperlinks. Below, I have included an example the uses the Jay-Z video we discussed in class. DUE: Tuesday, February 2 @ 1o:30AM:

Toward the latter half of the "D.O.A. (Death of Auto-Tune)" video, Jay-Z sings: "Hold up, this s--t need a verse from Jeezy,/ I might send this to the mix-tape Weezy"; one verse later, he names drops yet again: "Get back to rap you're T-Pain'n too much." Given the title of the song, and the fact that all three of the aforementioned performers utilize Auto-Tune, Jay-Z constructs a binary relationship between himself and those men he invokes in his lyrics. The comparative structure he employs, or this moment of logos within the text, asks the viewer/listener of the video to contrast the aesthetic approaches of these men, as well as their underlying assumptions about what makes "good" music, or perhaps even more critically, what one should consider valid "artistic" expression.

But the implications of incorporating proper names into the lyrics of "D.O.A." extend beyond arrangement and structure. By mentioning Lil' Wayne, T-Pain, and Young Jeezy, Jay-Z elicits, or attempts to elicit, an emotional response (i.e. pathos) from his audience. To further explain: if a listener, for example, enjoys the music of these Auto-Tuned singers and believes it fosters a certain connection with his/her own life and experiences, then the fact that Jay-Z criticizes their musical approaches may anger or displease that particular audience member (and this is to say nothing of the reactions the three performers themselves might have with this song). Likewise, if a listener feels "turned-off" by the slick production techniques that have recently dominated the airwaves, then most likely, he/she will feel that "D.O.A." validates their disdain for such songs. Furthermore, the latter of these two types of listeners may also find it humorous that an iconic cultural figure such as Jay-Z skewers these performers in such an overt manner.

Of course, invoking the proper names of these three singers also enacts the rhetorical strategy of ethos. In Composition Design Advocate, the authors state that ethos can be constructed through "borrow[ing] authority...from"(192) an outside source. As the comparative structure of the lyrics display, ethos can also be constructed through contrasting one's authority with the "authority" of an outside source. The names "Weezy" and "T-Pain" carry with them pre-established notions of character and credibility. Based on one's relationship to those notions, this could be either a positive or negative association. But the point, at least within context of ethos, is that these names are known and contain ready-made associations for the listener. To a certain extent, by attacking the character of these signer, Jay-Z employs a form of ad hominem argumentation.

2) In CDA, please read pages 263-278, 285-294, and 301-304.

UPDATE: 01.26.10

1) For your fourth blog post, you will write 300-500 words about a particular music video's context or contexts. In addition to the word count, you will embed the video into the post and incorporate at least two relevant hyperlinks. DUE: January 28 @ 10:30AM.

Below is a brief analysis of Jay-Z's "D.O.A. (Death of Auto-Tune)" and the manner in which it engages particular contexts. If it helps, you may use this as a general model for your own analysis. As you will discover, the analysis ends with some broad, unsubstantiated claims. But, as you will be doing with your video, consider the context. At 300-500 words, we do not have the space to necessarily prove everyone of our charges, but they at least should be plausible and appropriately integrated into the fabric of our writing. When we write our longer, full-length projects, these will be issues that will need to be further explored.

While, no doubt, Jay-Z's "D.O.A. (Death of Auto-Tune)" may be read through the lens of many different contexts, entering the text through a literary context can be quite beneficial. Specifically, the song employs the elegiac form (i.e. the elegy), which is a poetic sub-genre that tends to "be sad or melancholy" while simultaneously considering "the meaning of death and seek[ing] some sort of consolation" (Addonizio and Laux 41). Of course, the tone of Jay-Z's elegy is far from "melancholy"; in fact, when he sings "This is death of Auto-Tune/ a moment of silence," one cannot take these words as anything but satirical when they follow such lines as "This is anti-Auto-Tune/ death of the ring tone,/ This ain't for iTunes/ this ain't for sing-a-long." Not only does Jay-Z clearly state that his song is "anti-Auto-Tune," but he also ridicules many of the contemporary technologies surrounding today's mainstream music scene by associating them with the pitch-correcting program. But the aforementioned satire found within the video appears to alter the traditional tenets of the elegy; or, we could say Jay-Z undermines our expectations for this particular context, so as to skewer those hip-(h/p)op stars that rely on Auto-Tune when creating and producing their music.

But why would Jay-Z take aim at these "singers"? Why would he find the need to level an argument against performers such as T-Pain and Weezy (aka Lil' Wayne) that have "processed" their way to celebrity status? To answer this question, one must look more closely at what Auto-Tune actually does by shifting to a technological context. The program enables performers to digitally "correct" portions of their vocal track so that it will be pitched at the same frequency as the instrumental tracks. This, ultimately, has two major ramifications: 1) the voice one hears in an Auto-Tuned song is not the singer's "authentic" voice, and 2) pitch correction homogenizes vocal tracks so that voices that were initially disparate become rather similar to one another. While the "authenticity game" played by Jay-Z can lead to many problems (not just in the world of popular culture, but also in the academic world), he rightly concerns himself with the negation of difference and the manner in which such practices can lead to not just a less vibrant culture and society, but to the oppression and domination of marginalized groups in all areas of life.

Works Cited

Addonizio, Kim and Dorianne Laux. The Poet's Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, 1997.

2) Come prepared for Thursday's class session to discuss the types of rhetorical strategies and appeals at work in the video we discussed in class. Specifically, I would like us to focus on ethos, pathos, and logos. CDA covers these terms in chapter 4 and at greater length in chapter 7.