Rhetorical Artifacts and Civic Life

The civic encompasses everyday life in the sense of and the desire and motivation to achieve public advancement. Many advertisements, speeches, memes, and other forms of discourse aim to impact civic life through rhetoric.

The #LikeAGirl campaign video by Always aims to remove the stigma associated with the phrase “like a girl” and promote confidence in girls going through puberty. This campaign discusses the problems with social issues such as stereotyping women as weak or creating disparities at a young age that can contribute to gender discrimination. I believe this campaign is worth studying because it can be connected to greater societal issues like wage gaps and why women are employed more frequently in certain fields and absent from others. Additionally, I’d be interested to explore how some may view this statement as no big deal while it may affect others very seriously.

The Rosie the Riveter campaign was originally an attempt to recruit women for defense industries during World War II. This twenty-first century re-imagining shows Rosie wearing a mask and calls on everyone to band together to stop the spread of the Coronavirus. The pandemic and the messages in this advertisement affect everyday life, politics, public health, and many other aspects of the civic. This campaign stood out to me because it is analyzed through many aspects of the civic as well as two very different periods in United States history. I’d also be interested to explore the effectiveness of reusing a popular artifact for a new cause and the interplay between the two causes.

The #MissingTypes campaign by American Red Cross asked civic organizations, brands, and influencers to remove the letters a, o, and b, from signs, social media posts, and websites to encourage people to fill in gaps and save lives by donating blood. This is civic as it is related to the public good and improving the lives of those in our collective society. I would like to study this campaign because it addresses the very serious cause of blood shortages in a compelling way. I think it is also worth studying because it involved other businesses and organizations, allowing it to impact a very large audience.

3 thoughts on “Rhetorical Artifacts and Civic Life

  1. Hi Hannah! I like all of the artifacts that you chose. I think you can do really good things with each of them
    For the “Like a Girl” campaign video, I think you could discuss how this could effect the perspective of a young girl who is seeing this for the first time. Growing up with the idea that a boy is superior to them and they will be seen as weaker is definitely hard to deal with at such a young age. I think you could dig deeper into the damage that gender discrimination has at a young age on kids. In addition to this, you could research how it effects behaviors in different environments such as at home, schools, or in social interactions with other kids.
    – Olivia

  2. As for the other two,
    I like the Rosie the Riveter campaign, I think you hit the spot on connecting it to the idea of everyone coming together to stop the spread of corona virus. I think you could also relate this in studying the effectiveness of public advertisement to try and limit the spread of corona virus. Are these public displays of posters, advertisements, news articles, etc actually effecting the spread of corona? Which are the most popular?

    Finally, I think the #MissingTypes campaign could be connected to civil in many ways. This is my first time actually seeing this ad and I already feel like it could play a big role in society today. It can also be related to the idea that coming together in small simple cats like these could possibly be a step in the path to reducing the violence and hate we give each other in society today. One aspect you could focus on is how these companies are changing and adapting to this pandemic and how they are trying to meet the needs of their costumers. What approaches are they taking that they weren’t in the past or have they adjusted for better or for worse?
    -Olivia

  3. Hi Hannah!
    For the first artifact, not only can you talk about work-related sexism but also society in general. There is sexism in everyday life, subtle or not.
    For the second artifact, you can talk about the people who refuse to believe in the pandemic and in mask-wearing, causing a huge divide in our country.
    For the third artifact, you can also talk about how people need to come closer together and stop distancing from each other (not in a social-distancing way).

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