Prompt #2: (Un) Media Analysis

Ani DiFranco, the author of this spoken word poem, is clearly a poet with very strong views of our American government. DiFranco would definitely be considered an activist, but not only for specific issues, but for the American democracy as a whole. Whether she is for or against the administration under George W. Bush's reign is not a mystery. She clearly and nearly satirically explains that the truths we hold to be self evident are not what they used to be. Ani DiFranco claims to be "looking out over my whole human family" and assumes that we all agree with her opinion. Aside from the poet's viewpoints, she made it pretty clear who her intended audience was supposed to be. In my opinion, Ani DiFranco intended for her audience to be any generation that experienced the attacks that took place on September 11th, 2001. I think that DiFranco's use of timeliness--as we discussed and read about in The CommonPlace--was extremely well-crafted. DiFranco definitely took into account who would be reading this poem, or listening to it for that matter, and considered what her audience would genuinely care about. And, as we all learned from The CommonPlace authors, to be timely is a necessity when attempting to be persuasive.

Although she makes some references to events before my time, I think that her use of relevance attracts both listeners and readers. Ani DiFranco was successful in capturing her audience's attention and considered who her ideal audience would be. In addition to her timeliness and relevance, DiFranco used analytical tools such as repetition to emphasize her point. For example, she explained that the attack on The World Trade Center "looked more like war than anything i've seen so far / so far / so far" (1). Had she only written or spoken "so far" once, personally I would not have understood what she was trying to say. In my opinion, I think she's expressing that there are sure to be more horrific events still to come in our lifetime. In addition to repetition, DiFranco uses logos in explaining the infatuation of the American citizens with popular entertainment devices. Although in my opinion, her statement that "take away our playstations / and we are a third world nation" is a bit harsh, her rational that we are so consumed with what is the most popular materialistic item, is in fact reality (2).

This type of media was harder for me to analyze in comparison to the music videos, commercials, and songs we have done thus far in class. Although I would have thought that it would be easier to analyze something physically in front of me, it was much more difficult. But, it is definitely important for us to learn rhetorical analysis on different types of mediums. My analysis on this piece of work would be slightly different than it would on a YouTube video due to the fact that with Ani DiFranco's poem, there is no actual picture painted for me. So not only does the reader or listener have to analyze the actual writing, but he or she also has to visualize the writing for him or herself.