Academic Language Infer Analyze Compare Contrast Argue / Persuade Support / Evidence
Semiotics The study of signs and symbols and their use or interpretation.
Visual Rhetoric The use of images as persuasive argument
Cultural Artifact An object that reflects, promotes or subverts the current or aspirational values, needs and practices of the culture that produced it.
Cultural Work The process by which an artifact transmits, reinforces or enables values and practices of feeling, thinking or acting in a culture, or enables individuals in a culture to imagine, rehearse or enact new patterns of feeling, thinking or acting.
Pre-reading Activities Conventions of the genre Unfamiliar vocabulary
Viewing Question What does this artifact communicate to viewers that they should be, do, want or think?
Iconography of Hip Hop Video Cash Luxury goods Transportation Jewelry Clothing Houses Beautiful, mostly-naked women… plural Alcohol
Viewing Questions What does this artifact suggest to viewers that they should be, do, want or think? What conventions of hip hop does this artifact undermine? What conventions of hip hop does this artifact reinforce? What is Macklemore’s thesis?
Conventional Hip Hop Videos “Hypnotize” by Notorious B.I.G. “Candy Shop” by 50 Cent “Money ain't a thing” Miami
Conventions of Hip Hop Music Easy delivery of complex rhymes; bonus for speed Women as sexual objects Bragging (rooted in The Dozens game) Rapping skills Sexual conquests Sexual prowess Rise from poverty to wealth Disposable income
Artifact Analysis Assignment Analyze a cultural artifact Develop a thesis about the cultural work the artifact is performing and what the implications of that work are for youth in contemporary U.S. society. Prove your thesis with analysis, evidence and argument.
Hip Hop Critique Videos “Thrift Shop” by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis (clean edit) “Wings” by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis “Royals” by Lorde
Based on your analysis of the verbal and visual rhetoric within this artifact: What is Macklemore’s thesis?
Complete Thesis What? What is the artifact doing? How? What is your evidence for this claim? So What? What is at stake? Why should we care? What does reading the artifact your way do for our understanding of it, the culture that produced it, or the people who consume, use or are affected by it?
Got questions? Elizabeth Bleicher