Pentad Analysis for "like a Girl" Ad Campaign

...

The rhetor of this commercial would be Always. This is a company that sells women’s health and beauty products. They have seen this stereotype of women grow stronger and stronger and have decided to put an end to it by showing us how a younger, innocent girl views herself. I believe this was an excellent way of going about it because it shows the power that media and society have on the development of minds.

I believe the intended audience of this commercial was society as a whole but specifically, men. This commercial aired during the Super Bowl which is watch by a lot of men. Also, men would be the main users of the insult “like a girl.” I believe they wanted men to realize the impact of the words they use on the minds of women. Therefore, the purpose of this project is to use the pentadic process to show the significance media has had on women’s self image and how to motivate change for the next generation.

Methods

Let me begin by defining the pentad process and each step of the pentad. Burke’s (1945/1969) pentad is known as a valuable heuristic tool for mapping vocabularies, motives, and attitudes inherent in language use (Meisenbach, Remke, Buzzanell, & Liu, 2008). Another author describes it like this: Kenneth Burke’s Pentad analysis is mainly used for rhetorical analysis. Although the strategies used in this method may not have the same interest value to an audience, each element is important to better understanding of the underlying message of artifacts (Hamlin and Nichols, 1). The pentad has six steps that I will be describing, the act, agent, agency, purpose, scene, and ratio. These six steps can be thought of like a movie or play. The act is simply what is happening before our eyes. The agent is the thing that is doing the act. The agency is what helps the act in becoming complete. The purpose is the reason the act is taking place. The scene is the context of which the whole thing is taking place. Finally, the ratio determines which of the 5 listed above are the most important.

The following article, Mapping US Humanitarian Aid: A Pentadic Cartography Of Michael Levitt's Health Diplomacy is a great guide to show the pentadic elements. The article applies the elements to the address that the former secretary of the state gives on US health diplomacy. In the article it is clearly stated why the pentad in fact is so important and why it is a useful tool. Bates says that “so that we can understand the relationships among these elements”. The article developed a broad vocabulary so breaking down these elements in the pentad is very critical, for not only understanding the relationship between the elements but for understanding them at all.

For this article, Mapping US Humanitarian Aid: A Pentadic Cartography Of Michael Levitt's Health Diplomacy, the act would be health care, the act is the action that happens in the artifact or in this case the article. They are using health care because in the address health care is what the promotion is. Health care is the thing that people are are there to hear about. The article does imply that the act of healthcare is a means that would benefit many parties of people that are present, whether it be doctors and their practice. Hospitals and their facilities or just the average citizen standing there waiting to hear what the new policy could be and how that would affect them and their families in the future.

The agent of the article is the United States or the allied states, the agent of the artifact is the people that developed the artifact. In this case the people of the country are the reason that this address could happen and develop. Without the US people and their need for health care there would be no need for the artifact (address).

The agency in the article is health diplomacy. The agency is how the artifact is carried out or the means to it. Health diplomacy being a major issue combining the public safety needs, economy, and law this helps for the article to be produced. Health diplomacy is chosen for the agency because Senator Levitt uses health diplomacy as the issue to discuss the greater good of the country and its health.

The scene of the artifact is geopolitics, geopolitics is where and when the article took place. The scene can be very important to the pentad, it is circumstances and time that the act takes place. Geopolitics dealing with international affairs, or politics crossing geographic borders. Geopolitics is chosen because health diplomacy falls under the category in a time when people of our country are concerned with international affairs especially when it comes to health.

The purpose in the article is the legitimacy of power, the purpose is the reason behind the act that is taking place. Senator Levitt has such a great influence because of his position as senator that this becomes justified because of that power and influence that he hold. If it had been given by a college student to the United States citizens not as many people might pay attention to what is being said. There are other prime examples of this used in history. The article highlights a speech given by Fidel Castro, did not have total power but by building up his image by putting doctors through medical school, and then gained an image that gave him power.

This article was very useful for examining the pentadic elements and backing them up there are many ways that the elements could be set up, but finding quality arguments for the elements is the key to making the arguments valid which was something we had to apply to our artifact as well.

The pentadic analysis looks at the six main rhetorical elements. These help people better understand the underlying message within rhetoric. They are like the five W’s of journalism, the who, what, where, why, and when. These elements can be seen when looking at the analysis of celebrity testimonies in a congressional hearing. This study shows that celebrities can have a huge impact on the opinions and ideals of society.

The first element of the pentadic analysis would be the agent. This examines the person that is performing the act, the who. Through the media, celebrities have become glorified, and can be advocates for many different causes, so the celebrities themselves would be the agent.

The next element of the pentadic analysis would be the act. This is a summary of the action that took place, the what. It can include anything that happened. In the study of celebrity testimonies, the act would be whatever the celebrities are advocating. They gave an example of Michael J. Fox quitting his acting career in order to pursue a cure for parkinson’s disease. The act would be him giving a voice to the many people