Theory Application Paper
Length: Between 1400 and 1650 words
For this project, you’ll analyze a short, contemporary text or texts of your choosing (such as a recent political speech, press
conference, op-ed, etc…) using rhetorical theories/concepts pertaining to ethos and/or personae. One of the challenges
of this paper (and of rhetorical analysis more broadly) is pairing text(s) worth analyzing with a theoretical/conceptual
angle that enables you to develop a rich and insightful analysis of it/them. For an exceptional model of how to do this sort
of work, see Jamie Landau’s “Women Will Get Cancer” (though it uses a different conceptual framework than any of those we
have discussed).
Your paper should do the following:
-
Include an introduction in which you give a brief overview of the paper
Clearly assert your thesis
Use a coherent organizational structure
Briefly explain the theory you are using to analyze the chosen text.
Include a full account of how the text might works persuasively in terms of the theory or concept you have
identified
Be specific: make sure you point to particular features of your chosen text
Point toward the implications of your analysis
End with a conclusion
Be carefully formatted and proofread
Cite any sources (including course readings) using MLA or APA format
BE SUBMITTED VIA A WORD DOCUMENT (if you submit a .pdf, I will grade it, but you won’t get any margin
comments)
For more detail regarding expectations, see the grading rubric on the next page:
D-level work or below
C-level work
B-level work
A-level work
Your essay is lacking
in substance in some
significant way.
You do some good work in
your analysis, but your
ideas could be more fully
developed and/or the
essay could be more
specific and/or is off track
in some significant way.
You’ve written a generally
strong analysis, one that
makes relevant arguments
and points to specific features
of the text
You’ve written an
exceedingly thoughtful and
thorough analysis, one that
makes compelling
arguments and points to a
number of specific features
of the text
The analysis makes
minimal and/or
ineffective use of the
selected
theory/concept(s)
and/or does not focus
on a single
theory/concept (s)
The essay includes a
number of significant
organizational
problems and/or the
thesis and/or main
points are extremely
difficult to discern.
The analysis makes some
use of the selected
theory/concept(s), but it
could be a good bit more
effective in this regard.
The analysis competently
employs theory/concept(s),
though there is room for
improvement.
The analysis makes skilled
use of the selected
theory/concept(s)
Your essay is characterized
by some organizational
problems.
Your essay is generally well
organized, though there is
some room for improvement
Your essay is clearly
organized and it is easy to
discern your thesis and
each of your main points.
The essay needs
substantial
improvement in terms
of basic prose
The essay is competently
written, though there is
room for a good bit of
improvement in
editing/proofreading.
The essay is generally well
written, though there is room
for some improvement in
editing/proofreading.
The essay is easy and fun
to read. It is exceptionally
well written and shows clear
evidence of careful use of
language.
Involves a major
pattern of
bibliographic and
intext citation errors.
Bibliographic and intext
citations contain some
distracting errors.
Bibliographic and intext
citations are largely correct,
with minimal error.
Bibliographic and intext
citations are expertly done.
Thoughtfulness &
Thoroughness
Use of
theory/concept(s)
Thesis and
organization
Presentation/
Style
Citations
ARGUMENTATION AND ADVOCACY
48 (Summer 2011): 39-54
WOMEN WILL GET CANCER: VISUAL AND
VERBAL PRESENCE (AND ABSENCE) IN A
PHARMACEUTICAL ADVERTISING
CAMPAIGN ABOUT HPV
Jamie Landau
In 2006, Merck global pharmaceutical company launched a "Tell Someone" direct-to-consumer advertising
campaign to educate about the human papillomavirus (HPV). Through a visual and verbal analysis of presence
and absence in two videos from this campaign that aired across major U.S. television networks and online in
spring 2006,1 illustrate how Merck's campaign problematically argues that women will get cancer. Spedfically,
the videos visually and verbally make present middle-to-upper-middle class adult women as the only people who
contract HPV, amplify the equation that HPV equals cancer, and advocate a limited course ofhealth prevention
under the guise of a "public health campaign" that has a mission of "education". These techniques ofpresence
make Merck's argument stand out among the proliferation and plethora of images circulating through current
U.S. mass media but at the cost of accentuating women's bodies as inherently diseased. This study has
implications for women's health, pharmaceutical advertising, and the growing conversation in thefieldofvisual
argumentation about the attention and distraction of audiences. I also propose an improved video for a public
health campaign about HPV.
Key Words: presence, visual argumentation, visual rhetoric, public health, cervical cancer
At the Start of a video that aired repeatedly in the spring of 2006 across major U.S.
television channels and online, a woman exclaims, "I don't know why people don't know
about this. I don't know why I didn't know." A minute later the video ends by featuring the
same woman, only now she smiles at the camera and asserts, "Tell someone." Simultaneously, she points to a white T-shirt that she now wears and that reads across the front, "Tell
Someone." This video was part of a national print, television, and online "Tell Someone"
direct-to-consumer advertising campaign funded by Merck & Co., Inc., a global pharmaceutical company, to "educate" about the human papillomavirus (HPV) (Merck, 2006c). For
example, Merck bought 1,083 television spots in April and May of 2006 for this campaign
that, as of the first quarter of that year, totaled about $107 million in spending (Zimm &
Blum, 2006). Merck spokeswoman Kelley Dougherty reported that the "Tell Someone"
campaign was "part of a broad and longstanding Merck public health commitment to
encourage education about the disease" (as cited in Zimm & Blum, 2006). Merck again
emphasized the educational mission of the "Tell Someone" campaign in a press release for
its subsequent "One Less" direct-to-consumer advertising campaign for Gardasil:
In addition to One Less, Merck will continue to separately support HPV disease education including the Tell
Someone. . . awareness progriuns to ensure an understanding about the important link between cervical cancer
and HPV and the need to continue regular screening. (Merck, 2006d)
On June 8, 2006, only a couple of months after the "Tell Someone" campaign broadcasted
over national television and posted online, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
Jamie Landau, Department of Communication, Journalism & Philosophy, Keene State College. A version of this essay was
presented on a panel of Top Student Papers for the Argumentation and Forensics Division at the 2010 National Communication
Assodation Convention. The author thanks Ed Panetta and Celeste Condit at the University of Georgia for introdudng her to
argumentation studies and inspiring her efforts to improve public health, respectively. The author also appredates the astute feedback
she received from three anonymous reviewers and the editors of this journal. Correspondence concerning this article should be
addressed to Jamie Landau, Department of Communication, Journalism & Philosophy, Keene State College, 229 Main Street,
Keene, New Hampshire 03435-4000. E-mail: jlandau@keene.edu
40
WOMEN WILL GET CANCER
SUMMER 2011
approved Gardasil, a vaccine distributed by Merck, for females ages nine to 26 that protects
against four HPV types that cause 70 percent of cervical cancers and 90 percent of genital
warts (U.S. Food and Dmg Administration, 2006). Gardasil is the world's first and only
cervical cancer dmg for women. By November 1, 2006, Gardasil was approved in 50
countries and was added to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC)
Vaccines for Chfldren contract for girls and women aged nine to 18 (Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, 2006c). In October of 2009, the FDA approved Gardasfl for use by
males ages nine to 26 (U.S. Food and Dmg Administration, 2009).
Merck's "Tell Someone" direct-to-consumer advertising campaign is a rich site for studying visual and verbal arguments about women's health in the early 21" century United States
for a number of reasons. As a direct-to-consumer advertising campaign, it had widespread
circulation through mainstream mass media outlets and new media technologies such as the
Intemet, thereby reaching an expansive lay U.S. audience. In addition, the campaign
preceded FDA approval of Gardasil and the CDC recommendations for Gardasfl vaccination. Although U.S. government agencies ensure the safety and efficacy of vaccinations
through comprehensive research and reviews before approving them for public use, it is
highly likely that Merck's "Tell Someone" campaign was seen by, and perhaps persuaded,
govemment officials prior to their approval of Gardasil.' Furthermore, it is significant to the
purported educational mission of the "Tell Someone" campaign that it circulated before
Merck's "One Less" direct-to-consumer advertising campaign for Gardasil that launched in
November of 2006 across national print, television, and online media and explicitiy pitched
the vaccination. By launching the "Tell Someone" campaign first and separating it from its
"One Less" advertising campaign for Gardasfl, I suggest that Merck presented "Tefl Someone" as a public health campaign rather than as an advertisement.
In this essay, I apply a visual and verbal analysis of presence and absence to demonstrate
how Merck's "Tell Someone" campaign makes the argument that women will get cancer.
Specifically, by closely analyzing two representative videos from Merck's "Tell Someone"
direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising campaign, I illustrate how the videos make
present middle-to-upper-middle class adult women as the only people who contract HPV,
how they amplify the equation that HPV equals cancer, and how they present a limited
course of health prevention under the guise of a public health campaign that has a mission
of education. Increasing public awareness about the health risks of HPV and vaccinations
that can prevent its contraction are necessary steps for improving the lives of women and
men. However, I suggest that Merck's "Tell Someone" campaign, which reportedly educates
about the public health problem of HPV, problematicafly suppresses the presence of a
number of other significant health factors. For example, HPV can be a sexually transmitted
disease that also involves men in the case of heterosexual relationships, yet this is absent in
the videos. These techniques of presence make Merck's argument stand out among the
proliferation and plethora of images circulating through current U.S. mass media but at the
cost of accentuating women's bodies as inherentiy diseased.
In this essay, I first describe the theoretical concept of presence initially developed by
foundational argumentation scholars Chaim Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca (1969).
This literature review also explores extensions of Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca's concept
' It is noteworthy that in February of 2007, Merck suspended its lobbying campaign for Gardasil when medical
groups, politicians, and parents discovered a behind-the-scenes lobbying campaign to get state legislatures to require
11-and 12-year-old girls to receive Gardasil for school attendance, see Johnson (2007).
41
ARGUMENTATION AND ADVOCACY
LANDAU
to justify a combined visual and verbal analysis of presence and absence and its utility for
studying our currently crowded media matrix. I then turn to an analysis of presence and
absence in two representative "Tell Someone" videos. I conclude with implications for
women's health, pharmaceutical advertising, and the growing conversation in the field of
visual argumentation about the attention and distraction of audiences. My conclusion also
includes the rhetorical creation of an improved video for a public health campaign about
HPV.
PRESENCE (AND ABSENCE) OF VISUAL ARGUMENTS
In Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca's (1969) canonical text. The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on
Argumentation, they assert that "presence" is an "essential factor in argumentation" because
presentation is the act of choosing or selecting among data, the "starting point of the
argument" (pp. 115-116). Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca (1969) also indicate that the
"deliberate suppression of presence is an equally noteworthy phenomenon" (p. 118). When
reviewing Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca's initial conceptualization and the work of scholars who later critique and extend their scholarship (e.g. Atkinson, Kaufer & Ishizaki, 2008;
Gross, 2005; Gross & Dearin, 2003; Karon, 1976; Kauffman & Parson, 1990; Murphy, 1994;
Tucker, 2001), presence and its suppression (also known as absence) are understood as
verbal and/or visual strategies for making arguments that can be persuasive, both on the
level of individual psychology and on the larger level of society.
Specifically, presence is a technique of verbal and/or visual argumentation where some
object or idea that is real or abstract is amplified, foregrounded, or made significant. Robert
Tucker (2001) defines presence as "a property of 'standing-out-ness' that rhetors give to
particular meanings at the expense of the available others" (p. 406). Another apt way that
Tucker describes presence is with the word "figurai," in the sense of a figure-ground
relationship (p. 397). Nathan Atkinson, David Kaufer, and Suguru Ishizaki (2008) more
recently explain presence as a theory of "amplitude" and "frequency" (p. 360). Because the
bestowing of presence is a process of selection, the suppression of presence, or absence, is a
corresponding technique of argumentation. Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca (1969) note how
presence involves selection and works in conjunction with absence:
one of the preoccupations of a speaker is to make present, by verbal magic alone, what is actually absent but
what he [ii
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