Form and cultural context in rhetorical criticism: Re‐reading Wrage

Rosteck, Thomas

doi:10.1080/00335639809384233

Cited by 9 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 24 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…In an attempt to interrogate issues of power, cultural studies of media often conceptualize "media" as a structure whose power individuals are merely subject (Adorno & Horkheimer, 1944. At the same time, cultural studies, post-structuralist, and rhetorical approaches to criticism, such as those advocated by Kristeva and McGee, are critiqued for their focus on language at the expense of real material conditions that shape (and are influenced by) communication (Bennett, 2005;Rosteck, 1998). The ethnographic "crisis of representation" engages with similar issues related to textual representation (Denzin, 1995).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Going to Work at the Moonlite Bunny Ranch

Dunn

2016

Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Most studies of media focus on production, representation, or audience. Using rhetorical analysis and ethnographic field methods, my article offers one way to study media production contexts, representations, and audience interactions in relation to one another. For this project, I conducted a narrative rhetorical analysis of the reality docu-series Cathouse that takes place in a legal brothel in Nevada, the Moonlite Bunny Ranch. In addition, I visited the brothel and used ethnographic field methods of participant observation and interviewing to investigate the lived experiences of the women working at the Ranch. My analysis revealed a web of intertextual discourses of prostitution that I could not have accessed had I not used these methods in conjunction with one another. By bringing perspectives from rhetorical inquiry, cultural and media studies, and ethnography into conversation with one another, I provide a framework for analyzing production, representation, and audience for the Cathouse series, while attending to both the content of the women’s stories and how these participants rhetorically constructed and performed their identities. Finally, my analysis offers insights into ethnographic and textual “crises of representation” in relation to the concept of “rhetorical authenticity” in media representations, the relationships between audience members, production, and representation in reality television, and material impacts for the women who work at the Moonlite Bunny Ranch that I could not have accessed without using these methods together.

show abstract

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%