PREPARATION FOR THE CCR VIDEO CONFERENCE
Stanford University, USA & University of Uppsala, Sweden
October 2011
To prepare for the Stanford-Uppsala Video Conference, please do the following:
1. Analyze the website of your partner school. To get a sense of the students at your partner
university, take a look at the university Website for the school.
Uppsala Students: learn about Stanford at http://www.stanford.edu
Stanford Students: learn about Uppsala at http://www.uu.se/en/
2. Think about your own cultural identity. Select a “cultural artifact” to bring with you to the video
conference that represents your personal and cultural identity. This should be something small –
the goal is to choose an item that can serve as a talking point to help members of your group
understand who you are and what culture you identify with. Here are examples of items that you
could bring as your cultural artifact:
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A hat from your favorite sport
School or organization T-Shirt
Key ring from a tourist site
Trading card or item from a
collection (coins, stamps, comic
books, spoons)
Tech device (blackberry, iPhone,
iPod, GPS)
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How do the ads define a particular cultural group and its identity? How are cultural
norms shaped along the lines of class, gender, race, nationality, profession, etc? What
parts of the ads create these norms? Do these norms seem at all problematic?
What cultural values or doxa is suggested by the ads? Are there any elements within the
texts intended to persuade by misrepresenting/exploiting/ignoring specific cultural
values of a particular group’s culture?
Think about audience and multiple perspectives. How do the ads imagine audience –
how would diverse audiences with different doxa respond to these ads?
Identify the rhetorical situation and rhetorical appeals as intended by the
authors/directors. Rhetorical appeals might include
o Logos (an appeal to facts or reason)
o Pathos (an appeal to emotion)
o Ethos (an appeal to character or authority)
o Kairos (an awareness of appropriateness for a specific time and place)
To what extent did the appeals persuade you? Why?
Do you find any rhetorical fallacies in the commercials? These might include
stereotyping, exaggerations and unfair appeals to emotions. Why/when would an
author/director deliberately use a fallacy?
To what extent do these ads make arguments that might be persuasive across cultures?
Photograph of you engaged in a
favorite activity
 Favorite food or drink (or a
picture of it)
 A poster of your favorite
sportsperson
 A DVD/album/book cover of an

iconic movie/band/author from
your culture
3. Consider how cultural identity is reflected and shaped in popular texts. In preparation
for the video conference, have your group locate an ad or video commercial to analyze as a
group during the video-conference. Post the ad or the link to the video online. Think about
the following questions since they will be the basis for your discussion of these ads with
your international group:
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PREPARATION FOR THE CCR VIDEO CONFERENCE
Stanford University, USA & University of Uppsala, Sweden
October 2011
Note: When choosing an advertisement to share with your group, consider the rhetoric of the text.
That is, to be effective in this activity, the ad should make an argument about cultural values. Look,
for example at the ad in Figure 1. What cultural values does it convey about American identity?
About the American
work ethic, different
professions? About the
standard of beauty?
About race in America?
What is the argument
of the ad? Does it help
you understand
American cultural
values or does it
promote stereotypes?
How does it rely on
doxa, and how does it
use an emotional
appeal? How does it
work to persuade the
reader through the
Figure 1. Ecko Unltd advertisement. “I am the American Dream.” Spring
logic of the phrase “the
2004. http://www.eckounltd.com/cgiAmerican dream”?
bin/show_gallery_spring2004_spread.cgi?showimage=1
Finally, how does the
company create corporate ethos through presenting a particular version of American cultural
identity?
Now it is your turn. As a group, choose an ad that offers an argument about cultural values. Or,
choose an ad that shows us how identity is constructed in terms of gender/race/community values.
You can look online or scan in a paper ad (from a magazine, newspaper, or cereal box). Or, you can
choose a video ad. Be prepared to discuss with your team members the context in which the ad was
found and how that context provides information about the audience.
To show the ad on the Marratech whiteboard, please scan it in beforehand and email yourself the
scan (or the video link); for Stanford students, you can post the ad or link on Coursework under
Materials/Week 4. In your team, you will analyze the argument of the ad, its cultural context, and
the way we understand people or places through the lens of an ad as visual rhetoric.
Goals: The purpose of this activity is to understand the connection between the arguments made in
ads and the cultural contexts in which they are found. As a team, you will explore and come to
understand different perspectives on “situated texts.” You will also develop your understanding of
rhetoric and wrestle with the problem of diverse cultural perspectives on texts. In addition, by
working as a globally-distributed team to select one ad among many, you will meet the goal of
solving problems across different perspectives and you’ll learn the skills of negotiation and crosscultural communication. Finally, we hope that you enjoy this opportunity to share views with other
students from around the world!