Sydney - Stanford || Cross-Cultural Rhetoric Video Conference || October 2009
Workshop page link: http://ccr.stanford.edu/workshops/102009.html
Activity: Presentation and Rhetorical Analysis of Cartoons/Texts across Cultures
I. 10 Minutes
Getting to Know Teams in a Cross-Cultural Context
Location: Rooms A, B, C, D, & E at http://switchboard.stanford.edu.
Activity: Introduce yourselves by name, age, course of study, place of origin. Type names and
emails on the whiteboard; discuss with each other what “arguments” are made by the Stanford
(http://www.stanford.edu) and Sydney (http://www.usyd.edu.au/) university homepages based on
your rhetorical analysis of these websites.
II. 30 minutes
Presentation and Group Rhetorical Analysis of Political Cartoons and Texts
Group members take turns giving 1 minute of presentation about your cartoon or image, then
receiving feedback on the analysis and presentation style. Be sure to limit yourselves to 5 minutes
of discussion per presentation to insure that each group member has a chance to present and to
receive feedback.
Consider the following while responding to the presentations:

What is the central argument of the cartoon/image presented? Is there an additional
cultural argument being made? What specific visual, linguistic or rhetorical elements
contribute to making that argument? Does that cultural argument work through logic
(logos), character (ethos), or emotions (pathos)? Why might those appeals work right now
(kairos)? How does the text reflect or shape culture (doxa)?

Discuss the audience/audiences. Who do you think is addressed by the text? How might
other audiences respond to the message? Are there audiences who might not understand
it? What aspects of the text might be seen as offensive, funny, endearing, outrageous to
certain audiences and why? What do you learn about the importance of word choice,
image combination, context, audience, and purpose?

As a member of the audience for the presentation, what more did you want to know about
the analysis or research topic? What are some ideas for helping the speaker to tailor
his/her presentation to be effective to cross-cultural audiences?
Tech Tip: If you have a saved copy of your image on your computer, you can use the “Open >
Image” command under the file menu in Marratech to open the image on the whiteboard so that
everyone in your group can see it.
III. After the Video Conference
Please post a blog comment in which you reflect on today’s video conference at
http://www.stanford.edu/group/ccr/blog/2009/10/best_practices_for_communicati.html
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

What did you learn about intercultural communication and rhetoric across cultures from this
video exchange?
What was most memorable moment or element of the exchange? What surprised you the
most?
What new insights do you have that you can use for your presentation, your research
project, or future intercultural communications?