Abstract
As a significant stratum of film audiences, adolescents are often more susceptible to influence by film characters. Motivated by the question of what types of role models are presented to Iranian adolescents via the medium of cinema, we aim to study Narges Abyar’s 2013 film Track 143 (Shiyar 143 2013) to figure out how the rhetorical mechanisms of the film persuade adolescent audiences to identify with the protagonist and imitate the positive aspects of the main character as their role model. To this end, we draw on the visual rhetorical method as our analytical framework and employ Albert Bandura’s notion of observational learning to interpret the data. We hope to identify the rhetorical techniques employed effectively in Track 143 for persuading adolescent girls to follow a female protagonist of their own choosing as their role model. According to our findings, the film does not rely on logos or discursive reasoning. In this sense, the female protagonist overcomes her problems not through her own personal characteristics, which could have been taken up by female adolescent audiences, but through merely random and miraculous incidents.
Highlights
As a significant stratum of film audiences, adolescents are often more susceptible to influence by film characters
We sought to identify the rhetorical techniques used by the rhetor/director of Track 143 to produce a convincing female protagonist and to effectively affect the audiences
We aimed to answer the question whether the film could succeed in presenting its female protagonist as a role model for female teenagers
Summary
As a significant stratum of film audiences, adolescents are often more susceptible to influence by film characters. The term went beyond its early function of persuading an audience and was employed in literary criticism (Ahmadi, 2015) to denote any use of signs for persuasion purposes Such a generic definition equates rhetoric with communication. The researcher seeks to understand the rhetorical mechanism by which the artifact of the image affects the audience It is the objective of rhetorical criticism to identify such rhetorical techniques, evaluate their effectiveness, and offer a strategy to optimize communication in terms of effect and purpose (Foss 2004)
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