Mark Richardson's Rhetorical Analysis: The Late Show

In 2012, rock music legend Neil Young went on The Late Show with David Letterman in order to unveil the Pono, a high quality “portable digital media player” through which he aimed to “rescue the art form that I’ve been practicing for 50 years” from low quality audio formats like the often maligned MP3. Now, a few years later, with the device finally shipping for consumers, Mark Richardson, the Editor-in-Chief of music blog Pitchfork has written an editorial piece questioning the Pono’s utility to the average listener with its $399 price tag and “high quality” downloadable albums that can cost anywhere from a somewhat reasonable $14.99 to a ludicrous $43 for classic albums such as The Who’s Quadrophenia. In his criticism of the device, Richardson points to the role of obfuscation in its marketing and the marketing of other products like it, human’s inability to actually even hear …show more content…
The first element is the text, which, in this example is the article “The Myth and the Reality of the $43 Download.” Next, the author of the text, as stated above is Mark Richardson. His audience, fans of both music and technology make up the recipients of his “communication.” The content of the article mainly focuses on delegitimizing Young’s promises of a new outlook on music after experiencing an album with Pono, which would lead one to believe that the article aims to criticize. Lastly, because this example is an article from the internet it doesn’t have a setting, save for the fact that it was published just a few days ago. With knowledge of these elements, a writer like Richardson can shape their argument in a way that their audience will be receptive to, is relevant to the time in which he is writing, and that states its purpose

Show More

Mark Richardson's Rhetorical Analysis: The Late Show

Related Documents: Mark Richardson's Rhetorical Analysis: The Late Show

Department of English Spring 2014 Course Descriptions Essays