THE RHETORICAL SITUATION

Purpose

Audience

Rhetorical appeal

Modes & media

Purpose

As a documentary filmmaker, Pray’s purpose is to inform viewers about different aspects of hip-hop DJing; he does this through the stories and perspectives of influential DJs who created and developed the scratch technique.

Audience

Pray’s main viewers are DJs and people interested in hip-hop music and culture. However, given Pray’s editorial choices, the film could also appeal to a broader audience, one that doesn’t know much about hip-hop or music history.

Rhetorical appeals

Pray establishes ethos through the experts he’s chosen as subjects; he gains authority by showing exactly how DJs create music in a hands-on way.

Pray appeals to viewers’ pathos (emotions) through the music he chooses, the lighting and setting he chooses, and the general “cool” atmosphere of his film. He furthers this appeal by having influential DJs, such as turntable master Mix Master Mike, discuss their careers and techniques themselves.

Modes & media

Mode = visual, audio, and written Because Pray’s documentary is film, the primary mode is visual: He shows viewers what scratch artists do. Specific visuals include the faces of the people he interviewed, close-ups of the turntables, and street scenes giving the viewer a sense of location. Pray also emphasizes the audio component of his film, especially because it’s about music. Pray presents the music of his interviewees and also edits in early hip-hop recordings. He uses text-based captions to make clear who is being interviewed and how that artist fits into hip-hop.

Medium = film and digital You can rent Scratch as a DVD or stream it for free from the Top Documentary Films site. The film might also be shown at an independent film festival or a hip-hop event.