A Rhetorical analysis can be performed on The Villager. The villager is an online newspaper that is operated by students who attend Stevenson University. It is used to post articles that are related to Stevenson university, regarding sports, events, or anything that is going around in the Stevenson community. These articles are meant to be read by current Stevenson university students, parents, faulty members, and those who live around the Stevenson community.
Modes & Affordances
Visual- Logging on The villager you will notice the clean white negative spaces in between every image. The first text that pops out is the Title, written in big bold letters with that recognizable Stevenson green. The front page has a menu going across the top of the page in a horizontal matter. Below it there is previews of some of the articles that are found in the menu items, for easy access. When you navigate to one of the menu items such as “Sports” or “Reviews”, you will notice the articles are going in a staggered form.
Aural- When clicking on any link or title on the website, there is no feedback. When browsing through mobile, there is no vibration neither.
Spatial- The menu is too repetitive. The sections are first seen on the top menu. Then when scrolling down you will see the menu on the right side of the screen. As it shows again with two previewed articles from each section. Under the side menu on the right side, there is another menu that provides a list of the 10 most recent articles. Which is a nice touch but should be placed higher than it is.
Gestural- The website lacks in gestures. The only thing that the reader can see that is interactive is on the main page. There is a slideshow of four articles.
Linguistic- The goal throughout the articles is to keep a professional writing style due to it still being a “newspaper”. Nothing but facts about the school and community is written in these articles. The only time you see change in writing styles is in the OP/ED section, as students give their stories and opinions.
Conclusion- The Villager does a good job at providing articles for the reader. But it does not do it in a way where it seems interesting enough to keep a ready on the website, the website is kept very monotone. There are very little aural elements. It would be nice to see videos on news going around the campus or even highlights of some of the games rather just reading about them. However, if a student wants to focus on reading articles, The Villager makes it easy for them to navigate to their article of choice.
1. The thesis isn’t that clear but it’s debatable. Perhaps list whether the affordances were strong or weak or list a few of them. I’m not sure if overall the author liked the website, but you did like the “simple navigation and comprehension.”
2. The author analyzes all five modes and provides specific evidence.
3. The author identifies affordances and connects them back to his thesis. He also highlights weaker affordances to point out what the site needs to improve.
4. The author doesn’t include specific pictures, but his language is very descriptive. While images would’ve supplemented his point, they weren’t necessary.