Evaluation of Rhetorical Situations

In this blog post I will rhetorically analyze and discuss three different sources related to business controversies.

Mathias Oh. "Screenshot of Man on Soapbox." 09/25/15 via Tumblr.

The first article I looked as was a short piece in Slate that, in three paragraphs, talks about a portion of Subway's response to the recent controversy involving one of their representatives.

The author of the article is Daniel Polti, who has been writing for Slate for 11 years now. However, the party in question speaking is Subway. Obviously the company is being spoken for as a representative, but as a whole the company of Subway is a viable resource. They are very well established in modern economy, and they are obviously responsible for the controversy involving their representative, so are authority figures on the matter.

The audience is the entire population of America, and even of other countries. After Jared Fogle, the Subway rep who pleaded guilty on charges of child pornography and other felonies, was exposed there was national backlash and it became national news. Because of his longstanding representation of Subway, such a widespread company, many people are/were interested in Fogle, and Subway's investigation of him. As this article discusses these results, clearly the audience is anyone and everyone interested in one of the bigger controversies of late.

I've already discussed the context of the text slightly. Fogle pleaded guilty to illegal sexual activity on multiple accounts, and because of his affiliation with Subway, they were investigating to see if there had been formal complaints against subway about Fogle. This article briefly discusses Fogle, and the results of Subway's investigation regarding him.

The second article I read was from The New York Times, which discussed the recent scandal involving Toshiba's inflated profits.

The article includes a video of Hisao Tanaka speaking about the issue during a press conference. Tanaka was the CEO of Toshiba, one of the leading tech companies in the world, until a scandal recently forced him to resign. Tanaka, a native of Japan, was in leadership with Toshiba for the last 6 years, and among some of the more wealthy and powerful men in the world.

Tanaka's audience during his speech is the press, as well as those invested in the company and interested in the welfare of the business. There are clearly reporters recording the speech and snapping photos throughout, and Tanaka addresses shareholders directly. Again, this controversy is huge, and Tanaka knows this, so he knows that he is addressing more than just this specific audience, and is addressing a very broad and large audience, such as the people of America, Japan, and other nations, through media.

The context of this speech is Tanaka's resignation as recent evidence and information was released regarding accounting fraud and overinflated profit in Toshiba. Essentially Tanaka is recapping the discoveries that were made regarding false profit, and is apologizing for the mistakes and lies. He then steps down from leadership in Toshiba.

The final article I chose was from The Huffington Post, and discusses a controversy involving Uber and discrimination against gays.

I looked for data on the two men who spoke out against Uber, but I could not find much. As far as I can tell they are just two ordinary men, who both were angered by Uber's actions.

The audience of the two men's complaints is the company of Uber, and the rights community in general. The controversy is one of many involving Uber, and so many who are fighting for gay rights will read it, and many who are fighting for any rights will also read it.

The context of the article has to do with two men who kissed in the back of an Uber, and were asked to leave. They were offended by this, and filed complaints, creating backlash and media, and they posted their distaste on social media. This is not the only issue involving Uber, and there have been many complaints against discrimination amongst Uber drivers, and there has been severe backlash against the company as a result.



After reading Jovanka and Hunter's posts, one thing really stuck out to me. They both did similar things in analyzing their texts. However, the important thing I realized is that I should be looking analytically at sources, very in depth, before I choose them for my project. If I end up choosing a bad or really difficult source, it will make the next project that much harder for me.