Rhetorical Analysis of Russ Cobb and Roahnn Wynar

Rhetorical Analysis of Russ Cobb and Roahnn Wynar

This paper analyzes and compares the arguments’ styles used by Russ Cobb and Roahnn Wynar in their essays on Internet and advertising in the modern world. We argue that, though delivering the same idea, the Wynar’s style is more persuasive as it appears to be more vivid and eloquent than the techniques employed by Cobb.

While it may be that one method of argument analysis suits all types of arguments, it is more likely that the method would vary with the scope and types of arguments to be understood. The scholars we analyze in this essay use formal (Wynar) and informal (Cobb) approaches. The method of informal argument analysis employed by Cobb occurs in five steps. First, having identified a problem or issue area, the author seeks to identify the purpose of particular arguments that are being used in efforts to maintain or challenge a practice. He then specifies the argument’s role. We have to note that the author understands that in the transition from established behavioral norms to new norms, there are likely to be periods of confusion and uncertainty. With two or more conflicting (and perhaps nearly equally legitimate) prescriptive normative beliefs on the table (just like the one on the issue of Internet and marketing), expectations will be uncertain, coordination will be more difficult, and the sense of approval or disapproval associated with certain practices may be uncertain. It is at these points that ethical arguments used by Cobb become the most prolific and explicit, as the scholar strives to be clear and persuasive in his attempts to maintain an existing practice or establish a new mode of behavior.

Second, the author identifies the specific beliefs (core, contingent, and role) that are held by dominant actors and that are at work in a particular context (modern day advertising world). The goal is to find the starting point of the arguments the author uses to uphold his...