Alexis Wallace

 

Vampire Diaries. Digital image. N.p., 12 Feb. 2012. Web. http://kcv80.deviantart.com/art/Poster-promo-Vampire-Diaries-Season-3-282882064 .

 

       A good way to advertise a series is by pictures. Effective advertising will cause more people to want to view what is being advertised. A picture can also give the audience an idea of the characters and what they look like. The more appealing or interesting a picture looks the more viewers it can drag in. The picture used is of Damon (left), Elena and Klaus (middle), and Stefan (right), the main characters in the show. It’s a good picture to advertise because if someone read the summary they would know who Elena and the two brothers are. But who’s the third guy? They would have to watch to find out. Mode is how the audience sees the work, so with a picture it would be visual. Media is how the work is delivered, in this case it would be digital because it’s viewed on a screen. Pictures could also be print media if they are gotten as posters or printed pictures. The audience for this picture is anyone with access to the internet interested in watching the Vampire Diaries or just anyone who might come across it on the internet. The internet is a good way to promote something because nearly three billion people have internet access. Source: Salvador Rodriguez. LA times. Los Angeles Times. http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-60-world-population-3-billion-internet-2014-20140507-story.html. Accessed May 7, 2014. With nearly three billion people able to see this picture, and other advertisements, on the internet there is no reason the series shouldn’t get a good amount of viewers.

    

      The purpose of a picture can either inform the viewers a little bit about the show or persuade them to watch it. If the picture is done well and looks intriguing more people might be persuaded into giving the show a chance. Rhetorical appeals are used to persuade the audience, even if you aren’t trying to persuade. Ethos is the “trustworthiness the writer/composer conveys to the audience”. Kleinfeld, Elizabeth. "Rhetorical Appeals." The Bedford Book of Genres. By Amy Braziller. N.p.: Bedford St. Martins Custom Publishi, n.d. 11. Print. Credibility of using a good picture kind of goes with persuasion by convincing the viewers the show is good. The design of a picture is what grabs people’s attention the best. In this picture, they all have a straight face which makes it sexier. The way Elena’s posing and what she’s wearing also makes the picture more appealing. Them all being so attractive is a big way to get a bigger audience because who wouldn’t want to watch a show with a whole bunch of attractive people? The pictures help promote the Vampire Diaries by getting people interested.

 

     https://youtu.be/jqWgMNtYGsg

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       Interviews are also a fun way to get to know about the show and to see the main characters without having to watch the show. In the interview is Nina Dobrev (Elena), Paul Wesley (Stefan), Ian Somerhalder (Damon), Steven R. McQueen (Jeremy), Zach Roerig (Matt, a friend of Elena’s), and Michael Trevino (Tyler, also a friend). They talk a little bit about a new season that was coming up at the time and the interviewer brings up a rivalry with another vampire show. Other than that it’s just getting to see how the cast is and getting to see what the people who play the characters are like in real life which is funny because they’re way different. In the show Ian Somerhalder (Damon) plays a bad guy but in real life he seems like the complete opposite. Using an interview, people view this visually and audio and it gets out to the people digitally.  With talking a little bit about the new season coming up they leave the viewers wanting more, which then leads to them having to watch the show.

   

        An interviews purpose could be all three; informative, persuasive, and entertaining. It’s informing the audience about the upcoming season and answering questions about the show, persuading the viewers to watch the show by making the show look good and entertaining because they’re having fun. Interviews help to boost the audience by making people a fan of not only the show, but the cast themselves. An audience for an interview could include anyone with internet access but it’s mostly Vampire Diary fans or fans of the guy interviewing the cast that watch the interview. In the interview there is trust being built between the audience and the cast by explaining how the new season is going to be. They’re also telling stories and kind of building an emotional relationship between them and the audience.

      

     The Vampire Diaries can be viewed using either the books or the TV show. Source: Julie Plec and Kevin Williamson, creators. The Vampire Diaries. Alloy Entertainment, Bonanza Productions, Warner Bros. Television, 2009. The TV show has seven seasons out right now, with an eighth one being aired soon. For a TV show, it is viewed both visually and audio and the way it gets put into the world is digitally. However, it’s possible for the mode to be only visual if subtitles are used and the volume is not. The Vampire Diaries is a fictional TV show made for entertainment purposes. The love Elena has for the two brothers is a big part of what makes the show entertaining. Another thing that keeps the show going is how almost every one of Elena’s friends, including Elena, gets turned into a vampire. It is never known who’s going to get turned or who’s going to end up dying.  The audience for this show is mostly females, from the ages anywhere around fifteen and up.

    

      Since there are eight seasons, there are a lot of rhetorical appeals used in this series. A big one being pathos, which deals with the emotions of the audience, the show has some inspirational and emotional moments.

 

 

 

 

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Vampire Diaries. Digital image. The Angst Report. N.p., 14 May 2012. Web. 25 Jan. 2017. http://theangstreport.blogspot.com/2012/05/vampire-diaries-season-three-finale-bye.html .

Alaric (pictured) was a good friend of Elena, Damon, and Stefan’s and in the picture it shows him dying, which was so emotional because every Vampire Diary fan loved Alaric. He died from a ring he wore that let him cheat death to where if any supernatural object killed him he came back to life. The ring wouldn’t work if he died a normal way or by a normal person. After dying over and over and coming back to life he eventually started to turn a little crazy. Another emotional moment is the quote “Breathe, eat, sleep, wake up, and do it all over again until one day, it’s just not as hard anymore”. Source: “As I lay dying.” The Vampire Diaries: season 2, written by Kevin Williamson and Julie Plec, directed by Michael Suby. In that line, Elena is talking to her little brother Jeremy while they’re going through a hard time. They lost both of their parents in a car accident so they’re still coping and sometimes it gets a little harder on them than it normally does. “We choose our own path. Our actions and our values, they define who we are.” Source: “Haunted.” The Vampire Diaries: season 1, written by Kevin Williamson and Julie Plec, directed by Michael Suby. This is a more inspirational quote from Stefan which is an example of pathos.

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      Being able to identify rhetorical appeals is important because it helps to break down and understand the composition more. The mode, media, rhetorical appeals, purpose, and audience all come together to make the composition. Rhetorical appeals catch the audience’s attention and get them drawn in. Genre is also important by helping the audience go into categories of what they’re interested in, to then find what item they want. The Vampire Diaries uses things like interviews, pictures, posters, etc. to help promote and advertise. These help by getting the word out on the internet about the series so people check it out.