In looking at how meaning is constructed in film, try to trace your observations back to use of specific devices. These “symbols” might be words, sounds, or images, and a “text” can be anything from a famous speech to the back of a cereal box. When you study rhetorical devices, you are studying how a text uses symbols to elicit particular responses or suggest particular meanings. It explores of how elements of a film work together to communicate ideas and create specific audience orientations, identifications, feelings, and attitudes. It describes some terminology to use when writing about the rhetorical devices used in film.
