The expression of classical rhetoric in televisual advertising : Portraying science and scientists.

The origins of classical rhetoric are to be found in Greece of the 4th and 5th centuries BCE. Developed principally for spoken delivery, though sometimes applied to written work, it became a much sought after skill due to the newly emerging democracies in the city-states. It was the refinement of the Greek philosophers' fundamental principles for the practice of classical rhetoric by their Roman successors, during the last century BCE and the first century CE, that later established its robust canonical structure.After drawing on semiotic wisdom in order to interpret the meanings embedded in illustrations and advertising film the following research shows to what degree classical rhetoric has a visual expression in which those ancient canonical principles have contemporary relevance rendering it a major mechanism in the persuasive function of television advertising. In so doing its contribution to knowledge comprises an innovative analytical methodology whilst also exposing a link, previously unremarked upon by scholars in the field, whereby the canon of classical rhetoric known as arrangement can be seen to have a common structural basis with narrative.Touching on the use of scientists, often presented as figures of unquestionable authority in televisual advertising during the middle part of the last century, this thesis now finds a more subtle rhetoric directed at an increasingly more media-aware culture in the third millennium. It will be suggested, however, that such rhetorical devices, as are revealed to be operating, are more likely to be as a result of intuition and empirical adroitness rather than being born of academically acquired knowledge on the part of creative media personnel.