Fantasy Theme Analysis of “It’s Not About the Shoes”
The Jordan Brand attempts to communicate to its audience that to become legendary they need to understand that it is not about the shoes, but what it is you do in them. They do this by showing a number of star athletes performing when they were in college and high school to the narrator’s (Michael Jordan) words. This paper hypothesizes how it is the Jordan Brand attempts to bring their audience to the shared rhetorical vision of becoming legendary, through fantasy themes in their ad “It’s Not About the Shoes”.
The Fantasy Theme Criticism
To understand this paper’s argument on how it is the Jordan Brand attempts to use fantasy themes in their ad, we must first understand what exactly the Fantasy Theme Criticism is. It was created by Ernest G. Bormann, and was designed to provide insights into the shared worldview of a group of rhetors. It is derived from the Symbolic Convergence Theory, and can be applied to different types of rhetoric including the kind(s) used on small groups, social movements, political campaigns, and organizational communication.
The criticism relies on two assumptions. One, that rhetoric creates reality, and two, that convergence occurs. With regards to rhetoric creating reality we are to assume that the symbolic forms that are created from the rhetoric are not imitations but organs of reality. This is because it is through their agency that anything becomes real. We assume to that convergence occurs because symbols not only create reality for individuals but that individual’s meanings can combine to create a shared reality for participants. The shared reality then provides a basis for the community of participants to discuss th ...