What is Self-Esteem?

The text (a transcript of the video would be considered a text) I chose to analyze was the workshop video entitled “What is self-esteem? ”

Rhetorical purpose of the workshop: The “self-esteem expert” is trying to explain to the girls where their self-esteem comes from and what influences their self-image. Jess, the “self-esteem expert”, is trying to convince the audience (girls ages 11 to 17) that they have control over their self-esteem. This workshop is designed to assess the influences and issues girls face that affect their self-esteem. As a result of this workshop, the girls are expected to have an improved self-image.

Effectiveness: I believe the workshop is effective; the girls responded positively to Jess and the things she was teaching them. Based on their answers to some of her questions, it seemed like most of the girls already had pretty high self-esteem. I don’t think they would send people with extremely low self-esteem to be the poster child for their campaign. The workshop’s actually effectiveness in the real world is debatable.

Kairos: The girls attending the workshop are ages 11 to 17. A girl’s self-image is shaped during these pre-teen and teenaged years. As such, this workshop comes at the perfect moment in a young girl’s life, the time when she is most susceptible to the influences of the media and her friends.

Rhetorical devices:
1. Tone—Jess uses an informal, conversational approach when she talks to the girls. The setting is casual and encourages girls to honestly share their feelings. Jess also uses words like “cool” and “super-duper” when talking to the girls, which makes her seem more like one of their peers, as opposed to an adult. The girls all respond positively to the tone of the workshop, as shown by their willingness to answer questions and freely speak their mind.
2. Personification—Jess addresses self-esteem as if it were a person that “lives” within each of us, rather than a more abstract idea. Jess states, “It’s so important that we begin to talk about self esteem and where it lives in each of your lives…” By personifying self-esteem, it becomes easier to talk about and to conceptualize that you have power over your own self-esteem.
3. Rhetorical Question—Although Jess wants answers to most of her questions, the questions she is asking are more to get the girls thinking than to have an actual response. One rhetorical question she asks is, “Do you feel like there are a lot of different messages coming your way as girls today?” In this situation, she is trying to get the girls to look at all the different ways they are being influenced by the media.
4. Allusion—Although a specific individual is not alluded to in the video, the “perfect image” set by the media is constantly referred to. In this situation, the girls refer to celebrities as setting an unattainable precedent to which they must live up to. One of the girls shares her feelings on where her self-esteem comes from, “I think it’s from the media. Like you see stuff about celebrities and you compare yourself to them and if you don’t feel that you’re up to par then you have low self-esteem…” This comment alludes to the group of celebrities as a whole and how they affect the self-image of young girls.

New media rhetorical devices:
1. Interaction—The video recording of the workshop setting allows viewers to watch the video and respond to the questions Jess is asking, is if they were actually in attendance. She asks questions that we can all think about such as, “If you could change something about your body, what would it be?” and, “What do you think influences the way you feel about your body?” These questions allow the listener to think about what their individual responses would be, as well as to listen to what other girls have said.
2. Nonlinearity—This workshop video is broken up into four parts. Each part builds on the previous parts, but each segment is not necessary to understand the flow of the workshop. The viewers may choose to watch just one segment, which would allow them to just listen to the questions Jess is asking or to hear the importance of self-esteem.