Illinois State University ISU ReD: Research and eData Theses and Dissertations 4-8-2014 Fashioning a Rhetoric of Style: A Rhetorical Analysis of Urban Street Style Representations in New York City Amber Pineda Illinois State University,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.library.illinoisstate.edu/etd Part of the Communication Commons, and the Rhetoric Commons Recommended Citation Pineda, Amber, "Fashioning a Rhetoric of Style: A Rhetorical Analysis of Urban Street Style Representations in New York City" (2014). Theses and Dissertations. 121. https://ir.library.illinoisstate.edu/etd/121 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by ISU ReD: Research and eData. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ISU ReD: Research and eData. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. FASHIONING A RHETORIC OF STYLE: A RHETORICAL ANALYSIS OF URBAN STREET STYLE REPRESENTATIONS IN NEW YORK CITY Amber Pineda 127 pages May 2014 This thesis examines how urban street styles are used rhetorically within local boroughs in New York City as a form of resistance to the dominant fashion industry that dictates what is “in fashion” through media. A total of fifteen video blogs developed by The New York Times were analyzed, each containing a representation of one of the five boroughs of New York City: Staten Island, Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Queens. The analysis identified themes of a rhetoric of style, consisting of primacy of text, imaginary communities, aesthetic rationales, market contexts, and stylistic homologies. These themes were then analyzed by drawing upon neo-Marxist and semiotic theoretical concepts.