Page 385 - Gabrijela Kišiček and Igor Ž. Žagar (eds.), What do we know about the world? Rhetorical and argumentative perspectives, Digital Library, Educational Research Institute, Ljubljana 2013
P. 385
stakeholders in promotional genres:
a rhetorical perspective on marketing communication 385
motion of expositions by i2a, as well as leaflets and letters for the pro-
motion of some of i2a laboratories for kids; other students were asked to
produce a sponsoring dossier, a magazine and the corresponding email
cover letter for promoting Lugano LongLake Festival, a summer event
organized by the Youths and Events Department of Lugano; other stu-
dents were asked to conceive a new and more effective format for the an-
nual report of the Federation of the non-governmental organizations of
Italian Switzerland (FOSIT), as well as a new brochure for the institu-
tional presentation of the federation and a press kit.
Before starting the writing of the committed texts, students were
asked to identify the text’s stakeholders according to the above exposed
classification and to describe stakeholders in terms of role, attitudes,
needs, aspirations, desires, knowledge, goals, relationship to other stake-
holders. The stakeholder’s description method was inspired by the meth-
ods of audience analysis exposed by Schriver (1997: 154–162), particular-
ly by the classification-driven analysis and by the intuition-driven anal-
ysis. The description encompassed the two main dimensions of commu-
nication context according to Rigotti and Rocci’s (2006) model: the in-
stitutional dimension and the interpersonal dimension.
Such a detailed description of stakeholders – and the in-depth un-
derstanding of the rhetorical situation of texts it allows us to reach – can
be a valuable tool for the teaching of composition and it provides stu-
dents with a conceptual tool that sustains them in achieving effective-
ness in business functional communication. Starting from the assump-
tion that a text is effective when it achieves its goal, that is, when it pos-
itively modifies the exigency from which it stemmed, and considering
that one of the essential components of a text’s effectiveness is its ade-
quacy to the rhetorical situation, a precise and concrete identification of
the stakeholders of a text makes students aware of the very situated char-
acter of each text and helps them in producing texts adherent and rele-
vant to the exigency. For instance, a detailed description of the stake-
holders of the institutional brochure for FOSIT shows that addressees
belong to different categories with different needs and imposing differ-
ent requirements on the text, which have an impact on the choice of the
brochure contents. The addressees are Italian Swiss non-governmental
organizations which are considering whether to join the federation, ac-
tual and potential sponsors as well as the media and all the Italian Swiss
population. It is important for them all to know that the federation ex-
ists and what it does, which are the affiliated NGOs and which projects
a rhetorical perspective on marketing communication 385
motion of expositions by i2a, as well as leaflets and letters for the pro-
motion of some of i2a laboratories for kids; other students were asked to
produce a sponsoring dossier, a magazine and the corresponding email
cover letter for promoting Lugano LongLake Festival, a summer event
organized by the Youths and Events Department of Lugano; other stu-
dents were asked to conceive a new and more effective format for the an-
nual report of the Federation of the non-governmental organizations of
Italian Switzerland (FOSIT), as well as a new brochure for the institu-
tional presentation of the federation and a press kit.
Before starting the writing of the committed texts, students were
asked to identify the text’s stakeholders according to the above exposed
classification and to describe stakeholders in terms of role, attitudes,
needs, aspirations, desires, knowledge, goals, relationship to other stake-
holders. The stakeholder’s description method was inspired by the meth-
ods of audience analysis exposed by Schriver (1997: 154–162), particular-
ly by the classification-driven analysis and by the intuition-driven anal-
ysis. The description encompassed the two main dimensions of commu-
nication context according to Rigotti and Rocci’s (2006) model: the in-
stitutional dimension and the interpersonal dimension.
Such a detailed description of stakeholders – and the in-depth un-
derstanding of the rhetorical situation of texts it allows us to reach – can
be a valuable tool for the teaching of composition and it provides stu-
dents with a conceptual tool that sustains them in achieving effective-
ness in business functional communication. Starting from the assump-
tion that a text is effective when it achieves its goal, that is, when it pos-
itively modifies the exigency from which it stemmed, and considering
that one of the essential components of a text’s effectiveness is its ade-
quacy to the rhetorical situation, a precise and concrete identification of
the stakeholders of a text makes students aware of the very situated char-
acter of each text and helps them in producing texts adherent and rele-
vant to the exigency. For instance, a detailed description of the stake-
holders of the institutional brochure for FOSIT shows that addressees
belong to different categories with different needs and imposing differ-
ent requirements on the text, which have an impact on the choice of the
brochure contents. The addressees are Italian Swiss non-governmental
organizations which are considering whether to join the federation, ac-
tual and potential sponsors as well as the media and all the Italian Swiss
population. It is important for them all to know that the federation ex-
ists and what it does, which are the affiliated NGOs and which projects
