![]() ![]() We study the social/environmental reports produced by three New Zealand companies during a wider discursive struggle over the ‘proper’ role of business in society. Drawing on insights from impression management and communication studies, and Kenneth Burke's understanding that rhetoric is all pervasive, we focus on Aristotle's rhetorical ‘proofs’: ethos (credibility), logos (reason), and pathos (emotion). ![]() Also, a rhetorical analysis isn't a position paper.We demonstrate how persuasive strategies activate the ‘middle ground’ discourses of responsible and sustainable business constructed in three social/environmental reports. Also, rhetoric isn't always a lie or manipulation. It's also worth noting that most things mix the three together in some fashion. (Would a graph on times when young people are abducted be more effective? Probably not.) Political ads, movie trailers, nostalgia-infused merchandise, jokes in online dating profiles, even the cute face your dog makes when he wants something.we are bombarded by pathos appeals and we all think we are impervious and we absolutely aren't or they would stop using them. Your mom yells at you for staying out past curfew? She's using pathos to attempt to persuade you to not stay out late. Pathos is emotions and it usually gets treated as the silliest appeal, the one we enlightened minds should all be above, but it's actually the one we encounter most often and we should really take it quite seriously. If you manipulate statistics, like maybe you use an average instead of a median to push your agenda, it is still a logos appeal even if it is a bad use of statistics. ![]() Even smart people are probably not going to sit down and read your dry packet with loads of statistics. Sure, a thick packet of data on drunk driving with tons of peer-reviewed articles should carry more weight than a slick commercial with celebrities saying it's wrong to drink and drive but people's minds don't always work the way we want them to. Seems straightforward, right? Seems like the only appeal we should ever use is logos, right? It's more complicated than that. Of course, Hawking has far more credibility when discussing astrophysics than Jordan would. So, if Michael Jordan tries to tell you Steph Curry is the best basketball player of all time, because he has credibility in the sport, that will carry more weight than Stephen Hawking trying to convince you Le Bron James is the best player. Doesn't mean it is always successful but it is the method of the attempt. I used my credentials as a teacher to persuade you that I know what I'm talking about. Some people have cred on some topics and others don't. But we use all sorts of different tactics to try to persuade and good ol' Aristotle broke them down into three: ethos, logos, and pathos.Įthos is credibility. In fact, I would argue that all forms of communication, from a restaurant menu to a car logo, are rhetiorical. People are trying to persuade you of shit all the time. Okay, so "rhetoric" is, for our purposes, "the art of persuasion." It's more complicated for phds who study rhetoric but you're a college student trying to pass an undergrad class so we can stick with the simple definition. Let me break it down to you in a similar way as I do for my students. I teach college composition where we discuss these three rhetorical appeals. ![]()
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