Ethical Rhetorical Persuasion In Today's World

Advertisements are everywhere. From billboards, to magazines, to newspapers, flyers and TV commercials, chances are that you won’t go a day without observing some sort of ad. In most cases, companies use these ads as persuasive tools, deploying rhetorical appeals—logos, pathos, and ethos—to move their audiences to think or act in a certain way. The two magazine ads featured here, both endorsing Pedigree products, serve as excellent examples of how these modes of persuasion are strategically used.

A person's thoughts transpire like a fork in the road ; people can help direct those thoughts through persuasion. Quality types of persuasion happen all around us, but there can also be a substandard type. The inspiring persuasion happens when someone trying to help another individual convinces them to do the right thing, but the other, inadequate persuasion, can lead to a poor choice that may cause regret later. In “The Most Dangerous Game,” Richard Connell uses persuasive language between the characters and shows their decisions throughout the short story.

The truth is that as consumers we are prone to being taken advantage of and more specifically, ripped off. How this occurs is quite simple. It is the technique of persuasion that forces people to do things, believe things and in this case purchase things that are not necessary. Tactics to persuade people can range from rhetoric devices to the structure of the message itself. Rhetoric devices, such as logos and pathos, and the structure of the message come together to ultimately persuade people to buy into things that they normally wouldn’t buy. Pathos appeals to emotion and logos describes the idea of logical reasoning. Then comes the structure of the message itself which enhances an idea to its full potential. The main purpose of these techniques in literature is to serve as writing strategies to convey an idea in words. Two examples of authors utilizing writing strategies to persuade readers that stores and advertisers manipulate shoppers take place in “The Science of Shopping” by Malcolm Gladwell and “Attention, Shoppers: Store Is Tracking Your Cell” by Clifford and Hardy. The author of “Attention Shoppers” uses the writing strategies of pathos, logos and the structure of the writing better than the author of “The Science of Shopping” to persuade readers that stores and advertisers are manipulating shoppers.

Society uses manipulation to divert people’s attention every day and oftentimes people do not realize that they are being manipulated. An advertisement through television is one of the many ways that people are manipulated. TV uses advertisements daily by incorporating subliminal messages to get people to do things that they would not otherwise be thinking about doing. The following articles “Can TV improve us?” by Jane Rosenzweig, On Sale at Old Navy: Cool Clothes for Identical Zombies!” by Damien Cave and TV’s War of Words” by Deborah Tannen exemplify instances where manipulation is being showcased at its best.

Throughout history, literature, pictures, and speeches have been laced with modes of persuasion. In modern society, thousands of advertisements are produced a day. Each one uses either ethos, pathos, or logos to convince viewers to shift and support a certain belief. One field of advertisements that relies heavily on pathos and ethos is the health field. The national anti-smoking campaign advertisement, below, uses blatant visuals and medical facts to make viewers understand how smoking negatively impacts people’s lives.

Rhetorical analysis is looking at something such as an essay, newspaper, movie or advertisement and looking beyond the story, information and intended audience. To analyze the purpose behind what’s written or said, to discover the intended audience and why they are writing what they are writing. There are three parts of rhetorical appeal persuasion: Ethos, pathos, and logos. Ethos or an ethical appeal. This is the audience’s perspective on what the author is writing and to decide how credible it is. Who the author is and if they are credible. Pathos or pathetic appeal is the writer's attempt at connecting with the audience through experiences or examples. It is directly connected to interests and emotions of the audience.

The Persuaders (2004, directed by Douglass Rushcoff) is a documentary with a hard eye on the multi-billion dollar advertising and marketing industry. They examine the subconscious and psychological techniques behind advertising and marketing developments. The documentary also determines how these new methods of marketing influence us, our desires and our self-image, finally theorizing on the future implications or repercussions of the influential forces that are constantly at work.

To designate a persuader enriched with ethos and rhetorical virtue, one should determine if the persuader is keeping all of the choices in the argument or if they are attempting to distract, threaten, or alter the tense from the future tense. If choices are limited, the persuader cannot be thought of as virtuous. According to Aristotle, the persuader that sticks with the average of two extreme options is virtuous. In a store, a salesman has virtue by asking for a customer’s range and staying mostly in the middle of that range. When numbers are nowhere to be found, someone should ask himself or herself what the middle in their question would look like. Doing this comes in handy when asking someone for their advice. If the advice references the

The first essential of persuasion involves the structure of the argument being posed by one who is trying to provoke others to action. In order to convince someone of a new argument, idea or moral, one must use the proper methods: logos, ethos and pathos. According to Hauser, “The method

“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated” quote by Mahatma Gandhi. Over 115 million animals are killed in laboratory experiments worldwide for drug, cosmetics, chemical and food testing every year. Nowadays, advertising agencies against animal abuse are deciding to use shocking tactics to get their point across about ending animal cruelty. There are several advertisements that address different types of issues, but at the end of the day all they are trying to do is to give a voice to the voiceless, the animals. In order for these agencies to get the ability to manipulate and the full attention of the audience they need to use the most common persuasive strategies. Those persuasive strategies can also be known as the rhetorical tools of persuasion, which are the appeals to pathos, logos, and ethos,

If it has been identified that the central route of persuasion on an audience is necessary due to high relevance to the persuasive message, this gives the persuader a framework to begin crafting a strong argument. Since relevance is what captures the audience’s attention, the persuader must exploit this. For example, if the persuader is attempting to sell a car to an individual the the use of the central route, and the potential buyer has been categorized as one that clearly understands the relevance of the purchase, the persuader should do his or her best to make their product seem the most relevant to the customer. The seller may do this by asking the customer to visualize how happy they will be in their new car. This can also be done by highlighting the features of the car that are most applicable to the customer’s concerns (safety, high gas mileage, etc). These methods will invite the receiver to become more involved with the target of persuasion. All of these ways utilize the customer’s judgment of high relevance to the situation to construct a strong argument.

Where is necessary evil? What is the line between good and evil? Between persuasion and manipulation? In today’s society, rhetoric is a fundamental tool used from public speakers to commercials. It can be used to either promote something, or degrade it. But when do these people use it in a negative sense that perverts the subject to better benefit them? How do we know, and where is the parameters? The other factor is truth, or ethics, which deals with morals and right or wrong. The question is how do we use rhetoric in an ethical way that doesn’t manipulate the audience? The relationship between rhetoric and ethics is a series of fine lines that are determined by intent, morals, and manipulation.

Introduction: Persuasive language can be seen in everyday life, whether it be persuading a nation to vote for you or persuading a friend to come with you to the party. The general aim is always to persuade another person/persons that you are right. Two key texts that represent the power of persuasion are George Orwell’s ‘Animal Farm’ and Barack Obama’s speech ‘Yes We Can’. Specifically, in these texts the persuasive tools used include anecdotes, rhetorical questions, propaganda and fear.

Of the many persuasive strategies and tactics discussed throughout the text, I would say that credibility would be one of the most ethical tools to use in many situations. The reason I suggest this is that, while credibility has some potential to be manipulative, it typically requires the user to actually have proven themselves worthy of the listener’s time. The shear amount of time that someone, who intends to use credibility as an unethical use of persuasion, often would deter the very idea of utilizing this method from being an option. As a communicator making use of all of the tools in their arsenal, I think the

Persuasion is a part of our everyday lives. Whether we are persuading our mother, using persuasion through speech, or threw advertisements, we are using rhetoric strategies to get the response we desire. With the help of minor details in many advertisements, Ethos, Logos, and Pathos are a way of persuading the audience to buy or think a certain way. A Colgate toothbrush commercial used Logos, Pathos and Ethos to spread the word that they have the best toothbrush of all, in which they target everyone who has teeth. Through the use of advertisements, Colgate has convinced the world that they have the best toothbrushes, they’re even recommended by dentists.