There are a plethora of controversial topics in the world today. Each issue has multiple sides that are trying to influence people's thoughts and gain their support. “Oil to Die For” and “Climate Change Debate: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” are trying to do just that. Persuasion is an art, an art that is even more powerful influence with today's electronically based society. However, some sources are far more persuasive than others. “Climate Change Debate: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” is less far less persuasive than “Oil to Die For”, because despite the fact that Jon Oliver uses stronger ethos, “Oil to Die For” has more convincing pathos and logos.
Ethos is increasingly important in the persuasiveness of a selection due to the
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The pathos in “Oil to Die For” is far stronger than the John Oliver piece based on the types of pathos used. The majority of “Oil to Die for” talks about Dustin Bering, who died in the oil industry. Dustin fell in love with Lacey Breding, was married soon after and then had a beautiful baby girl. The significance of having a young baby connect to everyone and is impossible for the audience to not feel bad for Dustin and his family. In addition, there is a timeline of Dustin’s life that shows not only his past life but glimpses into the future. These later events are especially important because they talk about how his life would have been if he was still alive. This detailed personal information helps to humanize Dustin's story. Creating a deep connection with Dustin is really able to direct the reader. The use of music, the video clips about the commemorative rodeo, and the interviews helps build the connection to Dustin. Overall the articles use of interviews, pictures, events and music generates a feeling of loss and sadness for Dustin, which overpowers the emotion of the John Oliver piece. The John Oliver piece focuses on humor, which makes sense in the context of the source, but isn't ideal for the topic. There is nothing in the jokes that really sticks with the reader or makes them think. By the time the next joke is starting, up there is …show more content…
Global warming is a worldwide issue and can be considered to have the biggest possible audience. However, it has no drastic impact on the day to day life, rather it's a gradual change. The fact that global warming is too broad is likely why studies have found that “people rank global warming lower than local environmental issues”(Konisky). In contrast, Oil drilling can be seen as impacting a comparatively smaller group but at a more drastic scale. National Parks, for example, are in danger of oil drilling due to recent congressional action. As a result of this, “the park service will have essentially no authority over oil and gas development proposed inside national parks. Leaks and spills could go unpunished without NPS authority to enforce safety standards”(Bontrager). Not just people who love national parks are impacted, all people near are at risk of water and air pollution from drilling catastrophes. This is crucial in the persuasive pull of oil because according to a Journal of Academic Health study, the three most important issues to the public are the protection of community drinking water, reducing pollution of U.S. bodies of water, and reducing urban air pollution. This is in comparison to global warming which ranked eighth in importance (Konisky). Without a doubt, this definitely shows that because of the greater and more direct risk
Persuasion is a very strong technique that is used by many throughout history to form some of the greatest works of literature. Ethos, pathos, and logos are the three forms of persuasion. In 2008 a man by the name of Barack Obama created his Victory Speech after a very hard fought campaign. He utilizes the three modes of persuasion to create his very persuasive speech. Persuasion is one of the most crucial strengths to any speaker, especially when applying ethos, pathos, and logos just as Barack Obama did in his 2008 Victory Speech.
As a kid who has cared about nature his entire life, and an avid modern environmentalist for four years and counting, this issue has been at the center of my psyche for quite some time. I have seen public perspective on this issue change before my eyes. From the original rejection of Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth movie on “global warming” to personally marching alongside 300,000 people in our nation's capital to raise awareness on climate change. However, despite all of these avenues the issue is still spoken about as this distant idea that eventually will be a disaster. Many politicians and news networks speak of the need for slow implementation of policies and programs to right our environmental wrongs. The best way to paraphrase the common narrative of this issue would be to say, climate change is going to happen down the road, it will probably be bad and trying to fix it in the near future would be a good idea. That weak call to action shoves climate change onto the long to-do list of the leaders of our world. Not only does it not create the urgency needed to actually curb the effects of our environmental ignorance, but it does not accurately describe the threat of a changing climate. Treating this like a political issue will not allow for the rigorous changes needed to address such a problem in the timely manner that is required.
What makes you want to watch the news? Is it the credibility and trustworthiness of the reporter, the emotion the story holds, or the logic and evidence the channel you are watching uses to get their point across? No matter what news channel you are watching, the reason you are watching is probably one the three listed above. These three things are actually all connected in a triangle called the “Rhetorical Situation”, where each is equally important and used in argument enhancement. The goal of my paper is to is to explain how, why, and when news channels like CNN, MSN, and FOX NEWS, use the three modes of persuasion to sell an argument.
The problem that the pro- global warming theorists have created is that of social standing and little else. While there may be scientific backing to support some of the theory, the media presents the problem with great sensationalism. Global warming and energy conservation has thus become a trend and losses some of its validity through this. The scare tactics used by the media to “promote awareness” are just that, a linguistic ploy to gain favor. “Awareness of this global threat reinforced public concern and environmental problems and thereby provided environmental activists, scientists, and policy makers with new momentum in their efforts to promote environmental protection.” (McCright, 2000) This statement draws line to the potential benefits that would be received if the pro-global warming theorists were to draw enough attention to the issue. Driven by social empowerment and conviction to environmental protection, these activists misrepresent the actual threat and paint it as being much more
One of the biggest political and legal issues that affect the oil and gas industry is the cause of changing of present climates as there are a lot of harmful petroleum products that can cause damage to the environment such as carbon dioxide cause greenhouse gas, sulfur dioxide cause acid rain which could eventually be harmful to animal, planet and worsen illness and heart diseases… Another issue
The rhetorical device that I thought was most effective was his use of Pathos. I believe his purpose for using this type of rhetoric is to reach the heart of those he was writing to in hopes of moving them so much so that they feel a, “call to action,” so to speak. While some may argue that Martin Luther King, Jr.’s(MLK) use of logos was most effective, I disagree because while it is possible to persuade someone with logic, wouldn’t you feel compelled to act immediately if something moves your heart rather than waiting for your brain to convince your heart and then act. For example, in paragraph 7, it states, “We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God given rights.” as well as, “when you suddenly find your tongue
use of ethos, logos, and pathos bring hope and empathy to the American people. President Reagan presents himself as a truthful leader by noting that we are very open about the events that occur within our space program. Reagan wants to gain the trust of the people by letting them know he will be sure to communicate with them as events within the space program occur. In his speech, Reagan emphasizes to the people that, “We don’t keep secrets and cover things up. We do it all up front and in public” (6).
This cartoon appeals to ethos, pathos, and logos in a variety of ways. Ethos is "what modern students of communication refer to as credibility" (Lucas 353). Ethos is shown by the figures at the bottom stating that they held her seat open since 1955 to mark the year she stood up for her rights. Pathos is depicted through the pride illustrated in the cartoon. For example, it shows Rosa Parks entering heaven as angels say "we have something in the front row for you..." because she fought for her spot on the bus and changed the way of life for future African Americans. The angels were praising her for her accomplishments. Logos is illustrated throughout the entire cartoon because it is logical that such an inspiring woman would be held a seat and
In this excerpt which states Max’s appeal to get Bigger, who is a black man, a sentence of not guilty during the racist 1940’s, Max uses the three rhetorical appeals and imagery to convey his message. Max’s target audience for this speech is the court and judge, which he first addresses in an apologetic tone, but later shifts to a more authoritative manner of speaking. Throughout Max’s speech, he use effective appeals to ethos, pathos, and logos. In paragraph four, he mentions “The Loeb and Leopold case.”
Normally an author uses pathos to gain sympathy from readers by using emotions. The first example of pathos is when she made the statement “ If you are black and male and you do not play sports — well, good luck gaining admission to schools like UNC (Jackson).” In my opinion, this is a strong statement that is hard to read and makes me feel discouraged. The reason she said this was to show her point that they are extremely picky about who plays on these high revenue teams. These schools are only looking for the students who will bring in money for the school and that is why the author is trying to show that they get treated with priority. Another example of pathos is when she said “ Unlike college athletes who bring in revenue, non-revenue
“I changed my mind because of your argument”, said no one ever. Even when provided damning evidence and masterful techniques of persuasion, people are far too prideful to admit aloud that they were wrong. However, with time and thought, minds can change in the silence of one’s head. Often the only way to even convince people to even change their mind silently is to provide a multifaceted and quality argument. But how can you ensure an argument is of high enough quality that it will likely change minds? You must measure it’s through a multi-step analysis. A rhetorical analysis. A rhetoric analysis is a process by which a piece of writing is measured on “how tactically is applies pathos, ethos, and logos”, and how effectively it panders to
Persuading an audience can be done in several different fashions, one of which is Hugh Rank’s Model of Persuasion. Rank’s model states that two major strategies are used to achieve the particular goal of persuasion. These strategies are nicely set into two main schemas; the first method is to exaggerate an aspect of something, known as “intensify.” While the second is to discredit it, which is referred to as “downplay.” Al Franken, Jeffrey Snyder, Harlan Ellison, and George Will, have all written persuasive articles about gun control.
Gerard A. Hauser covers a plethora of details on how to create a well-made persuasive argument in his book, an Introduction to Rhetorical Theory; however, he covered three specific essentials that are necessary for persuasion: the components logos, pathos and ethos; purposive discourse and rhetorical competence; identification. I will argue for each constituent, respectively, to prove that persuasion cannot thrive without the aforementioned essentials.
Persuasion is described as the deliberate process that intends to change an individual’s attitudes, behaviours or beliefs from their previous initial views and ways of behaving in society. Persuasive communication is widespread and evident all around us, including in central areas of politics, marketing and media. Burkholder et al’s (2003) findings support the idea that there are cultural differences evident in the effectiveness of persuasion, in which they found that shortly after the end of the Iraq war, surveys indicated that although Americans favoured the use of military action against Iraq by 2:1, Europeans opposed it by the same margin. There are four key factors that help influence persuasion amongst the masses, depending on their
Human existence and activities have proved to contribute immensely to the warming. When oil was first becoming a major world energy resource, greedy capitalists actively pursued any and all measures to profit from it. The expansion of embryonic corporations became the single most superior motive, forgetting completely about the care of the planet. All aspects of oil production, including the: extraction, refining and transportation generated considerable amounts of environmental pollution. Oil spills from international transportation became a major concern and in 1990