Rhetorical Analysis of CNN.com. Villegas. University of Texas at El Paso

Transcription

1 1 Rhetorical Analysis of CNN.com Brianna Thornton, Armando Salas, Abel Romo, Brenda Villegas University of Texas at El Paso

2 Ethos, Pathos, Logos CNN.com is a well-known news source around the world that uses Ethos, Pathos, and Logos in an effort to persuade their audience. Ethos is utilized in a manner to provide credibility to the website by using recognized social figures, dates, times, etc. Furthermore CNN uses pathos to target viewers emotions through imagery, videos, and text. Lastly logos is used to appeal to the audience s logic through numbers, graphs, information, and evidence. The three rhetorical appeals of Ethos, Pathos, and Logos are simultaneously used by CNN to lead their audience to a desired conclusion. Ethos plays an important role in CNN.com by making the Audience believe what they are reading is factual and accurate. Furthermore Ethos provides credibility for the website, making the content more significant to the audience. One technique used by CNN, is the supply of daily and hourly updates, and even updates by the minute. This gives CNN credibility by keeping information current and relevant. The website also promotes ethos by providing a corresponding author for every article or report. Furthermore the professional title given to the author of the corresponding text attributes to the credibility. For example an article titled Election 2016 includes the author, By Carol Costello, CNN anchor, the professional title given to the author CNN anchor, grants further credibility to the text. Another method of implementing ethos in the website is by using the influence of recognized social figures. For example celebrities can be used to trigger people s thoughts into something they recognize and feel acquainted with. Examples CNN uses are images of the President of the United States, artists, athletes, and many other people that can be used to establish credibility. Once credibility had been established other rhetorical appeals will be targeted to help persuade the audience. For example emotions can lead

3 people to agree or disagree on a subject, which is why pathos plays an important role in CNN.com. Pathos is used by CNN mainly through visuals such as pictures and images that appeal to our emotions. These images can target multiple emotions such as sadness, happiness, anger, concern, etc. depending on the purpose of the image. They use this appeal quite often so that the information viewers are considering has a deeper impact on them. This helps capture the reader at a more profound level of attention than just intellectual. In this image above innocent children are being harmed and threatened for no reason. This is taking place because of the Syrian civil war and children and their parents have nothing to do with this, but face deathly threats on a daily basis. Another reason CNN uses pathos is to provide a means to relate or obtain an understanding of what is happening in the real world. For example they use a lot of visuals that catch your attention immediately, whether it s a child covered in dirt and blood, or an indigenous woman wearing a beautiful colorful dress. Both images are intended to lead the audience s emotions in a desired direction. Another method of implementing pathos is audible perception. For example, background music in videos is intended to direct the audience to a desired emotion. This Video contains graphic footage of innocent children being harmed by the Syria Civil War. Although emotion plays a big role in

4 persuading the audience, the most important rhetorical appeal needed to convince the audience is Logos. Logos is an appeal to logic, and is where the audience will find facts and evidence. The CNN website content greatly pertains to the use of logos in the greatest amount in order to persuade the audience into agreeing on the website s desired goal. CNN utilizes the appeal to logic in forms of graphs, quantitative numbers, logical reasoning, statistics, and factual evidence. This appeal is used to facilitate the transfer of information, they can be manipulated to differ the audience from the truth. For example, CNN often changes graph proportions in order to create a visual representation to persuade an audience to believe a desired goal differed from the truth. Furthermore, the order of information as well as information that never gets published affects the truth behind the information. Thus often creates a false sense of logic in the audience who fail to recognize the framing of information. The misuse or selective use of information empowers the rhetorical appeal of logos, and allows CNN to imbed information in bias ways into the thoughts of people. The CNN staff has become experts in using Logos to their advantage. In consequence they have built a reputation to be one of the best news providers in the world. CNN s articles are very persuasive due to their ability to manipulate information into the audiences appeal to logic, along with the two previously mentioned appeal ethos and pathos. In conclusion ethos, pathos, and logos are all used in the CNN website to persuade the audience to believe a desired goal. Each rhetorical appeal plays a unique role in helping CNN manipulate the thoughts of the audience. Ethos, pathos, and logos work together to obtain a common goal shared by the three rhetorical appeals. Only when all three appeals are used simultaneously and in a cooperative manner toward the same goal, will the author have utmost

5 success. Thus making the three rhetorical appeals of ethos, logos, and pathos essential tools of persuasion for CNN.

6 References Costello, C. (2016). Election CNN. Retrieved from