Environmental Rhetoric

Environmental Rhetoric

Pathos and Environmental Arguments

Jake Coleman, Kerri Donnelly, Alexander Gonzalez, Alex Baker

THE END

Sources

http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/animals-are-homeless-new-born-free-ads-12719

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1f/SmokeyBearShamefulWaste1953.jpg

http://www.environmentcalifornia.org/programs/keep-plastic-out-pacific

http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/environmental-ads-44102408#slide-1

http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/featured/creative-environmental-ads/11496?image=3

Scare Tactics

• Often used to stress urgency of problems
• Makes people feel vulnerable
• However, if used improperly, can be dis- empowering

Sources

Conclusion

"What Goes Around, Comes Around."

• Invokes both fear and guilty, which in turn promotes action

• Pathos is used very often in environmental arguments, perhaps to inspire its audience to act. We noticed that overall, media such as photos and videos are more effective at inspiring an emotional response than are arguments on paper. We think this is because media-based arguments provide the imagery the argument is designed to illicit instead of letting the reader interpret a mental image of the problem on his own. Pictures, sounds, and videos with real things, people, and problems automatically relate with the reader more than text does. The use of animals was a common theme, perhaps because most people naturally like and care about animals, and it illustrates a victim of the problem and therefore encourages action. Showing a helpless victim inspires viewers to be a part of the solution. Overall, we find the use of pathos to be highly effective to the general public, but like all things, can become a problem when overused. Too much emotional appeal or unwarranted claims can trigger denial, guilt, or skepticism in the viewer that can have the opposite of the intended effect.

Appeal to pity

Creating an emotion with words and images usually requires recreating the scene or event that would in real or personified circumstances arouse the emotion.

• Direct appeals to the readers emotions are not always effective

This image is an example of a situation, where the animal is personified to enable the audience to connect the issue to real life occurrences.

• If the ad was posted in a city setting, for example, a viewer with no knowledge of a tropical ecology, could still connect with the overall issue ,due to applying scenarios they have witnessed in their own life.

Article example

Article Title: Keep Plastic out of Pacific

• All of this trash in the Pacific is creating an ecological disaster

"Turtles and seabirds frequently ingest floating plastic, mistaking it for food. They also get entangled in bags and often drown or die of suffocation."

• By addressing specific species that are indirectly affected, the text creates an imagery that the audience can connect with

This video depicts the issues and effects of pollution.

• Instead of explaining the that seagulls are affected by our countries' consumer behavior, the extreme imagery brings the audience into the lives of the birds before and after death, in attempt to the invoke symapthy, and thus change in the viewers habits.

Pathos

Merriam-Webster Definition:

• (n): A quality, as of an experience or a work of art, that arouses feelings of pity, sympathy, tenderness, or sorrow.

Aristotle's View

(To sees the available means for persuasion) “Awakening emotion in the audience so as to induce them to make the judgment desired.”

How We Interpreted this...

Depends on understanding the nature of individual emotions and knowing the conditions favorable to present the visuals or text that adhere to the grounds for those individual emotions.

• Often time the pathos strategy is very effective, acting as an emotional hook to grab the audience’s immediate attention.

Where Problems May Arise...

o Sometimes content can be too extreme, and push people away

• Deter certain demographics

o If the information offered is later proven false, the entire idea will become void

3 Main Logical Fallacies Arise.....

This Strategies Pros...

o Often the audience overlooks the credibility of facts

• Distracts them from the truth with emotional discourse

o Uses events that are typically on the back of everyone’s mind

• Brings them forth with such impact, that they have no choice but to at least consider the message with conscious thought

o Use of animals is a prominent tactic

• Frequently highlights how the babies or kin are affected in addition to its parents

• Draws emotional response to our cultural norms of protecting women and children

• Appeal to Fear
• Appeal to Nature
• Appeal to Pity

photo credit Nasa / Goddard Space Flight Center / Reto Stöckli