Abstract
This paper describes the three rhetorical appeals of ethos, pathos, and logos. In an eating disorder awareness video called “Scales” by The Looking Glass Foundation the three rhetorical appeals are used to bring attention to the audience. This paper examines and analyzes how The Looking Glass Foundation is effective in using these rhetorical appeals. Through the text and visual found in the commercial an analysis of its effectiveness is discussed in this paper. The Looking Glass Foundation is an agency founded in Canada that gives young girls an opportunity to get help with their illness. Their campaign awareness logo is “Not every suicide note looks like a suicide note” and is used throughout many of their awareness commercials. (The Looking Glass Foundation-Scales, Prosser, 2008) This paper also discusses how the text and visual support each other through the rhetorical appeals.
Analyzing a Text and Visual Through Ethos, Pathos, and Logos
A visual and rhetorical analysis includes rhetorical appeals such as ethos, logos, and pathos. Ethos shows the credibility the author has to the audience. Logos is the logic behind the appeal to the audience and pathos is an appeal based on emotion. In a video called “Scales” from The Looking Glass Foundation,(Prosser, 2008) the three rhetorical appeals are used throughout the text and visual.
In the video “Scales” a young teenage girl is facing the illness of anorexia. The video shows her leaving swimming practice and measuring herself on a school scale. The scale shows small numbers measuring her weight. The young girl’s legs are shown to be extremely thin, especially for a swimmer and an athlete. She then goes to her locker that has a piece of paper taped inside of it listing her weights in descending order. The numbers read 82, 78, 75 which are unhealthy weight measurements for a young teenager. During the video sad music is playing in the background giving a sad emotional appeal. The text then says “Not every suicide note looks like a suicide note”. This is The Looking Glass Foundation’s campaign for awareness of eating disorders. Then it shows that it is from The Looking Glass Foundation and says “help us give hope to those suffering from eating disorders”. (The Looking Glass Foundation-Scales, Prosser, 2008)
The audience is an important factor when dealing with rhetorical appeals. In the video “Scales”, (Prosser, 2008) the intended audience are teenage girls and/or athletes. The audience could also be anyone who is struggling with an eating disorder or a family member who is dealing with someone with this illness. Also the surrounding community because it implies that people should become more aware of the signs of an anorexic. The video shows a young teenage girl who is on the swimming team. Since this video is an eating disorder awareness video the community members are targeted to help observe signs and become aware of the illness.
Ethos is presented through the author’s credibility. This video was created by The Looking Glass Foundation. This is a foundation founded in Canada that has a treatment facility for young adolescents with eating disorders. (The Looking Glass Foundation) This highly increases the author’s credibility because the author is from a foundation in which there are young adolescents dealing with anorexia or an eating disorder. The author is knowledgable on the subject because they deal with this issue on a daily basis. If a celebrity on the other hand was the author of this video there wouldn’t be much credibility because the celebrity might not be specialized in dealing with eating disorders. In the visual there is text that reads, “Every suicide note doesn’t look like one”(The Looking Glass Foundation, Prosser, 2008) . The author is credible for saying this because they know that young teenagers die from this illness which could be prevented by studying this illness. This text is highly important because suicide notes are usually recognized as letters talking about death or the individual’s sadness. In the commercial the young girl’s “suicide note” is a list of unhealthy weights that she sees as happiness. It is not a suicide note that other people would recognize, that is why the text is so important to help raise awareness for this illness.
Through pathos, the author evokes an emotional response of sadness and concern in the video. The text makes the viewer feel sad and concerned about young people losing their lives to this illness. This is an effective strategy because it is short and simple and makes the viewer think about how serious this illness is among teenagers. Logos is shown through showing a relatable situation for teenagers and for other people to understand the situation. There isn’t supporting evidence of the text but it is still a strong argument because of the author’s credibility. The weakness in the logic would be that it did not provide any type of statistic or proven fact.
Ethos of the visual gives credibility to the author because the author represents The Looking Glass Foundation. The visual increases the author’s authority and credibility because they show a relatable situation for the audience to understand. Pathos of the visual definitely gives a sad and concerned emotion just as the text does. The video includes sad music in the background which gives the audience a response that this is a serious topic. The sad dreary music gives the audience emotions such as sadness and concern. The color scale is not colorful but has a dark tone to it. This video contains strong logos. The medium used is a commercial for eating disorder awareness. It is organized by getting straight to the point. By showing a relatable situation it is easily organized for the audience to understand. The color scale of a dark tone gives the audience the sense of concern. The author was creative in how to get the point across by having no conversations in the ad, but the only spoken words be the text read aloud to the audience. This shows the audience that the most powerful part of the commercial is the text. Having no conversations in the commercial could also be a weakness because it may not catch an individual’s attention until the end of the commercial. (Prosser, 2008)
The visual and text compliment each other by the visual adding more information to the text. The visual shows the young girl full of sadness and the text implies that the illness could lead to her death. If the visual was not included the audience would not fully understand the message the text is trying to get across. Pathos is appealed through the text and visual supporting each other. The text would merely have no value if it were alone because it could be talking about a number of things. This gives the visual as the main focus. The text also compliments the video by giving it a more serious tone and making it more effective to the audience.
In conclusion, the video “Scales” by The Looking Glass Foundation is credible because the author is part of an agency that deals with the issue of the video, which is anorexia. Ethos, pathos, and logos are found throughout the text and visual to give appeals on the audience. The video had weaknesses such as not adding statistics, but had strengths by creating emotional appeal. The visual and text compliment each other, because the text would not have the same meaning without the video. The video also would not be as effective without the text.
References
BEST ADS. PSA Eating Disorder Awareness: Scales. http://www.bestadsontv.com/ad/ 15305/ PSA-Eating-disorder-awareness-Scales
Prosser, Kathi. (2008) .The Looking Glass Foundation. Scales. http://www.youtube.com/ watch? v=wjwZhEnSWvg
The Looking Glass Foundation. Who We Are. http://www.lookingglassbc.com/ whoweare.php?PHPSESSID=f1282428ba0685c830be0e98bdfa4cbd
