Pathos Appeal

    

                         Emotions

 There are several emotions that are elicited from the audience. I experienced disgust, sadness, anger/frustration while watching the content in this commercial on climate change.

Strategies Used to Evoke Emotion 

Most of the strategies that I noticed were rhetorical: 

1. Anaphora. It is the repetition of the same phrase or word at the beginning of successive clauses or sentences. For example: People start pollution. People can stop it. Presenting the conclusion of the argument in favor of taking responsibility for polluting the environment in a repetitive pattern provides a quick way for people to memorize it. This short phrase is more appealing to the audience, because it evokes a sense of responsibility for starting the pollution and the need to stop it. Anaphora provides a powerful message of human responsibility to the environment. 

2. Tone of the speaker. The speaker's tone is slow, solemn and deep. The tone sets the mood for the scenes, because the Indian is sad to see trash floating in the river that he considers sacred. Deep voice evokes a sense of sorrow and regret in the audience for polluting the environment around us. 

3. Mood. The mood changes in two ways. At the beginning of the commercial the song is upbeat and ominous, which highlights the seriousness of the pollution problem caused by American people. However, in the second half of the commercial, Indian lands on the coast and the music changes from upbeat to lower beat and becomes more melancholic. This rhetorical shift highlights that imperative problem of pollution is upsetting and sorrowful. The shift in music and mood is what gives the audience pathos, or evokes feelings of regret and sorrow.  

4. Inductive reasoning. Besides the obvious presence of anaphora in " People start pollution. People can stop it"- this phrase is also a form of inductive reasoning. The minor premise is that people start pollution and Conclusion is People can end it. The major premise: people are responsible for their actions (in this case the action is pollution) is already known to the audience and the conclusion evokes that sense of responsibility without inclusion of the major premise by the authors of the commercial. 

Were they effective?

All of the above strategies were successful at soliciting emotions such as sadness through the use of solemn, deep tone and frustration through the ominous sounds. The use of rhetorical devices such as anaphora and inductive reasoning effectively established that people need to end pollution, because the responsibility for environment is on everyone's shoulders. 

Do you think the same strategies would work today?

I do not think that these strategies would work today, because people have become insensitive to pathos. Individuals are now aware when someone is trying to get an emotional reaction for a specific reason instead of actually trying to present an issue, so that is why earlier commercial containing lots of pathos did not work. Government officials need actual scientific data to facilitate change as opposed to just inductive/deductive reasoning or pathos. 

 

Moreover, individuals around the world are more aware of global crisis now in 2021 than they were in 1970s, so the target audience of pro-climate change commercials has also changed from holding people to accountable to holding government and politicians accountable for facilitating global climate changes. As I have stated earlier- government is hard to convince just with pathos, but it was super easy to evoke emotions in people. 

 If not, how could they make the campaign more effective for your generation to tackle a topic such as climate change?

 Particularly in our society, climate activists started online social media campaigns to spread logos or statistics and scientific evidence that confirms global climate issues. The role of social media has increased tremendously since 1970s, so inclusion of powerful statistics and social media campaigns are more powerful in presenting a claim than TV commercials of the 70s. 

Do you have any other thoughts about the use of pathos in this video? 

To add, if the commercial included an average American and not the Indian- then I feel like the pathos would have been less effective, because American Indians are known to respect the land and environment, they live in- not American population as clearly stated in the commercial. The presence of an Indian figure makes greater impact on the pathos or emotion of the audience, because he is a symbolic figure of pre-industrial America, where nature and environment thrived in harmony and was not polluted. Symbolism is a powerful strategy in any persuasive piece of information.