What are pathos, logos, and ethos?
Pathos is a technique that connects with a viewer through their emotions. The idea of this technique is to pull on people's heartstrings. It is used to make an audience feel. Pathos uses nostalgia, shared experiences or even memories. For instance, there could be a cute animal, overcoming great odds, or a devastated family. An example of this is the lotto ticket ads. One of their ads showed a young lady winning the lotto and soon got into an accident that broke her arm. While in the hospital getting her arm in a cast she thought she lost the ticket. This makes the viewers feel sad or even guilty for her. Yet when she gets her cast cut off the ticket was put inside her cast. This makes the viewers happy and even surprised. The point of this shows the different emotions that can persuade a viewer to buy a lotto ticket. Which is done by pathos.
Logos is used to convince an audience through logic and reason. It can be shown through statistics, facts, graphs and charts. Another name logos goes by is "the logical appeal." A great example of logos being used is by healthy food companies. The reasoning is because they use data showing why healthier food is better for you than a place like McDonald's. Another example of logos is shown through Colgate ads. They show quite a lot of statistics through their ads. "100% of your mouth gets protected" if you use their product. Colgate also uses this method when it comes to bacteria.
Ethos is a persuasive technique that highlights a source's credibility. It is used to show the superior "character" of a speaker, author, and, presenter. Many examples of this technique show the viewer that the advertiser can be trusted. For instance, if ethos is all about credibility, Jennifer Aniston was featured in a campaign for Smart Water. The point is that she is famous therefore she's the one selling the product. Also since she is well-known it is likely that she will have peoples trust. People also trust famous people because they have a high status in society. People who are classed as celebrities can sell pretty much anything. Even if they have no knowledge about the product or how to correctly campaign.
What are we doing?
We are showing our understanding of Ethos, Pathos and Logos. This is shown through our ability to describe and give examples for each topic.
Why are we doing it?
We are doing this to give us an idea of different ways companies persuade people. We also get to see how sneaky most companies can be when it comes to persuading the public. Also, we are learning to write a good piece of formal writing in the future through a persuasive text.
What questions do I have?
The questions I have are to encourage me to reflect on what I have done and why I have done it. They make me go back and check if I have achieved my work to the best of my ability.
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Ad for Pathos example
Ad for Logos example
Jennifer Aniston campaign for Smart Water.
(Ethos example.)
Sources Used
