Rhetorical Analysis - Essay Example

Firstly, the pathos of the video is clear and apparent from the very first frame of the video; as the viewer is greeted with an expansive cemetery perforated by concentric lines of seemingly endless white crosses. Further pathos is invoked due to the dramatic elements of the music that is represented to the listener. Hardship and drama with regards to the emotional connection that the viewer must have to the individuals on the screen is represented through a steady stream of images connecting homelessness, poverty, orphans, and a post-apocalyptic environment.

Each of these emotionally charged images is capable of invoking a response upon the part of the viewer; a response that the director and producer of this brief advertisement were fully aware could be evoked. Similarly, the ethos of the particular advertisement in question is much less complex and much easier to define as compared to the pathos which is been discussed above. Due to the fact that UNICEF is a global outreach entity that is represented in nearly each and every nation throughout the globe, the degree and extent to which ethos is directly represented merely by mentioning the name UNICEF is innate.

As such, even though this ethos is not directly linked to the advertisement until the credits screen flashes just prior to the advertisement concluding, it nonetheless is evident and cannot be ignored by an individual interviews the contents of such a message. It is further arguable that without the UNICEF emblem being represented at the end of this advertisement the overall believability and trust an individual might have with regards the contents therein could greatly be diminished. Finally, seeking to understand this advertisement from yet another perspective, the rhetorical approach of logos, demands that the individual focus upon the moment in time it just prior to the advertisement concluding and/or the moments prior to the UNICEF emblem being flashed upon the screen.

Within this brief period of time all of the preceding information that has been driven by thoughts and a sense of emotional distress and need for action is juxtaposed with the logos of the statement: “What we see as fiction. Is real in Ethiopia” (Unicef 2007). Such a statement of fact links all of the seemingly disjointed emotionally charged imagery and tax that was presented previously and the advertisement to a definitive and logical conclusion. Whereas it may be hard for the individual to accept the images of orphans, innately poor, struggling to survive in burned out towns with no viable means of support or education as a fictitious rendering of a post-apocalyptic world, this is very much unfortunately the case within many parts of Ethiopia and Eastern Africa that are heavily impacted by the AIDS epidemic.

By referencing all of this information and utilizing all three of the previously denoted rhetorical strategies, the director and producer, and indeed all of the people responsible for the production of this ad, effectively integrated with as large a market audience as is possible. As has been denoted through previous levels of research, effectively representing pathos, logos, and the post in