Critical Introduction

Greetings! Our names are Sarah, River, and AJ, and we are Honors English 101 students at the University of Maryland. We chose to analyze the rhetoric between two video advertisements about smoking: one from the 1960s and one from today. We specifically chose these two texts because videos, being multimedia, have not changed very much in structure since the 1960s, so analogous elements such as use of music, lighting, pacing, and content are easy to compare between the two time periods. Furthermore, we chose the common theme of tobacco use because we were intrigued by the change in perspective toward this issue in the past half-century. What changed about smoking practices in America in the last fifty years, and how did media portrayal reflect or influence such a development?

Our blog’s goal was to evaluate all the rhetorical appeals of both the 1960’s and present day commercials, and we thus attacked the rhetorical appeals in the following order: Major Rhetorical Argument / Stasis Theory, Rhetorical Situation / Kairos, Pathos, Ethos, Logos, and Style. The reasoning placing the major rhetorical argument first is because knowing what the main ideas of these advertisements affects how one views the other posts of this blog. If, for instance, you disagreed with our reasoning on what the major rhetorical argument is, then you might disagree with the remainder of our posts, but you can still see our reasoning is sound. Second needed to be rhetorical situation, or kairos, simply because knowing the context of these advertisements is critical to understanding why they made the rhetorical appeals that they did. It was critical that pathos be in the third slot, as the posts about pathos make up the most important part of our argument. From there, we decided that ethos and logos should follow so that the parts of the rhetorical triangle would be grouped. Style went last to round out our blog.

In both the 1960s and modern day cigarette commercials, the videos are primarily an appeal to pathos, suggesting that smoking advertisements in general, despite arguing different points, primarily appeal to pathos. Although one promotes smoking and the other discourages it, both use specific emotions to evoke a response in the audience. The 1960s commercial uses the feeling of happiness to persuade the public at the time that smoking will make one happy and is harmless. The modern day commercial is using the feeling of fear and disgust to dissuade the public for smoking. Both are

advertising different actions, but are using the same means to create the action. Also, both videos use mood as a stylistic element. Frame by frame both videos shift the mood to align with what they are trying to persuade their specific audience to do. The shift in moods is also an appeal to pathos, specifically of the emotions discussed above. Another aspect of the videos that was the same was the lack of appeal to logos. Neither video had any facts whatsoever and little, if any logic was used. Most of the “facts” were implied, because the video creators assumed the audience knew prior information. The final common aspect is that both advertise cigarettes and pose opinions on smoking that they are trying to pass on to the audience.

We feel that this is the correct moment to discuss this issue primarily because right now smoking is declining and yet smoking is still a part of many people’s lives in the US. We couldn't have made this comparison back in the 1960s, as there was no opposing commercial to elucidate that regardless of viewpoint that smoking commercials primarily appeal to pathos. If we were to make this argument in the future when smoking has died out or is a fringe activity, our argument wouldn't be as salient as it would be more difficult to convince an audience that smoking and smoking advertisements are relevant to them.

It is essential that you recognize that many advertisements, especially smoking advertisements, prey upon your emotions to create a favorable situation for their viewpoint. Recognizing that this is the case makes it easier to critically evaluate the argument rather than being taken in by the peppy songs of the 1960s or the somber mood of the present day commercials. You can make better choices than those before you.