Persuasive Communication

In today's world being able to persuade someone is huge, especially in the business world. For this blog assignment I have chose Barack Obama's 2004 Democratic National Convention Keynote Address. Personally I have not decided who I am voting for yet but Obama has a good shot at getting my vote. I was interested to read the transcript of this address where he supported John Kerry in the 2004 election. I have no idea if he actually writes his own speeches but they are all amazing. No matter how good Obama may use rhetoric it does not compare to MLK's letter when I read both of them. I do not know that much about rhetoric or even english for that matter but I do know that MLK's letter is supposed to be the say all, end all when it comes to best use of rhetoric. Now once I compare Obama's speech to the Army recruiters presentation it seems that he is the best user of rhetoric that the world has ever seen. I mean no disrespect to the 3 presenters but they could not have convinced me to do one thing that day. Maybe they don't have a lot of skill in the area or they just weren't on their game. Granted, I know they weren't trying to persuade me that day but from what I observed they did not have a chance if they actually tried.

Here are a few examples of Barack Obama's use of rhetoric in his address:

Ethos- I understand this to be appeal based on the character of the speaker. His speech did not ever bring attention to the fact that Obama is highly educated and a "good person" because of his audience. He was at the Democratic National Convention so it was no big deal that he has a great education because everyone there also has the same education. The way he delivered, no recited, his speech really appealed a lot to me that he knew what he was doing and he was supposed to be there. He did once mention talking to mill workers that I think would help his ethos.

Logos- I understand this to be appeal based on logic or reason. This seems that it would be a lot of scholarly information and big words but i'm not sure about that. I think the best use of logos is his argument in the speech that the US should be about hope not cynicism, about accepting not condemning, and about togetherness not red vs blue states.

Pathos- I understand this to be appeal based on emotion. Barack Obama has a lot of this in his speech. He talks about union workers losing their jobs to Mexico and then not having benefits or money to pay for their children's medicine.


http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/convention2004/barackobama2004dnc.htm