VSAR 1102 // Week 6 // Online Tutorial

Activity // Define

• Ethos
• Character
• Credibility
• Persuasion
• Information

Ethos is how you convince your audience of your credibility, maintain or exploit your reputation, and what you're known for.

"A speaker makes use of ethos (to increase credibility) if he refers directly or indirectly to his own qualities; pathos relates to appealing to the emotions of the public, and logos to the arguments he uses to try to persuade his audience.[1]" 

Ethos is "the credibility of the rhetor, the person or institution who wants to persuade the viewer of a message by means of an image" which may be employed using signs within the advertisement, such as lab coats on scientists, or using brand ambassadors to align themselves with a particular value. Sports brands use elite athletes to demonstrate the performance and value of their products, for example, or when charities use celebrities as their ambassadors. Those may also be established through more subtle design elements, such as a professional looking website as opposed to one which looks outdated or tacky.

Credibility asks do you look and act professional, or, at least suitable for the role. Eg. a lawyer might be expected to wear a suit and tie, a doctor or scientist to wear a lab coat, a tradesman to have overalls and a tool belt, an artist or creative to be covered in paint or look eccentric

[1] Van Den Broek, Jos, Willem Koetsenruijter, Jaap De Jong, and Laetitia Smit. ‘Visual Rhetoric: Images That Persuade’. In Visual Language: Perspectives for Both Makers and Users, 88–120. The Hague: Eleven International Publishing, 2012.

Persuasion according to Katherine McCoy in "Information and Persuasion: Rivals or Partners?" defines persuasion as “a basic definition of persuasion is an attempt to shape or change a user’s behaviour or attitude. Persuasion exerts a direct influence on behaviour, and promotes a response. Promotional communications encourage behaviour.” Persuasion makes use of seduction which “initiates the entry step in the communication process, promising a reward for the audience’s attention.”

“In these days of media saturation and multi-channeling, there is fierce competition for the reader’s attention, and readers have increasingly short attention spans. Seductive media can persuade a reader to pay attention, to get in bed with the message content and spend some time with it.”

Information has a number of definitions according to Merriam-Webster but we'll focus on the following:

1. a (1): knowledge obtained from investigation, study, or instruction
       (2): intelligence, news
       (3): facts, data
    c (1): a signal or character (as in a communication system or computer) representing data 
2. the communication or reception of knowledge or intelligence

In other words, Information is related to things we know to be fact. Within graphic design and visual communication, Katherine McCoy defines says many designers think of Information as “noble” when compared to Persuasion and Seduction employed by advertising. McCoy notes that Richard Sal Wurman coined the terminology “information architecture” to describe graphic design. This “vision of communications fits well with the modernist ideal of objective, rational design” and that “persuasion is distasteful, associated with the worlds of advertising and marketing—emotional, subjective, manipulative, and superficial.” Information, in other words, is often described in contrast to persuasion and seduction—which flex subjective appeals (pathos)—as the more objective message or content.

However, McCoy argues that information and persuasion are employed together in all forms of graphic design in order to attract and seduce the reader in order for the communication loop to be completed through reader interaction and understanding. Her example relates to a stop sign—you must engage and seduce the driver through the bright colour red in order for them to notice, read and understand the sign and then take the action required. She elaborates on this example in regards to electronic communications which employ various stimuli (visual, audio, and tactile cues) to direct readers to interact with the Web sites or software correctly.

Activity

Each group to analyse one of the following advertisements. Show and discuss with the class how ethos is being used and why you think it is effective. You have 15 minutes. If you run out of things to discuss regarding ethos, then move on to pathos or emotional content of this image.