Today, I will continue researching the following question with a lens of broadcast and television media: How have media rhetorics changed in delivering information to people as mediums evolve?
The first source I found in my search was a blog post by Emily Bishop, who was interning for ABC 2 News. Bishop explains that the rhetorical ideal of pathos, or emotion, is essential for news anchors, as they “need to appeal to the audience’s emotions and keep them entertained so that they will want to stay tuned for the entire show.” Further continuing my search, I skimmed through the book “Media Rhetoric: How Advertising and Digital Media Influence Us” by Samuel Mateus. I learned that Bishop and Mateus agree that each news story requires its own respective structure to appeal to and influence how viewers perceive current events. This structure includes the following rhetorical strategies: an anchor’s word choice, tone, physical appearance and demeanor, images, snippets of video clips (such as speeches and interviews), etc.
I was further able to connect the public rhetorics used in broadcast news to radio news (a popular way of communication by former US president Franklin D. Roosevelt in the form of fireside chats during the Great Depression era). Radio jockeys can keep their audience hooked by trying to appeal to the audience’s emotions through their word choice while ensuring that their shows are developed in a particular structure.
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