Crystal Rodriguez

80475321

Rhetorical Analysis

In order to prepare myself to enter my desired discourse community, which
is the El Paso Police Department (EPPD) as a police officer, I had to analyze how the
departments mechanisms of communication are used between its members in
order to work as a functioning organization. However, theres much more to
realizing how the EPPD works. For an organization to flourish and preserve its
community in upcoming years, they must recruit new members in order to uphold
the organization after expert members eventually leave the group. So how does
the EPPD recruit its members effectively and persuasively? The EPPD has different
means of persuasionranging from blunt brochures to theatrical video
commercials. For this assignment, I will be providing a rhetorical analysis of an
online video regarding joining the EPPD and how this medium uses Aristotles
rhetoric tacticsEthos, Pathos, and Logosin order to appear persuasive to the
viewer.
Throughout most of the video, the author relies heavily on pathos in order to
persuade the viewer into becoming interested in joining the EPPD. In the entire
video, there is dramatic music playing in the background, meaning that the creator
of this video wanted its viewers to feel thrilled, as if they [viewers] were in an action
movie. By including such theatrical music, the author wanted each viewer to feel
powerful and heroic. Because the author wants to invoke these feelings, he/she is
conveying the message that you can be the powerful hero if youre in law
enforcement. By doing so, the author is effectively appealing to one audience
groupthose who are interested in helping people with a tinge of action and
adrenaline.
However, this video not only is trying to persuade one audience group, it is
attempting to persuade a wider audience range. In this video, the author includes
small fragments of clips depicting the different career branches in law enforcement,
such as forensic analysts examining fingerprints or even the SWAT team breaching a
building. The author chose to include these clips in order to attract the audience
that doesnt necessarily want to be a police officer, but can join the EPPD as any law
enforcement agent. In a couple of other clips, there were gun appearances such as
snipers and machine guns. The author is trying to show that in this field, you will get
hands on action and adrenaline rush by coming in contact with danger, but you
will also provide protection and security, all three symbols that are illustrated by
guns.
After watching this video, it may be quite difficult to realize who or what is
the credible author in order to establish Ethos. However, after analyzing the video, I
found two applications of Ethos. A way for the audience to trust the video, it is
likely that the audience will believe a credible website. In this case, the website
where this video is posted on is elpasotexas.gov, and this is very credible due to the
.gov domain addressmeaning that this website is government administered. The
video is posted on the EPPD website and located under the tab saying Join the
EPPD link. The author chose to have this commercial posted on this government
administered website rather than have it shown either on YouTube or TV because of
the fact since the webpage is government affiliated, it adds more authority and is
more trustworthy than any other .com webpages.
As a form of Logos, the author uses a one on one interview with a police
officer, in which no introduction was given. This police officer states that his reason
for joining the police department is to help people. But why would the author chose
to include an interview with a police officer instead of showing more dramatic
clips or music? The author added this interview in order for the police officer to
work as both Logos and Ethos. The police officer works as Logos because he states
the simplest yet logical reason to join the police forceto help people. The police
officer then works, concurrently, as Ethos because of the fact that he is a licensed
police officer, meaning that hes been working on the field for some time and isnt a
recent police academy graduate. Any viewer would be intrigued by this because a
licensed police officer, which adds credibility, is telling the audience that the most
logical reason to join the EPPD is to help people, therefore persuading viewers to
become a part of the EPPD and join the community. Also, he added onto saying that
he applied [police academy], made it through, and is ready to start. When he said
this, he dictated it at a fast pace. The reason he said these words in a quick speed
was to make people think that the process to join the department is quick, hindering
viewers to think, Joining the department will be quick and easy, just like that.
As part of a false appeal to pathos, the author uses the police officer once
more. Along the police officers interview, he shares a personal life experience and
mentions he is 46 years old. The author included this appeal to pitya false appeal
to pathosin order for the general audience to feel sympathy for the police officer
and connect to the situation. This leads the audience to think wellif he did it at 46
years old, then I can definitely do it too. By using the tactic of mentioning his age,
the author just added another audience groupwhich would most likely range from
ages 30-50who will potentially join the EPPD.
Throughout the two minutes of video, the author effectively uses Aristotles
rhetorical means of persuasion in order to appeal to the viewing audience. As a
consequence, those who viewed this video will become connected to the
interviewed police officer by the means of pity and sympathy, thrilled by the
adrenaline rush given by the gun scenes and melodramatic background music, and
by the most logical reason to join the EPPDto help people. In conclusion, the
author or creator of the video successfully portrayed Ethos, Pathos, and Logos in
order to reach different audiences and persuade potential law enforcement recruits.

References
City of El Paso. (2014). Join the EPPD. El Paso Police Department. Retrieved from
http://home.elpasotexas.gov/police-department/application-process.php