One of the biggest trends over the past year has been taking a picture on your phone with the front facing camera better known as a selfie, but is it possible that the youth who created this movement also be helping the general population as a whole? This is what Becky Fleischauer argues in her editorial titled; “How the Selfie Will Save Us”. In this editorial Becky is trying to prove the point that the youth of today could actually be helping the population a lot by being on their phones so much. Her argument is some what rhetorically successful because of the broad intended audience, the authors strong use of logos, the somewhat effective use of pathos, and the effective use of ethos. Becky Fleischauer’s intended audience in this editorial …show more content…
This topic is tough to use a lot of pathos but there is one particular example that stands out; “Dissent and free speech are fundamental to a healthy democracy, which is why it is the first thing dictators seek to extinguish” (Fleischauer, 2014, para. 14). This is a great use of pathos because it actually gets at the reader’s emotions because who in the world would want a dictator running their country? No one. By using this the author is really trying to draw the reader to her side. Another example of when Becky really tries to persuade the reader is when she is talking about how although most people don’t see a lot of money in public relations it is in fact a multibillion dollar industry (Fleischauer, 2014). She is trying to open up the reader’s mind and realize that even if you still believe kids are on their phones too much there is till a lot of money in the industry that they might be helping. The reason that pathos isn’t really effective is that this topic in general is kind of dry and even when Becky does use pathos it does not really get at the reader’s emotions