Rhetorical Analysis Of The Podcast Serial '

Approximately 40 percent of the nation's homicides go unsolved. In the podcast Serial, narrator Sarah Koenig analyzes the murder case against 17 year-old Adnan Syed, as she is convinced the murder has been left impenetrable. The murder took place in Baltimore, Maryland on January 13th, 1999, when Adnan was sentenced to life for the first degree murder of his ex-girlfriend Hae Min Lee. As no concrete evidence was ever collected in the case against Adnan, in her podcast, Koenig sought out to dive deeper into the investigation, deeper than the police ever did, to learn the full story, and potentially prove Adnan’s innocence. Episode three in the podcast, titled “Leakin Park,” presents a growing suspicion against a suspect in the case of the murder

By appealing to the audiences’ emotions, Koenig is able to grab the listener’s attention and make the audience feel for Adnan, “ I’m explaining all this just to say that, the simple fact that he was found in Lincoln Park, for a lot of people that alone made Adnan look innocent. ‘What’s a nice boy like you doing in a park like that?’” Koenig makes sure to reference the fact that Adnan was viewed as a kindhearted guy, who would never do anything to hurt someone, multiple times throughout the podcast. She uses quotes from his friends and family to prove this, each admitting how fond they were of Adnan. This taps into the listener’s emotions, making it harder for us to believe that this kid, who everyone views so highly of, is capable of committing first degree murder. Through listening to the emotional aspect of the case, it makes it harder for the audience to grasp the fact that a “nice boy like that” is a cold blooded killer, and makes it easier to be suspicious of any other characters. Through using pathos, the speaker is able to influence the audience to gain a liking towards Adnan, which she does by carefully crafting her story through the words she utilizes. Through acquiring a liking for Adnan, by the way Koenig displays his character, the audience starts to question his guilt. By tapping into the listener’s emotions, it makes it harder for the audience to

By describing the scene of Leakin Park, the location where Hae’s body was buried, Koenig is able to make Adnan's statement seem more innocent, which feeds the listener’s interest in the story, and raises suspicion against other characters. For example, the speaker illustrates the set of the park, and its relation to Mr. S (character who found Hae’s body) in a way that makes the listener’s question Mr. S rather than Adnan, “There are parts of his story that are a little weird, one of them being this thing about the fallen tree. 127 feet back into the woods there was a fallen tree, essentially a 40-foot log…Hae’s body was buried right behind this log on the stream side…it’s not at all obvious that you’d notice her.” The story about why Mr. S stopped exactly there doesn’t seem quite right. Through the use of imagery, and by explaining why Mr. S has become a suspect, the audience’s attention drifts from Adnan to form a suspicion of Mr. S. Through the way the woods are described, Koenig causes a reason of suspicion against Mr. S. Unrelated to the imagery of the set of where Hae’s body was found by Mr. S, Leakin park as a whole is often described rather poorly, “It’s got a reputation and not for the beauty of its woods or its trails or its nature center. What it's known for, sadly, is dead bodies.” Leakin Park is not a familiar