A Date With Your Family (video): Appeals to Ethos

In the video "A Date With Your Family," the creator of the video uses limited appeals to ethos, or credibility, to reinforce the argument that happiness comes through being a member of a traditionally structured nuclear family.  While there aren't an abundance of distinct appeals to ethos, the way the video is fundamentally structured can actually be seen as one such appeal.

Possibly the omniscient narrator of this video?

The video is structured so that the audience watches characters move about, and listen to the narration of a regal sounding man.  The use of an omniscient, removed narrator is an appeal to ethos because it gives the narrator an almost God-like presence. With only a strong voice and no visual presence, the narrator takes on a mystical quality, and being the only source of words, he is the final judge on what the audience directly interprets from the video.  Without a narrator, the audience could make any number of interpretations of the images and interactions in the video.  However, with a narrator, his words become the first source of interpretation and meaning.  With this in mind, anything the narrator says has a special quality of importance and credibility.  Combine that quality with the narrator's use of the command form (e.g. "it is never good to allow telephone conversations to interfere with studies"), and the audience is directly swayed to his argument by a strong appeal to ethos.

A. Jacob Shapiro

A Date with your Family - visual and aural elements (video)

Since the text being analyzed is a video, there are bound to be visual and aural elements that are used to enhance the meaning of the rhetoric. In the beginning, the video is introduced with a very generic introductory song that leads into the video like it would any tv show at the time. This aural element is used to attract more families and children to watch it, because it sounds as if one of their favorite shows is going to come on any second. Another aural component to the video is the speakers voice. I have mentioned this before; However, the speakers voice is very serene and calm so that doesn't provide any feelings of urgency or uneasiness, it keeps the atmosphere very calm, which is good to help the families feel positive about what they just watched.


As well as having aural elements, there are visual elements in this video that have a hand in the rhetoric, as well. Since it is a video, the whole video itself is a visual element- However, if we dissect this piece by piece we can understand why it is brought together so well as a whole. First off, the family is dressed very nicely and cleanly which is easy on the eye. When one member of the family looked dirty he was encouraged to change in clean up. Since they all dressed nicely it was easier to think about what was actually going on with the dinner. Also, to support good actions at dinner, there was well set-up table, a clean kitchen, and a well set-up house. All of these things were pleasurable to the viewers eyes, which keeps it more likely for them to remember what happened. Lastly, all of the actors in this video have sort-of overdone their acting. When they smiled, they smiled very largely, when they were annoyed, they showed that emotion very well too. By doing all these things the video together accomplishes the goal of educating the public on good table manners and dinner etiquette.


-Krishna Shah

Raising Kids in Non-Nuclear Families (article)- Visual or Aural elements

In this article, there are not many aural elements to analyze. However, they do use visual elements to portray the different types of families. They use happy families with smiling faces to represent the idea of loving and successful relationships.

When audiences see various types of families all laughing together, they cling to the idea of happiness and will continue reading. The pictures also represent the main idea of the article well and show the outcome of what "your" family could look like if you read and follow the article.

Other than photographs, the authors specifically make the article in list form with bold words as headings and bullet format. This is done to appeal to all types of audiences and create a more diverse following. By organizing the facts of the article the audience is inclined to at least brush through and get the overall idea of the article. Though this is an article, the authors specific visual decisions impact the persuasiveness of the argument.

A Date With Your Family: Stasis Theory and Rhetorical Argument

In the video "A Date With Your Family," the video's creators make the argument that having a traditionally structured nuclear family, with traditional gender roles and expectations, is the key to happiness.  The video is dated to before the 1960s, when a revolution in the structure of the nuclear family began.  Therefore, if we can gain a good understanding of this video and the arguments it's trying to make, we can have a greater understanding of the trajectory of the revolution of nuclear families in America.  So, let's try to understand the video a little better.  Together, we will examine the conjecture, definition, quality, and policy of this video, together forming what's known as the "stasis theory."

Conjecture:

The conjecture, or facts, of this video are easily identifiable.  We can see that there is a "typical" American family, consisting of all white members, two parents (a man and a woman), and three children (two boys and one girl).  We can also recognize that the gender roles in the family are traditional, as the man and the boy focus on work/schoolwork, while the woman and girl focus on cooking and cleaning.  These facts coincide with the expectations and values of a "typical" American family before any revolution occurred.

Definition:

The definition, or meaning/nature of the issue, can only be recognized when viewing this video in light of modern times and the revolution that occurred in the structure of the American nuclear family.  "A Date With Your Family" conveys the notion that the path to happiness is a traditional family structure with traditional gender roles.  Many modern families, who aren't viewed as traditionally structured, would take issue with this argument.  However, the video well represents the reality of its time period, and thus we can understand the great shift that occurred not only in the nuclear family structure, but in our society as a whole.

Quality:

The quality, or seriousness of the issue, is very high in this video.  Being a good representative of America's sentiments and beliefs at the time, the video reveals just how close minded and conservative American society was before the 1960s.  Every family was expected to be like the family portrayed in the video, no exceptions.  Many people fall under the scope of this issue; anyone living in America pre-1960s would be expected to have a family with the illustrated structure and expectations.

Policy:

The policy, or plan of action, doesn't come directly from this video but from its consequences.  The direct policy of the video is that one should take action to be a member of/maintain membership in a traditionally structured nuclear family.  However, from our perspective, and with our current knowledge and societal expectations, this policy can be taken oppositely in that we should be members of whatever type of family that makes us happy.


Thus, stases, or agreement on the information and conclusions of the video, is reached.

A. Jacob Shapiro

Raising Kids in Non-Nuclear Families Article-Pathos

Throughout the article, Emily Kreid and Lizzie Bartlett, the authors, uses tries to capture the audience emotionally to convey that family life has changed significantly since the 1960's. By giving specific examples, such as single parent, same sex, and multigenerational households, the author hopes to capture the attention of families that fall in that category. Also, the authors direct tone and use of "you," while giving advice makes the audience feel like they are being addressed personally. This allows them to be held personally accountable. Lastly, the authors have specifically italicized questions that act like the audiences consciousness. They are simple questions yet people probably have not taken the time to address them and evaluate their home life. This self reflection grabs the audience emotionally and compels them to continue reading further.

Logos of the Family date (video)

Previously, we discussed the kairos and the major rhetorical argument for the video "A Date with your Family". Now we will delve in to the video deeply to see piece by piece how the author executed the usage of rhetorical appeals.

The video operationalizes logos as one of the main rhetorical appeals for the video. The whole point of the video is to show children of the 60's how to properly act in the household. Thus the author uses logos by establishing the do's and don'ts of table manners and actions in the household. By throwing in the don'ts children logically think why acting in a "bad" way would cause a bad atmosphere in the whole home and abad attitudes between all the people. To avoid doing that, the author suggests that, children should just follow the rules and hold off on any controversial conversations with parents, especially during dinner time. Now no child wants to be yelled at by their parents so they will listen to what the nice man in the video has to say and stay quiet and put on a smile. As well as holding off on controversial conversation, no one should monopolize the conversation and make the evening all about them. By doing that, obviously, others around you will be bored. 

In the video, also, all of the characters had almost tangible emotions. As a reader, you can see exactly what the emotions are portraying. This appeals to logos because in that time period of the 60's this video was targeted to the children in nuclear families so naturally the child would relate the persons in the video to their own family. So whatever emotions that the actions of the children cause, in the video, would be directly related to the children watching the video. 

Logically, if the children followed what the man in the video said than they would have one big happy family.

                                                     -Krishna Shah

Raising Kids in Non Nuclear Families (article)- Ethos

The credentials of the author are never stated, so the audience does not have any extrinsic ethos to go off of, but intrinsic ethos definitely plays a role in this article.  The main way ethos is generated is the author gives his own advice on ways to overcome the negatives of single parent and homosexual households after pulling statistics from different studies. The ethics of the author seem to be clean as he does not seem to take a side on whether the traditional Nuclear Family is better or one of the newer structures.

The question is how a single parent can raise a child alone more successfully. The author recommends the parent to prioritize their own education so they can communicate more effectively with children since parents with higher education levels have healthier parenting styles. He also suggests the single parent to find a support network so there is a way to relieve stress and pressure. He draws from the famous saying, “it takes a village to raise achild” in order to make this piece of advice more relatable.

Another question the author provides some insight on is how to ensure children with homosexual parents have a normal development. His advice is to maintain a good relationship with your kids and he draws from the statistic that children with a positive relationship with parents show fewer signs of depression and feel more connected in school. He also advises to be upfront about the sexuality of the parent because in a 1989 study when daughters learned about the sexuality of their parent at a younger age they had higher self-esteems.

Based off of different statistics, the author uses his expertise to guide struggling parents. The combination of logos and ethos together builds up the author’s reliability. By the end of the article the exigence is clear that the most important thing is for a child to grow up healthy and in a good environment, it is just what kind of households will provide this. 

-Priyal Patel