Blog Post 2 for Ind. Viewing Project

Two essential questions and their answers according to the documentary I watched: 1) How do modern modes of communication affect the rhetorical devices individuals have at their disposal?

With this particular documentary I feel rhetorical devices are the only way that a point would have been achieved.  This mode of communication, which I believe is an informational documentary (visual communication to a wide audience), used the appeals heavily in order to make a point.   It is because this is a visual mode of communication that the appeals are needed because when people see results such as people losing weight it affects them and their mood more so then if they heard someone using a rhetorical device such as an anaphora which would not be so effective in this case because that is used for written communication and not so much visual communication.  Since the video has been invented and more modern forms of communication have formed, written forms of rhetorical devices do not deem effective anymore. To keep up with the times, the appeals are very reliable to either inform, persuade or to connect with the visual audience.  It is in this way that modern modes of communication affect rhetorical devices that people can use, because not all rhetorical devices will be affective and it is obvious that this is so through the documentary I watched and through every other form of modern communication.

2) How have modern modes of communication been perceived and received by the global community?

The modes of communication in our modern world have varying affects on people depending on the age group or generation or maybe even gender.  However people are taking advantage of the new forms of communication that are available. For example, ads in magazines are vibrant and creative with less words then there are colors, commercials attract people through sounds, visual appeals and connections to their inner thoughts.  Texting and phone calls get information to people quickly and easily. E-mails can send messages, pictures, attachments, documents, and videos.  Every form of communication today has so much more involvement then communication a few decades ago.  In my eyes, it is easier to persuade people of today then it was to persuade people to buy something when television was not around. People of today easily receive information through these modes and depends on their mind set on how they perceive it.  The documentary I watched was clearly going for a dramatic affect and showing before and after pictures of people losing weight because of this new juice diet and how they are taking care of their bodies.  This communicated to the public that they should not only eat healthier, but they should exercise, and if they do they will look as beautiful and feel as healthy as every person in the documentary felt at the end of their journey.  People easily believe what they see in this world.  “You have to see it to believe it” is a quote I highly believe relates to modern society and how they perceive the world around them.  Anyone can say a diet works, but if they have hard facts, quotes from doctors, and pictures then most people will take this credibility into consideration and realize the connections they could make to their own life.  Modes of communication of today aim to persuade and connect with the people, and thus far that is how they perceive it. 

Blog Post 1 for Ind. Viewing Project

Bibliography:  Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead. Dir. Joe Cross. Dir. Kurt Engfehr. Joe Cross, 2010. DVD.

The documentary I chose to watch for my independent viewing is called “Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead”.  The documentary is cut in half, one half of the documentary focuses on the life of a man named Joe who realizes his death may come prematurely because of his rare auto-immune disease and his severe obesity.  He finally decides to do something about it by going on a “Reboot” diet where he drinks nothing but vegetable and fruit juice that he squeezes himself and drinks for every meal.  He does this for 60 days and reaches a healthy mark.  The next half of the documentary is about a different man named Phil,  Joe is the creator of this documentary and he meets Phil at a truck stop and they begin talking about Joe’s diet.  Soon Phil begins to do the same diet because he happens to have the same disease and is more than 200 pounds over weight.  This documentary shares their success stories and how this new diet has helped people all over the world to achieve the success that these two men have achieved.

The most prominent rhetorical device from this documentary is ethos.  Throughout the entire documentary the credibility of the diet and this one man’s mission to lose weight and become healthy is conveyed through evidence such as a doctor weighing him and telling him how much weight his diet has made him lose, to the end where the film closes with saying all these mini success stories of other men and women who have lost certain amounts of weight because of this diet. With evidence like this, it is hard to turn away from hard facts and it proves that this new juice diet actually works and could help save America’ obese population. The appeal of ethos affects the audience by having a large movement where more people start doing this diet and more people start to exercise and try to make a healthier life for themselves.  The use of statistical data on how many colors of chicken fill up your stomach compared to how many calories of vegetable fill up your stomach is astounding. This data affects the audience and pushes them to take action to save their health and their lives before they end up being a “cheese burger away from a heart attack” as Phil said during the film when he was in the middle of his diet.

The second most used rhetorical device was logos.  Logos was used every time a doctor was being filmed or a trained physician was giving facts.  The logical facts of what the doctors said cannot be false, otherwise that would be illegal.  These facts help the video because it states this basic general concept, “if a doctor is saying I will die at the age of 45 if I eat 20 hamburgers a day, then it must be true, and I need to take action to stop myself eating too many hamburgers and dying an early death” (this was not said in the video, but it is an example of logos used).  The statistics the doctors use move the audience to take action because it is a reliable source that is telling them to change, which relates back to the idea of credibility and ethos which made the movie as effective as it was.