Essay 2

Print

Print was a huge part in the evolution of rhetoric. It changed the way rhetoric would be used and changed how audiences received information and the way audiences could be persuaded.

The creation and use of print has had huge effects on the world, and changed the culture as a whole. One of the most important parts of writing is how is brought people together and into one community. This brought the same knowledge to everyone and when print took off libraries made the general knowledge available to the population. Bringing general knowledge to the population increased the desire to learn to read, overall improving the literacy rate and allowing authors to reach a larger audience.

One of the most significant parts about print and libraries is how it made information accessible to all. This is important because being able to find more information on a topic strengthens the use of logos. It allows fellow rhetoricians to build off of each other and in that way they can strengthen their writing through use of logos and ethos. They can present facts and information that have been discovered and documented and that improves the persuasive power of a writing. When reaching out to people who are more oriented around science and math it would make more sense to focus on logos in order to connect with them. With print it is easier to use those facts and strengthen logos which helps in connecting with that specific audience. With writings published, stored and easily accessible it is easy for someone writing to draw out specific points and approach them with clear arguments. This creates stronger arguments and increases the rhetorician’s ability to write persuasively.

Print also allows events to be documented and which produces evidence that supports other arguments. An interesting way rhetoric has changed because of print is the ability to persuade people to behave in one way by presenting an event that happened to someone else and was written about. An example of this is, is when doctors, parents, counselors etc. are trying to explain the dangers of alcohol poisoning, one of the most successful ways to get the desired results is use a real story of someone else, who died tragically because of it. This is called the identifiable victim effect, it is effective because of the use of pathos and it reaches out to the target audience because typically the example is someone within the same age range which makes it real and really connects to the audience.

With print came new styles of writing. One example of a new writing style is narrative. Using narrative as the style of the writing is a good way to put pathos to use. Developing ethos is what makes the authors writing more credible. If you build yourself up to connect with the audience they are more likely to continue to read and listen. Also developing ethos, groups you with the audience and by finding common ground the audience will more likely accept you and then accept your ideas. Print and media has made it easier to build up that ethos, because things about the author/presenter may have been published and media creates wide known reputations. With these widely known reputations it makes it easier for a rhetorician to develop ethos.

The five parts of rhetoric according to Boethius included memory and delivery. Memory and delivery become less important when it is being presented in the written form, and delivery played a very large role in the success of a speech and the persuasiveness. The important part of an argument is that all the factors are put in together. The difference is that now memory and delivery aren’t as important, because so much of writing is through media sources. Memory isn’t important as we now have screens for presenters to read off of while presenting. The politicians delivering their speeches also have people who write for them. Because of these new opportunities the importance placed on memory and delivery has significantly decreased. Print changed the ways in which rhetoric is most efficiently presented and changed the strengths of rhetoric. An important part about writing a persuasive argument is being able to shift your argument around the strengths available. This goes into the fading importance of memory and delivery. With print, memory and delivery are not the strong points of rhetoric, and more attention is placed on information from other sources and

Print brought gossip, and information into the population which changed the landscape of media because now information of events happening throughout the world was brought to the general population. A great example of this is the newspaper. No longer did people have to wait for information to be passed through people, or delivered through letters. Because this general knowledge is provided to everyone it makes it easier for a rhetorician to present their ideas because the audience they are speaking to will generally be aware of the topics being presented.

Print created a massive change in culture as a whole. With print news was spread to more people and information was more easily obtained. These are the things that changed rhetoric. Because everyone could be made aware of specific things it led to the ability to have massive followings of one event. With things like the printing press it was easy to reach out to large numbers of people and provide them with news reports and easily rile people up against a cause. This gave rhetoric a chance to alter the response people have to different situations presented. Public relations is an example of this because to maintain a certain image they change the wording and presentation of information through writing to affect consumer’s view of things. This added a new use for rhetoric.

Print changed the strengths of rhetoric and added new abilities for rhetoric to utilize. Print created more uses for rhetoric and expanded its opportunity to reach out to people. Print strengthened the power of rhetoric by allowing it to be spread quickly and efficiently.