Propaganda Rhetorical Analysis

Propaganda is usually associated with brainwashing and manipulation, however it is justifiable when it is used to promote safety and health. For example, in public service announcements to warn the citizens of hazards and to promote safety to protect the people from the dreadful habits of the modern world. The main purpose of PSA’s are to make people aware and to make them act to reach a goal. Public service announcements are a form of advertisement that is made to appeal to emotions and logic to change the perspective of many people. In the article “Propaganda”, Edward Bernays states, “An automaton cannot arouse the public interest”(110). This means that without an addition of feelings, or pathos, in propaganda movements, it does not and will not work. To make people pay attention and remember what the ad states it has to appeal to feeling and cause them to think about what they saw, read, or heard and how they can change the outcome such as in

In many different as and commercials they use scare tactics to prevent people from doing the horrible things in the picture or screen. The creators use scare tactics so that the people will be so frightened of becoming the thing on screen or have the mindset of changing that outcome in their own life. Without using scare tactics many commercials such as anti-smoking ads would have no effect on people watching because they would not be scared and try to protect themselves from the future of their health. This type of propaganda also uses plain folks to demonstrate that the people on the commercial are just like the people watching. Plain folks creates a connection between the actors and the audience. For example, an anti-abortion commercial aims to connect the actress portraying a mother to the actual mother of a child who has not made up her mind, or has towards abortion so that they will choose to not kill their