Aristotle On Rhetoric

So, here I am in my second and last term of PR at Centennial College, wondering where do I fit in. I’ve had so much information thrown at me in the past few months, I don’t know what has stuck and what has just slid off. I’m making contacts in the most unlikely places, reading the newspaper from cover to cover, listening to the news and now blogging (which, if you knew me, you’d understand what a Kafka-esque metamorphosis this truly is), when I came across this podcast via Facebook called Inside PR. Included is a blog by a fascinating man called Michael Netzley from Singapore (CommunicateAsia). He has started a series of blogs “describing the intellectual roots of our profession.”

PR people everywhere will immediately think he’s talking about Edward Bernays, Arthur Page and Ivy Leadbetter Lee. But he goes farther back than that to ancient Athens and the world’s first and greatest orators. And I think, “Of course, why didn’t I make the connection before? I minored in Classics, for crying out loud!” (Actually, I focused on the poets –  so give me some credit!) Suddenly, my ears perk up.

Netzley talks about Aristotle’s On Rhetoric, which describes in painfully delicious detail the art of persuasion. Aristotle breaks it down into three components (which are then further broken down, but for simplicity’s sake, I’ll only talk about these three): ethos, pathos and logos.

Ethos is the starting point — in essence, the speaker, or rather, their character or credibility as an orator or communicator.

[Interesting etymology fact No. 1:  Ethic is derived from this Greek word.]

Pathos is appealing to the audience. It is the art of tapping into the emotions of the audience to alter their judgement. It is a quality that evokes sympathy and a sense of sorrow or pity, so that the audience sides with the speaker. Literally, it means suffering, disease, feeling.

[Interesting etymology fact No. 2:  Think of every word you can that begins or ends with "path."]

Logos is the message — something said that requires intelligence and reasoning. 

[Interesting etymology fact No. 3: Logic is derived from this word.]

Let’s bring this back to PR: Ethos = Communicator ~ Pathos = Target Audience ~ Logos = Key Messages. It rolls off the tongue like a mantra. Say it with me, on three: uno, dos, tres ~ Ethos, Pathos, Logos. Brilliant!

Netzley says, “This model teaches us to think about the communicator’s desired outcome, the message’s argumentative logic, and the audience’s predispositions and what they might respond favorably to.”

So, now I’m jazzed. Not only am I a part of an exciting and growing profession, but one that is over 2400 years old. It’s all starting to come into focus. Now, I know where I fit in. Now, I know I belong.

Next week on Inside PR, Netzley will talk about Cicero. As for me, the sky’s the limit.