AT&T Appeals to Pathos
AT&T proceeds the argument further by stirring the emotions of the audience. In reference to the scene where the father’s phone keeps buzzing and he later becomes aware that his dog is missing, the rhetor’s decision to incorporate the family dog as the potential emergency is effective toward impressing the audience. With such chaos breeds much concern because dogs are categorized as “man's best friend.” The audience can not help but empathize for the family and the disappearance of the dog initiated the sequence of unfortunate events that followed.
Emphasizing the importance of the persistent text messages, the commercial blacks out all surroundings except for the father’s buzzing phone; positioning the phone in the center of the image. Relative to Bang’s proposition on reading images, she notes that “The center of the page is the point of greatest attraction. This picture can be read either as a jewel radiating light (or a heroine radiating triumph) or as a figure surrounded on all sides by attackers,” to foreshadow future destruction that will be caused from the phone (Bang 234).
In hopes of leaving a lasting impression on the audience, the use of a child as the victim in contrast to an older person is extremely effective. Likewise, the lives of children are viewed as the most powerful source in media because children are representative of innocence. Since the death of an innocent child evokes greater emotion than that of an older person, the rhetor makes a greater impact on the audience by victimizing a child.
