Katie Smith - Blog Post 3 - Analyzing Pathos

The Bear Ad (Reagan 1984) plays mainly into the fear appeal. It was designed to make people fear Russia because of The Cold War. However, some people didn't even realize it was related to the war, so I'm not sure how affective it was. The scene is all quite gloomy. There is just a bear walking along by itself. The narrator says, "Some say the bear is tame. Others say its vicious and dangerous." Then at the end, the bear walks up to a human, and they are standing there face to face. Then the bear slowly starts to back away. This fades to a screen that says, "President Reagan; Prepared for Peace." The fear appeal was really the only motivational appeal they used in this ad. Who wouldn't be scared if they walked up to a bear? Also, there is ominous music and a heartbeat in the background, reminding viewers of a horror film soundtrack. It really sets the mood for the readers mind to be fearful for what is about to come.


Peace Little Girl (Johnson 1964)
This ad in particular did a disturbingly fearful appeal. It begins with a sweet, innocent, little girl, who is plucking the petals from a flower. She gets to the end, and looks toward the camera with a desperate face. A countdown has begun, that of a nuclear explosion. The camera zooms in to her eyeball until all you can see is her pupil. At that moment, the bomb goes off. The ad personal scared me; I can't imagine the type of fear it invoked in people who had children at that time and were genuinely concerned about things like warfare. Johnson can be heard saying, "we must love each other, or we must die." He is appealing to pride and patriotism here, I feel, because he is saying that we all need to come together as one and love each other or our fate will be that of the child's in the video. Whether that was her actual fate, or just supposed to be a vision of her future planet, it was designed to scare people into action. I believe this very vivid ad was efficient in its appeal to frighten the public. So much so, that it was even aired several more times on the news that night.