Rhetorical Analysis: Inequality For All

Paper 4 Rough Draft

When analyzing rhetorical texts and sources, one must weigh one source against others who have made similar or opposite arguments and the relative strength of that argument. In his 2007 article “Confronting Inequality,” Paul Krugman uses a textual medium and hard facts in an attempt to persuade his audience. In the 2013 documentary Inequality for All, director Jacob Kornbluth opts for a more visual approach to persuade his audience. In his 2014 article, “Inequality Has Been Going on Forever… but That Doesn’t Mean It’s Inevitable,” David Leonhardt writes in a textual medium but opts for analogies to help the audience interpret his point. All three of these works are aimed to persuade their individual but similar audiences. The audiences are more or less educated people who have an idea of the existence of income inequality and social inequality. This essay will analyze the innate distinctions between the chosen media, the relative strength and weaknesses of each source, and the effectiveness of each to persuade an intended audience member.

To begin an analysis of relative strengths and effectiveness between multiple sources, one must analyze the writers’ choices in media and technique and the inherent strengths and weaknesses of each. Krugman and Leonhardt both opted to write in a textual medium, whereas

Kornbluth chose to deliver his argument through a multimedia platform. Text based media allows readers to efficiently refer to earlier points at a moment’s notice. Textual media are also mostly portable in the form of a book, newspaper, or an article on an electronic reader. Portability allows for audience readers read such things on work breaks or waiting for public transit. The weaknesses behind a text based media is that the audience has to be engaged and be able to follow the text. This may prove to be a problem if the audience doesn’t find anything engaging in the text. However, to try to remedy this problem, writers may opt for different engagement techniques. Krugman opts for more statistics and hard facts versus Leonhardt’s analogies. The advantage to statistics and hard facts is that, to a reasonable person, they are indisputable. (quote from Krugman) The weakness of this however is that it bores the audience with just an incessant channel of information. Analogies on the other hand allow for audience members to easily follow and assimilate information. This lets the audience members remember the argument because they were able to understand the argument in their own words. This is effective because an audience member won’t become frustrated or lost with the text, keeping them engaged and by extension, being persuaded. (Quote the farmer analogy from Leonhardt).
Kornbluth delivered his argument through a visual medium with credible sources and intelligent people. The innate strength of a documentary is that it has visual and audio stimuli for an audience member. Visual cues allow for subtle signals to an audience member’s mind to get them to interpret information differently. For example, a stop sign is a large, red octagon with the word “STOP” on it, getting the attention of a driver. If there were a stop sign that were green, the sign would look confusing and not agree with any cognitive predispositions that a driver has. If the driver would think that green meant go, but the sign says “STOP,” the driver would not interpret the information as expected. This relates to visual elements of a documentary, where colors and shapes that are easy to interpret allow for audience members to detect the importance behind certain information presented. By using infographics to depict a gap in income, the audience member not only is aware of the difference in data but also of the magnitude of that difference, further emphasizing the point.
Audio serves a similar purpose to visual cues. Any audio that gives off an uncomfortable feeling will let viewers associate what they are seeing with that uncomfortable feeling. The same goes for music that gives a sense of confidence or safety. However, audio also serves to give tone and character to the words that a person would normally read. This strengthens the argument made because the speaker immediately has the tone and position set for the audience to follow. The speaker will then emphasize parts he or she personally finds important. The audience will receive this intently and understand the main components of the argument.
Documentaries have a weakness in the sense that they are hard to refer to once a substantiated amount of time has passed. This means that if an hour passes by a documentary, it will be hard to remember exactly what was said the hour before due to a constant flow of information. Though it may not seem like a weakness, one has to consider the willingness of an audience member to have to constantly switch between parts of the documentary. It shares the weakness with text where the audience member will not receive the information if they are not engaged. However, documentaries innately solve this by having graphics and audio to attempt to engage the audience. Documentaries are at greater risk of losing an audience because once the audience deems the documentary boring or of little significance, the documentary has little chance of engaging the audience again. Most would have just paused and moved on or just stopped paying attention. Now that the innate strengths and weaknesses of each medium has been discussed, I will analyze the strength of each source and determine what, in my opinion, is the most effective at persuading the intended audience.
My personal criteria for an effective argument tests for an effective engagement strategy as well as an effective rhetorical strategy. Inequality for All has the most effective rhetorical strategy and overall most effective engagement strategy. Its rhetorical strategy follows closely to Leonhardt’s through methods to easier understand income inequality. However, as stated before, a documentary has visual and audio cues to sway audience members towards the position of the director. This is, by definition, persuasion. Inequality for All uses graphs and speakers to deliver its points, allowing audience members to easier understand the information. Leonhardt’s analogies have the same effect, but lacks what Inequality for All excels at, audio and visual cues. Krugman’s choice of rhetorical strategy is arguably very effective, but an argument consisted of hard facts and statistics, overall fails to engage most of the audience due to the dryness of the essay. (expand a bit with more examples)
Inequality for All engages audience by being purely visual and audio.

Combined with the ease of understanding information, audience members are more likely to continue watching the documentary than they are reading the texts by Krugman or Leonhardt. Leonhardt is more engaging due to the more understandable text, but Krugman has an overall better argument of the two. Krugman has the “best” argument because facts are indisputable. However, it will not persuade much of his audience due to the inability to keep them engaged. Inequality for All excels at engagement and does just as well if not better than Leonhardt at argumentative

strength.
Overall, Inequality for All is the most effective at persuading its intended audience. This is attributed to the inherent strengths of the documentary media and the information being presented in an engaging way. The second most effective at persuasion is Leonhardt’s “Inequality Has Been Going on Forever,” due to its ability to be engaging and have some ability to be argumentative. Krugman’s essay is by no means not persuasive, but its lack of engagement proves to be too much of a detriment to overall persuasion.