Rhetorical Analysis Of TED Talk

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Meaghan Ramsey believes in business growth that stems from real social change. She has origins in nutritional science and has worked across FMCG and multiple organizations dealing with media, charities, and pharmaceuticals. Ramsey was also the Global Director of the Dove Self-Esteem Project at Unilever in London. Her TED Talk, “Why Thinking You’re Ugly Is Bad For You” occurred in September of 2014 at TED@Unilever in London. The audience that Ramsey is trying to target is the parents of young men and women who are struggling or may begin to struggle with body image/low self-esteem. She speaks to the parents directly about what can be done to minimize the use of the internet and social media at such a young age. Ramsey’s talk is affected by the audience in the sense that she uses It seems as though Ramsey asks a rhetorical question after each point of speaking as if she is trying to get the audience to think and reflect on their own life. This is effective in the sense that Ramsey kept her audience engaged throughout the talk and made them think about how her points of speaking related to themselves, if at all. For example, at the end of her first point of speaking, a personal anecdote, Ramsey asks the audience “When did I stop doing this? When is it suddenly not okay to love the way that we look?”. Her use of rhetorical questions is important here because it makes each member of the audience think about their own life and how they relate to the subject matter she is talking about. A member of the audience who relates to what she is talking about is more likely to find her argument convincing rather than someone who cannot relate to what she is speaking about at all. Through the use of rhetorical questions, or style, in this case, Ramsey crafts a convincing argument by placing a rhetorical question at the end of each of her points of

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