Walmart Ethos In The Workplace

Nearly every American has or had shopped at Wal-Mart at some point or another, and we’ve seen the amount of hassle that many of the workers deal with every time we stand in line to checkout. Long lines during the night while short lines in the very early morning, it sometimes appears as if Wal-Mart’s so-called “associates” never stop working. The use of the word “associates” rather than “workers” strikes a hint of deterioration of their purpose of working—that is to get paid. This label established by the firm that proclaims the importance of equality merely sells itself into its own propaganda by cherishingly slashing wages and worker’s benefits because apparently, they’re not workers, they’re associates. To help hardworking Wal-Mart employees

In comparison, both the book chapter and YouTube video are loaded with pathos. After the first page of ethos, Peña makes a medium approach of attempting to win the audience through pathos. In one paragraph, Peña explained that because of the now-reformed Wal-Mart lock-in policy in the past, many workers were trapped in the store overnight who were unable to seek help when either injured or endangered. He exemplifies this in one sentence saying, “…also in Indiana, when an employee suffered a heart attack, and in Florida during a hurricane” (Peña 56). Many of the examples that he included allow the audience to relate and empathize with the situations. What’s more, Peña begins using the audience themselves as a target of the firm, for example in one sentence he stated: “Desensitized to the plight of locked-in and badly paid ‘associates,’ we have become accomplices of the Wal-Marts of America”, which eventually became a strategy to victimize the audience into believing his argument. On the other hand, the video based most of its rhetoric on pathos. According to Dore, “most of them (Wal-Mart employees) don’t have healthcare, they have to take welfare and food stamps, and they have to get assistance from the government to see doctors” (The Young Turks). This statement uses pathos because it implies that the audience

The book American Mythologies: Semiological Sketches contains a plethora of valuable information and arguments, but the major issue of expressing ideas in print is that people must read it. Since the book uses advanced vocabulary, the audience is constrained to a smaller percentage of whom are likely college students. In spite of Peña use of strong logos, the video was better suited for the audience since it broadened the spectrum of viewer composition, allowing for more people to understand the logic. The only rhetorical feature that the video used that surpassed the book by a large margin was pathos. It’s important to recognize that videos are better at portraying pathos because it can implement human emotions to strengthen its persuasion, such as the ones used for commercials about homeless animals. With a broader audience and optimal use of pathos, the YouTube video would be better to address the issues associated with the unfair treatment of employees at every Wal-Mart Supercenter in the