Greenpeace's Use of Pathos On Facebook
The MSU chapter of Greenpeace has an active Facebook page that is used to promote their cause and generate interest among the social media community. The main page for the group is public, and so any Facebook user can ‘like’ the page and receive updates about the group’s activities. MSU Greenpeace’s Facebook page is demonstrative of their use of pathos as a rhetorical strategy.
MSU Greenpeace has a Facebook page that is filled with links to outside sources and various articles, videos, and lectures that focus on environmental issues plaguing the world today. Many links are also accompanied by short explanations that Greenpeace posts to emphasize their stance on the issue and explain why you, the viewer, should care. The majority of these explanations include some sort of inflammatory (or pejorative) language as a rhetorical strategy to illicit emotions within their audience.
The biggest goal of MSU Greenpeace is to inspire MSU to divest from using coal energy to power the East Lansing campus. Greenpeace is pushing for alternative energy solutions instead, citing the health of residents/students and the overall climate impact as reasons to stop relying on coal energy. As another example of the group’s pejorative language, coal energy is often referred to as “dirty fossil fuels,” and other similar phrases are easily visible on the Greenpeace Facebook page.
MSU Greenpeace has a Facebook page that is filled with links to outside sources and various articles, videos, and lectures that focus on environmental issues plaguing the world today. Many links are also accompanied by short explanations that Greenpeace posts to emphasize their stance on the issue and explain why you, the viewer, should care. The majority of these explanations include some sort of inflammatory (or pejorative) language as a rhetorical strategy to illicit emotions within their audience.
The biggest goal of MSU Greenpeace is to inspire MSU to divest from using coal energy to power the East Lansing campus. Greenpeace is pushing for alternative energy solutions instead, citing the health of residents/students and the overall climate impact as reasons to stop relying on coal energy. As another example of the group’s pejorative language, coal energy is often referred to as “dirty fossil fuels,” and other similar phrases are easily visible on the Greenpeace Facebook page.
The Greenpeace Facebook page also includes photos that highlight upcoming events, current issues, and actions being taken on MSU’s campus and beyond. Many of these photos show troubling images, such as nearly-extinct tigers, pollution from the MSU Power Plant, and groups of activists demonstrating at various locations in the capitol area. These sorts of images are also meant to illicit emotional responses, whether it’s to inspire viewers to sign an online petition, call their local representative, or boycott a brand.
Greenpeace successfully uses the pejorative language strategy as a way to engage visitors to their Facebook page and move them to explore the issue further, form an educated opinion, and then act upon their beliefs. Greenpeace relies on this use of rhetorical pathos because members have found that this strategy has been successful in past campaigns. Photos tend to illicit larger responses then just text, and the posts that generated the largest response in the form of ‘likes’ and ‘shares’ for Greenpeace and its partners were those that combined pejorative language and worrisome images. Such engagement on the audience’s part shows that appealing to a person’s emotions is more likely to elicit a response, either positive or negative, but a response all the same.
Greenpeace successfully uses the pejorative language strategy as a way to engage visitors to their Facebook page and move them to explore the issue further, form an educated opinion, and then act upon their beliefs. Greenpeace relies on this use of rhetorical pathos because members have found that this strategy has been successful in past campaigns. Photos tend to illicit larger responses then just text, and the posts that generated the largest response in the form of ‘likes’ and ‘shares’ for Greenpeace and its partners were those that combined pejorative language and worrisome images. Such engagement on the audience’s part shows that appealing to a person’s emotions is more likely to elicit a response, either positive or negative, but a response all the same.