Rhetoric+&+Persuasion+Video+Analysis+Guide

 **Recognizing Fallacies, Bias, and Visual Arguments in Popular Documentaries (from CollegeBoard.com)**

  **A. Appeals to Pathos and the Bandwagon Fallacy - //Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price//** 1. How does this final sequence make use of biblical allusion, and what effect(s) are created by these biblical elements? 2. What are some of the ways that this segment appeals to pathos? How do the visual images, text, voice-overs, and music combine to create emotions and moods, and how do these emotions reinforce the "call to action"? 3. What is the effect of repeating Lee Scott's comment "don't want you in the community"? Are the sliding photographs effective? 4. How does this segment make use of the bandwagon fallacy? What are some of the ways the director asserts both the popularity and possibility of standing pu to giant corporations like Wal-Mart?

5. What seems to be Moore's attitude toward the Michigan Militia? How do you know? 6. What effect(s) does Moore create by showing the wide shot of the Militia members shooting targets while he stands behind them? 7. The first Militia member who is interviewed  cites as his reason for participating in the militia, “This is an American tradition. . . it’s an American responsibility to be armed. If you are not armed, you’re not responsible. Who’s going to defend your kids? The cops? The federal government?” He refers indirectly to the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which states, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a Free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” The Militia member argues based on an appeal to tradition—that because the Founding Fathers asserted the importance of a “well-regulated militia” and “the right of the people to keep and bear arms,” all Americans have a responsibility to have weapons and know how to use them. Do you accept his reasoning? Does Michael Moore seem to agree with him? Explain.
 * B. Appeal to Tradition - //Bowling for Columbine//**

 8. Moore suggests a correlation b  etween the industry of Lockheed Martin and the Columbine tragedy when he asks, “What’s the difference between that mass destruction [the building of missiles at Lockheed Martin] and the mass destruction over at Columbine High School?” What are some visual or nonverbal ways that Moore suggests this connection in this segment? 9.  McCollum rejects the connection between Lockheed Martin’s industry presence in Littleton and the school shooting, and he attributes the Columbine tragedy to other factors. To what extent do you agree with the connection Moore suggests? What other factors may have influenced the perpetrators of the Columbine shooting? 10.  How does using archival footage, both black-and-white and color, add to this montage? 11.  What effect is created by juxtaposing these disturbing and at times, horrific images, with the song “What a Wonderful World”? 12.  Does this montage sequence strengthen or weaken Moore’s assertion from the previous chapter between the missiles that Lockheed Martin provides and the Columbine tragedy? Explain.   13.  Why might Spurlock have used cartoon illustrations of each of the diseases or health conditions? Are these illustrations effective? What does Spurlock achieve by having these illustrations tile over the McDonald’s exterior? 14.  Aside from protecting the privacy of the individuals filmed, why might the faces of the overweight people be blurred? 15.  Based on this segment, who might Spurlock’s intended audience be? <span style="font-family: Garamond,Skia,'Century Schoolbook L',serif; font-size: 12pt;"> 16. Spurlock uses all three major rhetorical appeals—ethos, pathos, and logos—in this section. Which of these appeals is most convincing? Explain. <span style="font-family: Garamond,Skia,'Century Schoolbook L',serif; font-size: 12pt;">
 * C. Faulty Analogy and //Post Hoc//, //Ergo Propeter Hoc - Bowling for Columbine//**
 * D. Scare Tactics and Appeals to Authority (Ethos)**

17. <span style="font-family: Garamond,Skia,'Century Schoolbook L',serif; font-size: 12pt;"> Why might Greenwald open with one family’s story? Even though this is one small business’s story, what might this scene suggest about similar small businesses? 18. <span style="font-family: Garamond,Skia,'Century Schoolbook L',serif; font-size: 12pt;"> What effects does Greenwald create by fading to black, and by shooting the final scene of the store at twilight? <span style="font-family: Garamond,Skia,'Century Schoolbook L',serif; font-size: 12pt;"> 19. <span style="font-family: Garamond,Skia,'Century Schoolbook L',serif; font-size: 12pt;"> What might Greenwald have chosen sepia tone for the empty Main Street shots? What effect does he create by jumping back to full color, and then again to sepia tone? 20. <span style="font-family: Garamond,Skia,'Century Schoolbook L',serif; font-size: 12pt;"> What emotions are raised by the song “This Land is Your Land”? What other techniques help convey the sense of inevitability that this will happen to all small businesses and communities? <span style="font-family: Garamond,Skia,'Century Schoolbook L',serif; font-size: 12pt;"> <span style="font-family: Garamond,Skia,'Century Schoolbook L',serif; font-size: 12pt;">
 * E. Slippery Slope**

<span style="font-family: Garamond,Skia,'Century Schoolbook L',serif; font-size: 12pt;"> <span style="font-family: Garamond,Skia,'Century Schoolbook L',serif; font-size: 12pt;"> **F. Hasty Generalizations and Statistical Fallacies** <span style="font-family: Garamond,Skia,'Century Schoolbook L',serif; font-size: 12pt;"> 21. Margo G. Wootan claims that “most kids can say McDonald’s” by the time they can speak. What techniques does Spurlock use in this segment to make it seem that the children overwhelmingly recognize McDonald’s? What effect does he create by including the image of Jesus? What other famous people, whom Spurlock did not include, might have been more easily recognized by these children? <span style="font-family: Garamond,Skia,'Century Schoolbook L',serif; font-size: 12pt;"> 22. What effects do the cartoon illustrations and piles of money achieve? How do they emphasize the statistics Spurlock presents? Why might those suit colors have been chosen for each of the four characters, and what might the colors and the relative sizes of the figures (especially the green suited Five-a-Day figure) represent, both literally and symbolically? Why might Spurlock have chosen this method for relaying these statistics as opposed to, for example, a black screen with white text, or a bar graph showing the relative amounts?