Engaging the Audience: Rhetorical Devices & Strategies Used By Media Innovation Lab - Research Paper

Introduction

The primary intent of rhetoric is to influence the targeted audience through the use of words expressively. Ideally, to successfully achieve this, there are several critical tools of persuasion that are used of which among the most primarily applied and useful tools are the rhetorical appeals and strategies. In this article, there are many rhetorical devices and strategies that the Media Innovation Lab uses to persuade readers.

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Exemplification

Notably, to illustrate necessarily implies visibly showing or indicating something through competent evidence. To exemplify, on the other hand, is to give a demonstration by the use of clear examples. The exemplification strategy involves the use of vivid and specific cases with the primary aim of providing in-depth information to illustrate, explain, and persuade the readers on the general idea of the writing. The technique can substantially be used alone, but it is often used in writing or within an essay to adequately emphasize the main points of an article supporting its thesis. As such, the Media Innovation Lab uses the exemplification strategy in their report to help and express the validity of their primary idea regarding the situation of information media in Japan. According to the author, modern digital advancements, including the increased use of the internet and broadcasting, have tremendously impacted Japan's information market. The print media, as well as the other Japan's traditional media industries, have, for an extended period, faced various challenges in the attempt to cope with the transformations as a result of internet expansion. The rapidly aging society and the population decline are also among the leading causes of unexpected drastic changes in the media in Japan (Media Innovation Lab 3). To emphasize further on these impacts, the Media Innovation Lab provides various specific examples throughout the article that also assist them to explain their knowledge regarding the subject to the audience adequately. Specific example is on the significant impact of the telecommunications in Japan due to the swift spread of the smart mobile phones where the authors state that "the smartphones account for about 80 percent of the total shipment volume of the mobile phones. The iPhones have a huge share in Japan as compared to other nations (Media Innovation Lab 6)." Recently the conventional mobile networks are trending downward as the smartphones and wireless networks proliferate. From this example, the audience can have a profound knowledge of the information media trends in Japan on how modern technology has significantly led to the decline of the traditional methods of communication. The books' publishers are there experiencing challenges from the growth of digital content and the internet. For example, "Japan's publishing industry has been shrinking with a decrease of 1.2 trillion yen in 2016 from the peak year of digital editions (Media Innovation Lab 4)." The example helps the readers to have a deep understanding of the significant impacts that technology has resulted in across the media industry in Japan. Without the examples, it would be unclear to the audience concerning the challenges faced by the conventional media in light of the digital advent in Japan today. Exemplification, therefore, plays a prominent role in helping the readers to understand the author's intended meaning adequately.

Ethos

Additionally, all through this piece, the Media Innovation Lab uses various distinct sources that efficiently strengthen their credibility and appeal to ethos to earn credibility from their audience that also play a significant role in helping the have a better understanding of the issue. Ethos appeal can adequately be described as the audience's perception of the author's credibility or competency on the topic. The sources include reports, yearbooks, and surveys from both the government and the private sector. The article also provides observations from eight specific fields of which are the print industry, broadcast, telecommunications, movies and videos, pop culture, games, online services, and advertising, including 70 charts and graphs. In essence, citing relevant data from these sources effectively enhances the author's credibility by demonstrating that they have performed an exhaustive investigation and provided facts and statistics as well as opinions from the experts to support their claim. For instance, from the chart indicating the growth of Japan's information media industries, it is apparent that the internet activities through the new technologies are of the continuously developing contributing to the massive growth of the media industry in Japan (Media Innovation Lab 9). As the graph indicates that "internet advertising, online services, and digital content have considerably grown since 2010. This development has, however, spurred the growing popularity of platform-based services, such as those offering online delivery of music, videos, books, and games (Media Innovation Lab 9)." The use of ethos thus allows the authors to convince the audience on the credibility of their information.

Logos

In addition to the ethos appeal, the Media Innovation Lab uses persuasive appeals to logos, along with numerous facts and statistics and the logical expressions of the information. Logos also valid appeal means the ability to persuade the audience through the use of statistics, events, and logical reasoning. The authors point out that "Japan's advertising expenditures for 2017 totaled 6.39 trillion yen, an increase of 1.6% compared with the previous year's figure. The Internet advertising market (1.51 trillion yen) recorded double-digit growth (15.2%), and was the main driver boosting overall advertising expenditures (Media Innovation Lab 8)." The facts emphasize and support the author's primary idea that modern technology has transformed the media industry in Japan.

Conclusion

In conclusion, throughout their report, the Media Innovation Lab makes use of a couple of rhetorical appeals and strategies to effectively build their messages, persuade their readers and efficiently elaborate on the main idea to ensure that they are all comprehensively and understood. In particular, the authors use exemplification, ethos, and logos to explicitly demonstrate their central concept through the use of significant and substantial illustrative examples. Also, the appropriate use of these appeals creates interest in reading the article.

Work Cited

Media Innovation Lab. "Information Media Trends in Japan" Dentsu Inc. (2018): 3-30