Science of Persuassion

People will follow credible knowledge of an expert, is the concept of Authority.  The idea of Authority in a blog is very important.  The role of this concept is to provide a message that the audience wants to read and is able to relate to the message. In addition, the goal of authority is to develop a relationship between the reader and the author.  All of the keys are important, but I think that the key of liking is less important in a blog.  The idea of liking is one that shows the similarities between the reader and the audience as well as expecting some type of recognition which is not necessary in a blog.  Credibility, rhetoric, and to inspire are some of the strategies needed in persuasive blogs.  Credibility, is important because it builds a foundation of what is mean in the message and what is deemed to be truthful. Blogs have been seen as being not as credible as a personal narrative. Therefore, a blog has to be written in a way that shows how credible the author is within his/her message. The strategy of rhetoric is not what is said but how it is said.  Blogs have to be written in a way that the reader has to not think about the words but instead is able to apply the words to their own life. The more rhetoric that is in a blog the better chance that blog will be relatable and be a passage that the reader wants to read and enjoys reading. Another, strategy that is necessary in a blog would be the strategy of inspiring.  Again, a blog is a short story in most cases and has to get to the point that the reader is trying to portray in the quickest manner as possible. So, in order to write a successful blog, there needs to be a message that inspires the reader to want to read beyond the text and potentially read more of the same passage or a passage from the same author but with a different message.  I think that bloggers use all three ethos, pathos and logos in their writing.  The goal of a blog is to create a sense of credibly, emotion and reasoning all in one.  With that being said all three of these are utilized in a successful blog.  For example, referencing Julie and Julia from last week. Julie’s blogs used all of these elements.  The ethos that she used was the fact that she references Julia Child’s previous recipes to create a level of credibility to the audience so that they knew her material was relevant.  The level of pathos in Julies blogs, was the fact that she used her daily actions and what she experienced daily as a form of emotion.  For example, when she talks about the sound of lobsters and relates it to her life that is a sense of emotion.  And logos was also used in her blogs based on the message that she was sharing and how she was getting her audience to see the meaning behind her daily blogs and how they were not just about cooking but about her daily life and what she wanted out of her life.   I do think that this differs from traditional essayist because of the nature of the material written today compared to historians.  Traditional essayist wrote based on life experiences so that the reader could learned and live in the life of what was experience. Where today essayist writes more to create a level of emotional connection and reliability of the message being written.