In-class lab: textual analysis paper

1. PETA, Mercy for Animals, The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA)
1. PETA: Higher-class people, animal lovers
2. Mercy for Animals: the general public. People who shop at walmart
3. ASPCA: general public, animal lovers
1. PETA: it says not to wear fur. we assume that people who wear fur belong to a higher social class. middle to higher class families would be more able to provide for or even think of adopting an animal. If their purpose is to appeal to your pathos in order to raise the amount of adoptions, they would want to think of something that a higher class would relate to, aka, fur clothing. This is also is a classic ploit within activist communities - which Aspca is as well. Giving a targeted group of people a concrete issue to work on in a smaller scale than the overall goal (for example, boycotting fur clothes will decrease the sales profits from the fur business and collapse the role animal products for fashion has in our economy, leading to a domino effect collapse) allows the general public to latch onto a cause and develop their own activist culture around it more quickly and easily.  
2. Mercy for Animals: It calls out Walmart, which is just a massive corporation. Implies that if you shop at/support Walmart then you support animal cruelty
3. ASPCA: Their ads play to the emotions of the general public. Animals waiting for  a home, animals in cages, looking sad. Trying to get people to adopt the animals, by appealing to their (peoples’) softer side. (pathos)
1. PETA: To tell people that animals are not just test subjects, that they are living beings and taking their fur is an evil act.
2. Mercy for Animals: Trying to make the public more aware that they are supporting animal cruelty even if they don’t recognize it.
3. ASPCA: Trying to get people to adopt. Animals don’t hold grudges, no matter how terrible their backstory is. Their purpose is to try to get people to join the fight to protect animals from all kinds of cruelty.
1. PETA: Their purpose is to fight for the protection of animals via very blunt websites and advertisement. Their slogan is “animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on, use for entertainment, or abuse in any other way.”
2. Mercy for Animals: They work towards their purpose by exposing the truth in big ways. They call out big corporations like Walmart, in their advertisements and Mcdonald's, on their website. They run the risk of being sued or something, but they run that risk in order to fight for the protection of animals.
3. ASPCA: They reach their purpose by being really sad. They publish really sad, really real advertisements. They do a good job of portraying the suffering of animals who are victims of any kind of abuse.
1. PETA: “You wouldn’t wear your dog, so why would you wear any other animal?” Their ad gives the audience something to relate to, in this case a personal connection with their subject matter. Triggering thoughts of a personal, happy relationship with your dog allows them to better play into your pathos. It’s kind of like an A+B=C dynamic. If you A, give them a personal, positive emotional experience to think of, and B, threaten that happy experience with their subject matter, the audience will C, respond emotionally and protectively. But A, pathos, and B, tertiary logos cannot exist without the other and hope to produce the same emotional response.
2. Mercy for Animals: Their evidence is based off of a real picture of a pig in a factory farm. We can assume that the living conditions for the animal are poor and that this organization did their research and found out that corporations like Walmart support animal cruelty.
3. ASPCA: They use a sad story to get their emotional point of view across to the audience. They use words like ‘cruel,’ and how the dog ‘dreams,’ to appeal to humans and their emotional side. All these ads use different techniques to share really raw information, appealing to human emotions to gain support.
1. All these ads use different techniques to share really raw information, appealing to human emotions to gain support.