In order for any company or public institution to teach the public about risks, they must follow what Aristotle called the modes of persuasion. These modes consist of ethos, logos, and pathos. Ethos is an appeal based on the honesty or trustworthiness of the speaker. Pathos is an appeal to the audience’s emotions. And logos is the logic used to support the data or argument that the speaker is presenting.
Risk messages have dual purposes: to inform and to influence the audience. According to the National Research Council, a practical goal for information is for the recipient to gain understanding within the limits of available knowledge, in order for the public to be able to make their own decisions in their best interest.
Ethos and Logos
Risk messages are presented in ways that their audience can understand, but the presenters are not always so truthful. As stated in the Risk v. Hazard section, the analysts decide what technique to use when presenting data. Different analysts used different statistics, such as annual number of fatalities, deaths per person exposed, reduction of life expectancy, and working days lost. Each decision that the analysts make can either make a company or a technology look more or less risky.
Highlighting factual content is a way that researchers present the information that they feel is most important in risk messages. Techniques such as visual aids, vocal emphasis, underlining, and color are ways that draw the public’s attention to elements that the communicators want the public to notice. Using these techniques can be manipulative, since emphasis tends to influence the audience’s beliefs in the direction the analyst desires.
Another way that risk messages are presented is through “framing” ideas. There are different ways of presenting the same information, and researchers have found that the public likes it when the information is positive. For example, the National Research Council discussed a study on a vaccine that reduces the probability of contracting a disease, finding it effective in half of the cases tested. If the information were described as being fully effective against one of two virus strains, the public would feel better about using the vaccine because the information sounds more positive.
Using highlighted factual content and framing ideas to present risk messages can be abused to manipulate audiences, but these methods can also have a persuasive factor that creates trust from the audience. Other rhetorical techniques can be used to persuade the audience, such as selective presentation of evidence or listing of supporting arguments in order to make the argument look stronger. With these techniques, deceptive evidence can be hard to detect if the audience is not as educated about the topics as the analysts.
Pathos
In order to appeal to emotion, the speaker must appeal to fear, pride, guilt, community, or other emotions. There are different ways that a speaker can appeal to emotions, such as telling a story or showing a video. When a speaker tells a story about an accident that may have happened in the past, such as a fire fighter getting trapped in a burning building, the audience might feel concern but they will have a different reaction if they were shown a video. According to the National Research Council, the use of emotional appeals is sometimes accepted, but it is often considered manipulative and irresponsible. Speakers of risk messages try to stay away from using tactics such as that unless they truly feel that people do not understand the risk message. Messages about cigarettes and smoking have had to turn towards manipulative tactics, such as showing videos of people with emphysema or displaying statistics with the use of body bags. Sometimes the public needs to be show emotional tactics in order to get risk messages out.