Persuasive communication aims at persuading other people to understand what one is trying to say by changing their attitudes and outlook on various subjects. Most people use persuasive communication to make others take actions that will benefit them despite the mental roadblocks shaped by one ’ s experiences and beliefs. For example, salespeople will use persuasive communication to influence their customers to buy products from them even when they don ’ t want to purchase using the customer ’ s experiences and believes in showing them the need to buying the product. The film ‘ The Great debaters' characters had excellent persuasive skills that resulted in a heated contest between the Harvard college and Wiley debate teams. Both teams interchangeably used appeal to reason and appeal to emotion approaches to present their arguments.
The appeal to emotion method is based on someone feeling, which is a very effective way to influences people. The method is based on psychological theory that often people are governed by emotions more than their thoughts. The methods use people ’ s faiths and beliefs to manipulate their feelings towards one ’ s arguments. Most times, presenters use to appeal to emotions to bring out the pitiful nature of human beings and allow them to sympathize with someone (Wirz, 2018) . When presenting an argument, one can use personal experience or those of others to trigger peoples ’ sympathy. The Greater debaters used this strategy to make people support their claims and vote for them (Washington & Whitaker, 2018) . For example, the first Harvard debater used the appeal to emotion approach during his present on individuals choosing which law to obey and which one to disobey. The debater claim was individuals cannot be left to decide which law to follow because such freedom will bring chaos. To illustrate that, the Harvard debater uses his father ’ s case and his friend who was gunned down while he was in the line of duty. The debaters appealed to the audience's emotions by describing his father's sadness when he lost his friend to shooters who choose to follow the law. In another instance, the first Harvard debater appealed to the audience's emotions when he described the rate at which people were laid killed in the war from 1914 to 1918. While presenting the case, the debater claimed that about two hundred and forty men were killed every hour of every day for four years. The mass killing of human beings is lethal and sorrowful; the audience emotionally makes them agree with him that nothing that erodes the rule of law can be termed as moral no matter how one puts it.
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Another approach used in persuasive communication is the appeal to reason, where one uses logical arguments. The persuasion is wholly centered on the logical method, which works best with people that like being challenged to think beyond their confinement (Higgins & Walker, 2012) . Sometimes, arousing someone's logical reasoning through presenting different logical arguments helps aligns their thinking with that of the presenter. In The Great Debaters, James Farmers Jr of the Wiley debate team used the appeal to reason when he claimed civil disobedience could be used as a moral weapon when fighting for justice. Many people believed that disobedience is immoral and brings chaos to society. Therefore, claiming that civil disobedience can be used to fight for justice is challenging society's moral and logical beliefs. James claimed to respond to the first Harvard presenter who claimed nothing that eroded that rule of law is moral. However, James responds so that civil disobedience that erodes that rule of law is moral when used to fight for the right of citizens. In the debate, James' logical argument needs to stand against the law if it is not used for the benefit of the bigger community. He argued that denying negroes housing, killing black people, and no law follow up and preventing the black community from fighting for their rights because they have to obey the rule of law is not moral. James's arguments supporting civil disobedience to fight for just persuaded people to believe it moral despite that society stand that disobedience is immoral contributed to Wiley winning the debate.
However, the use of the appeal-to- emotion and appeal-to-reason as approaches to persuade people into doing or believing something is manipulative and at times can cause harm in the long run. For example, the first Harvard present saying that anything that erodes the law is not moral makes people submitted to oppressive leadership when they can stand and fights for their rights even when it goes against the rule of law. On the other hand, having James Farmers support that civil disobedience can be used to fight for the rights of people is moral may give citizens to fight for rights that only benefit a particular group and not the whole country. Therefore, while using persuasive communication to convince people about one take in a situation, it is beneficial to state why one thinks it is helpful and excludes cases where the given approach cannot be used.
In conclusion, persuasive communication is a great tool when one needs to drive change in the community. One can use appeals to emotions and appeal to reasons to persuade people to support one ’ s arguments. The Great Debaters used both approaches to support their arguments on civil disobedience. James's arguments of civil disobedience are moral when used to fight for justice, and since his arguments used both appeals to emotions and appeals to reason well, and ended up beating Harvard presenter. However, persuasive communication can manipulate people into taking the wrong actions and calls for presenters to be careful when making their arguments.
References
Higgins, C., & Walker, R. (2012, September ). Ethos, logos, pathos: Strategies of persuasion in social/environmental report. Accounting Forum, 36 (2), 194-208. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1016/j.accfor.2012.02.003
Washington, D., & Whitaker, F. (Directors). (2018). The Great Debaters 2007 [Motion Picture]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RL3amDNZbt8
Wirz, D. (2018). Persuasion Through Emotion? An Experimental Test of the Emotion-Eliciting Nature of Populist Communication. International Journal of Communication, 12 , 1114-1138.
