Pro-war rhetoric

Pro-war rhetoric is rhetoric or propaganda designed to convince its audience that war is necessary.

The two main analytical approaches to pro-war rhetoric were founded by Ronald Reid, a Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and Robert Ivie, a Professor of Rhetoric and Public Communication and Culture at Indiana University (Bloomington). Reid's framework originated from inductively studying propaganda. Ivie uses a deductive approach based on the work of Kenneth Burke, claiming that "a people strongly committed to the ideal of peace, but simultaneously faced with the reality of war, must believe that the fault for any such disruption of their ideal lies with others" (Ivie 279).

According to Reid, pro-war rhetoric uses three appeals: territorial, ethnocentric, and optimistic..

Territorial appeals threaten the audience's "sense of territoriality" (Reid 260). The audience is more likely to support entering the war on the defensive rather than offensive side because of an actual or threatened invasion.

Ethnocentric appeals create a dichotomy between the audience and the enemy. Ethnocentrism should be evoked to a "high level of emotional intensity" in attempt to complete two goals: hate the "inferior alien" and depict threats to cultural values (Reid 267).

The most common method of evoking ethnocentric appeals come in the form of Barbarism vs. Gallantry (Reid 269). It depicts the enemy's cultural values with evil characteristics, and the audience's as angelic.

The optimistic appeal assures the audience that victory is inevitable should they enter into war.(Reid 282).

According to Ivie, pro-war rhetoric identifies three topoi; force vs. freedom, irrational vs. rational, and aggression vs. defense.

This tactic portrays to the audience that they are entering war to provide freedom, and the opponent to force their values upon others (Ivie 284). This is accomplished by implying that the opponent is violent, while the audience's nation is willing to negotiate (Ivie 284).

This topos holds that the enemy is portrayed as irrational, responding "more to animalistic drives than principles of law" (Ivie 288). The enemy has an unenlightened intellect, not based on reason. Rhetors use this argument to prove that when an enemy such as this threatens the well-being of the world, even for a nation committed to neutrality and peace, war is the only choice (Ivie 289).

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