Reading Survey 1
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School
Grand Rapids Community College *
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Course
350
Subject
Communications
Date
Apr 3, 2024
Type
docx
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2
Uploaded by Ian1021
What is your current understanding of rhetoric as a concept?
Rhetoric can be a complex concept to understand. As I currently understand it, rhetoric is about effective communication. Effective communication should use language to express ideas and emotions and be persuasive toward another individual. Rhetoric is not always a bad thing, nor is it always a good thing. The context and way you use rhetoric affect how it is perceived. Rhetoric is an art and it takes practice to become better at using it. There are three modes that are important to persuasion: ethos, pathos, and logos.
Why do you think we are working with understanding ideas related to rhetoric as part of this course? How do they connect to business communication?
Rhetoric is a tool that is used in good communication. Business communication, as the name suggests, is about communication. To relay your message effectively and to inform and persuade
the recipient, proper communication is important.
In your opinion, which is the most important to consider when communicating: audience, purpose, context, or genre? Why?
Although all four of these elements are important, I would say that purpose is the most important. Purpose is the reason for communication. In rhetoric, the main goals of communication are to inform, persuade, or entertain. Without a purpose, there is no goal for your
rhetoric and you will not be able to effectively communicate to others what you intend to say. You many know your audience, have context, and have chosen a genre, but without purpose, communication will be difficult.
Please share a discussion question about rhetoric that we could use in class.
In class, we could discuss instances that we have seen others use rhetoric. We could then analyze
what the author did well or did not do well in that communication.
Netflix CEO Reed Hastings wrote this blog post in response to the many thousands of emails he received from people upset about the decision to split the streaming service and the DVD service
into separate services. The blog post was directed to these individuals who were upset about this sudden and unexpected change to the service. The audience was concerned about the increased difficulty in needing to manage two different accounts. They also disagreed with the price increase.
The main purpose of the blog post was to apologize, then to explain why the decision was made. Hastings' explanation on why Qwikster was created was how he addressed the backlash. Since customers were upset about the lack of communication, Hastings thought that by explaining the move, then explaining how it was part of Netflix's future direction, would be the best way to balance the backlash.
After the customers became aware of Netflix's decision to split the streaming and DVD services, they became frustrated with how quickly the change was made with very little communication involved. These customers were also upset that they would now need to manage two separate accounts on different websites in order to have the same service as before. Finally, the price increase also frustrated customers. These frustrations lead to many emails being directed towards
the CEO, Reed Hastings. In response, he released the blog post.
The format of a blog post allows for the author to communicate with longer form messages. He did not have to create a summary or header at the top. Simply, Hastings' could write out his thoughts in as many words as he needed, then post those. The blog post also allowed for the message to be more informal, which spoke better to customers.
No, I did not. Although Hastings admitted to making a mistake, he failed to rectify the situation. Through his explanation, he was still focused on making this change instead of ceding to the wishes of the public. After further reading into the situation, Netflix does decide to abandon plans for Qwikster. This shows that the customers did not accept his apology since further changes had to be made before people came back to Netflix.
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