Ethos And Corruption Scandal Analysis

Ethos is established by convincing a given audience that the speaker has the right motive and intentions for the audience. The ethical integrity, which is established by Ethos, is a premise for being able to be persuasive to a given audience. When people listening to the speech no longer trust the speaker, then no argument by the speaker will be able to be persuasive. Corruption scandals, for example, can be very damaging for politicians. This is because corruption scandals signify that the given politician has the wrong motives and intentions. Corruption scandals, therefore, signals that the politician is primarily concerned with his/her own interests and therefore not concerned with the interest of the people he/she is representing. So,
ethos is based on a trust from the audience to the speaker and the audience will only be persuaded by the speaker’s arguments if they trust the speaker. Ethos is then a proof in which the language by the speaker has to fit his/her behavior. The way the audience see the speaker is, therefore, essential to the speaker's ability to persuade an audience.