Use Of Rhetoric Media Accounts Of The Berlin Airlift

The Use of Rhetoric in Media Accounts of the Berlin Airlift In the late 1940’s Berlin became the dividing line between Communism and Capitalism. This beleaguered city was to be the front line of the Cold War. In 1948 The city, divided into four sectors, one of which was occupied by the Soviet Union, was engaged in a life or death struggle for survival. The Berlin Airlift was not simply a struggle for the life of one city. The city was a prize in the game of chess between the west and the Soviet Union. The media of the day utilized rhetoric and propaganda to influence the emotions and allegiances of the people who read them. In 1948 Berliners were caught between starvation on one side, and Communism on the other. Westerners feared,†¦show more content†¦Aristotle believed that rhetoric frequently utilizes three persuasive appeals, Logos, pathos and ethos. The newspapers, magazines and newsreels of the day, certainly support the use of these types of rhetoric. In the early stages of the Blockade on April 2nd 1948, the British ne wspaper the Daily Mail engaged in the use of rhetoric in it’s article The Red Bluff, when it stated, The frontier between East and West now divides Berlin. That city is controlled by nations who are glaring at each other with furious eyes. Heaven knows neither we nor the Americans or French want war. Through the dumb, patient, millions of Russia are cut off from us, we are convinced that they do not want it either. But if a few fanatics in the Kremlin, whose hands are already dyed with blood, are desirous of plunging the world into madness and ruin, they must be stopped. They will be. The writer is using Ethos, an appeal to ethics, by urging people to right something grossly wrong, and pathos by describing the Soviet Union as murdering madmen who want to destroy all that it good. This is a theme which comes up frequently in the media of the era. Shortly after this article was published on June 12 1948 the U.S.S.R closed the autobahn for repairs. Road transport in an out of the cities was halted 3 days later. On 21st June all