Ethos: If Russia Should Win

The "If Russia Should Win" propaganda poster has no known author, so the credibility of the true author is unknown. Therefore, the general author is the United States. During these times of heightened tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union, many of Americans feared the Soviet Union. Consequently, the majority of the American people naturally thought of the United States as a credible country that is trying to survive against the Soviet Union. Alternatively, one could argue that the author is the film company Paramount Pictures is the author, which today is still a reputable company producing many top notch films. However, it is unlikely people were focusing on that, especially since the text mentioning Paramount was even smaller than the description at the bottom of the propaganda piece.

Alex Ratliff

Comments

  1. Eric LangOctober 7, 2017 at 5:00 PM

    I agree that there's no extrinsic ethos in anything with no known author. However, many Americans at the time would have trusted anything that supported America and opposed the Soviets, which in a way gives some intrinsic ethos to this poster.

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  2. AnonymousOctober 7, 2017 at 6:55 PM

    Americans at the time trusted the credibility of any American over that of foreign powers. This is the type of argument that gets its credibility simply from someone agreeing with what it is saying, which may not be the strongest, bu the whole message relies on people agreeing.

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  3. UnknownOctober 8, 2017 at 7:55 PM

    I agree that there is no ethos in this text. At the time of that this poster was released and with the current status of the war situation, Americans would most likely agree with anything that was put out to the public, no matter who the author was.

    ReplyDelete
  4. aaliyahthepoetOctober 8, 2017 at 9:01 PM

    Because there is no ethos, the author clearly just took advantage of the fact that many Americans were afraid of communism. One could possibly argue that ethos was generated by the public's preconceived notions about the Soviet Union.

    ReplyDelete
  5. UnknownOctober 9, 2017 at 1:40 PM

    Although there may not be direct ethos without an author, Americans still took the poster seriously and believed in what it represented. This is because there was already credibility for anything that served to act against communism, so this propaganda was supported without question.

    ReplyDelete

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