CMST 2060 Chapter : Ethos
Document Summary
The attitude of the audience toward the speaker. It is important to remember that the audience may have no way of knowing the speaker"s true character. Ethos is concerned with the audience"s perception of the speaker"s character. Ethos is not absolute and stable for the speaker; it can change from audience to audience. In other words, ethos is in the eye of the beholder (the audience). In order to have ethos, the speaker must possess three things (according to aristotle): Competence: being perceived as well-informed, skilled, or knowledgeable about your topic. Character: being perceived as trustworthy, honest, and sincere. Charisma: being perceived as likeable, confident, and forceful. Initial ethos (based on prior reputation or position) Identification: credibility based on alikeness with the audience ( homophily = coming from the same group) Demographic homophily: similarity based on social or physical characteristics such as age, sex, height, weight, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, etc. ) Attitude homophily: similarity based on likes and dislikes, values, beliefs.
