Elderly Woman Resists ICE
This video depicts an elderly woman's confrontation with two ICE agents who are presumably intending to arrest either the woman or some other person who lives in the area. The officers claim that their investigation is lawful, but the woman points out that they do not have a warrant and therefore their claim is false.
This video aims to demonstrate an example of an average citizen sticking up to the ICE officers. The goal with doing so is not clear from the video alone, but there are some potential theories. One possible motivation for Wayne uploading the video, assuming it is meant to be depicting a real life event, is to show an example of ICE acting outside of the law, in the hopes that they may face consequences for acting against their stated purpose of upholding the law. In the same vein, Wayne may also be trying to encourage and inspire hope in those
who wish to resist ICE by showing an elderly woman standing up to ICE, despite likely being less powerful than the officers both in physical terms and in societal position. Lastly, a more cynical, but likely more accurate reason that Wayne uploaded the video is to gain financial and attention benefits that could come from those who have heard about ICE's actions and especially those who have strong opinions on those actions.
Regardless of the truthfulness of the video, doing a rhetorical analysis on this video is still a useful exercise as it gives an example of the kind of
techniques that could be used to criticize both ICE and the current presidential administration that are calling for and supporting their actions. However, the likely synthetic nature of the video can also provide some insights on how that fact may affect the audience's perception of the video's message and how seriously they take the video should they deem it synthetic.
Elderly Woman Resists ICE
This video depicts an elderly woman's confrontation with two ICE agents who are presumably intending to arrest either the woman or some other person who lives in the area. The officers claim that their investigation is lawful, but the woman points out that they do not have a warrant and therefore their claim is false.
This video aims to demonstrate an example of an average citizen sticking up to the ICE officers. The goal with doing so is not clear from the video alone, but there are some potential theories. One possible motivation for Wayne uploading the video, assuming it is meant to be depicting a real life event, is to show an example of ICE acting outside of the law, in the hopes that they may face consequences for acting against their stated purpose of upholding the law. In the same vein, Wayne may also be trying to encourage and inspire hope in those
who wish to resist ICE by showing an elderly woman standing up to ICE, despite likely being less powerful than the officers both in physical terms and in societal position. Lastly, a more cynical, but likely more accurate reason that Wayne uploaded the video is to gain financial and attention benefits that could come from those who have heard about ICE's actions and especially those who have strong opinions on those actions.
Regardless of the truthfulness of the video, doing a rhetorical analysis on this video is still a useful exercise as it gives an example of the kind of
techniques that could be used to criticize both ICE and the current presidential administration that are calling for and supporting their actions. However, the likely synthetic nature of the video can also provide some insights on how that fact may affect the audience's perception of the video's message and how seriously they take the video should they deem it synthetic.
Annotations
00:00 - 00:02
At the beginning of this video, the elderly woman claims that the ICE officers would not "get to scare folks on [her] block" while she is around. Here we can infer that the elderly woman and the others on the block are all stakeholders in this situation. The audience would like know from current events that the ICE officers plan to arrest those who were deemed to have been in the country illegally, so they could conclude that the freedom of the elderly woman and of others who live on that block would be on the line. The elderly woman also presents herself as a heroic figure by claiming to be the force that prevents the ICE officers from harming those who live on the block. This heroic presentation can be seen as an appeal to ethos as the audience is more apt to see the woman in a positive light since she is trying to protect those who are vulnerable.
00:00 - 00:10
Throughout the video, the appearances of both the elderly woman and the ICE officers are wearing have some oddities that could hint at the video having synthetic origins. The texture of the elderly woman's hair appears a bit blurry in the video and the colors of her hair and scarf seem unrealistically vibrant. The uniforms of the ICE officers seem to have minor differences from one another with the one farther from the camera having an extra chest bar saying "police". Furthermore, the officer further away from the camera seems to have "ICE" listed twice on the top chest bar, reading "ICEICE". The contents of the top chest bar cannot be 100% confirmed, however, since the officer in front obscures the right side of the chest bar. These oddities could potentially damage the credibility of the communicator since these discrepancies would likely make the audience dismiss the video as fake and the communicator as acting disingenuous.
00:00 - 00:10
This video appears to take place outside some apartment complex, presumably the home of the elderly woman depicted in the video or somewhere near her home. The choice of this setting likely is meant to hit closer to home for the audience, many of whom may live in apartments that are similar enough to the one depicted here. However, this building has numerous oddities that contribute to a case for this video being synthetic. The most notable oddity are the stair rails on the side melding into each other in an impossible manner. One rail extends parallel to the rail closest to the camera, while the other extends perpendicular to that rail. Furthermore, what seem to be windows on the side of the building are inconsistently sized between the lowest floor and higher floors. This video being perceived as fake could result potentially result in people dismissing the video completely and disregarding the message expressed in the video.
00:02 - 00:05
At this point in the video, the officers are responding to the elderly woman's claim that they are acting unjustly by claiming that they are performing a "lawful investigation". This is an attempt at appealing logos since they are giving a particular reason for their actions. Their job as officers is to investigate and handle violations of the law and they are claiming that their actions as depicted in this video align with that job. The fact that the officers are claiming to do their job also gives them a stake in this video as if they fail to do their job properly, it can be concluded that they stand the risk of losing it.
00:05 - 00:07
At this point in the video, the elderly woman being depicted questions the lawfulness of the ICE officers' actions in this video, noting that they "don't even have a warrant with a judge's name on it". This information damages the credibility of the ICE officers since they seem to be acting outside the law while claiming that they are acting within the law. There is also an element of logos in her statement since the elderly woman is responding to the counterargument that presented by the officers that they are conducting a "lawful investigation" by giving an example of a law that they are violating in their investigating, that being them needing a warrant before performing the investigation that they are attempting to do.
00:07 - 00:09
In this interval, the elderly woman says that "[she] knows her rights [and] so does everyone watching". In this statement, there is both ethos and pathos at play here. For ethos, the elderly woman claims to have knowledge of the rights that the laws of the United States gives her, so the audience is more inclined to trust her conclusion due to her being informed of the topic of this situation. For pathos, the elderly woman's statement appeals to the audience in the way that she claims that they also are familiar with the topic at hand, which presents the evidence that she uses in her argument (officers requiring a warrant to perform an investigation) as common knowledge. Therefore, the audience would be more likely to side with the woman in this video because of that common knowledge.
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