SWA 4

         Neither my Facebook nor twitter feed is credible in my opinion. I do not use or follow many credible or reliable sources. My feeds do establish good character at time though. They also establish common ground with the audience. Overall, there is not much ethos because any and everybody can post what they please. It is sometimes difficult to filter out credible and inaccurate information.

        The article I chose to analyze is credible. I selected an article on the CNN website titled “U.S. Flies B-52s over South Korea”, written Brad Lendon. Brad establishes credibility by just writing for CNN. CNN is a reliable source for current events. Brad also interviews a credible source, a Pentagon spokesman. This too helps the ethos in his article. Lastly, Brad writes in detail about the U.S. Air Force and North and South Korea. He is not biased about what America is doing for defense. He simply writes this article based of facts, and other sources who are involved in keeping up with the activity between Korea and America.

        The second article I selected is from the ESPN website called “Heat Secure 23^rd Straight Win despite Jeff Green’s 43-point Night” written by Garden.  Similar to the previous article I selected, this article also has ethos just because it is on the ESPN site. ESPN is known for keeping up with the most current sporting events. Garden interview’s LeBron James, Shane Battier, and the coach of the Miami Heat, Erik Spoelstra. He makes his article more credible by adding these inside sources because they actually were in the game. Garden gives a little background history about NBA team’s winning streaks, which also adds to the ethos.

        These different websites create different ethos because some of them are more credible than others. For example, a Facebook or twitter feed does not contain as much ethos as CNN. One may not believe something is credible until they see it on a trusteed reliable source or site. A person could have tweeted about the NBA basketball team, Miami Heat, winning their 23^rd consecutive game, but not believe it until they have seen it on ESPN. The different websites also create different ethoses because the subjects vary.

        Ethos has much to do with a varying audience because each audience member may have much knowledge about the topic that is being argued. Therefore, they will know if the argument contains ethos or not. This could also alienate other audience members because they may not know much about a specific argument and understand what has ethos and what does not.