Topic

After several weeks of exploratory research, I have settled on a topic for my paper. For my major research project, I will explore the uses of shock advertising for two different purposes – selling a product and promoting a cause. I will argue that this approach to advertising, whatever the purpose, exploits its intended audience by utilizing excessive pathos as its major rhetorical appeal. A large amount of relevant research on this topic seems (understandably) to examine the Benetton advertising campaigns. I would like to research these in particular because, in addition to simply being fascinating to me, they attempt to fuse my two proposed purposes of shock advertising.