Yasmin Nawrozie

ENGL 102
Prof. Deadrick
Rhetorical Analysis Paper
The discussion about violence in media has been going on for a long while, and has only
gotten more pronounced in more recent years. Using pathos, ethos, and logos, Gerard Jones
wrote an article titled Violent Media Is Good For Kids, and takes a more personal approach in
saying his opinion on the matter, claiming that it is healthy and educational for children to
experience violent media.
Jones is an influential comic book author, making him to be some kind of a symbol or
representative in a way, and this already gives him and his words a sense of merit and authority,
allowing him to be heard. He starts off by talking about himself and how as a child, he was
taught to hide his negative feelings behind a mask that others would find acceptable. Jones says
that when he was able to read comics about the Incredible Hulk, it comforted him and gave him a
sense of security, allowing him to handle his anger and fear in a healthy manner. It created
opportunities for him to meet new people and make new friends and, eventually, it helped pave a
way to his future career as a big comic book author (paragraphs 1-5). He also talks about his son
going through something similar to what he went through, and how just like how he was able to,
his son overcame his fears with the help of a comic book hero (paragraph 6). This usage of
pathos wins over his audience by showing how he himself has gone through a positive change
through experiencing violent media, and by using a personal anecdote, was able to show that
other people feel and connect the same way with violent media. He does this again later, when
talking about children that were not blood related to him, to further enforce that other children go

through similar experiences. While he may be the influential author of some well-known violent
media, he too had insecurities and troubles that the common child had, was able to overcome
them, and that this is something a lot of children go through.
After talking about violent media mostly directly related to his life, he talks about other
peoples lives and the misconceptions people have about violent media. In paragraph 7, he
mentions that he has heard pop psychologists insisting that violent stories are harmful to kids,
heard teachers request parents keep violent media referred to as junk culture in quotation
marks, likely the wording the teachers used away from their kids, and that a friend of his feels
bad about letting her son eat sugary cereal and watch a popular childrens cartoon. After this
paragraph is a single line, Thats when I started to do the research. (paragraph 8) He says this
line which implies he that the people that say all these negative things did not actually look
bother to look deep into the subject that they claimed they were so knowledgeable about. When
Jones refers to the psychologists that talk about how violent media is bad as pop psychologists
in paragraph 7, he is challenging the legitimacy of their source by using the pop label,
implying that theyre only used as a source because they can exaggerate and give an answer that
the public suspects is true or wants to believe is true, just for the sake of entertainment. He then
uses ethos by acquiring testimony from a psychologist with a Ph.D who actually works with
teenagers to support his argument about how violent media can be beneficial (paragraph 9).
Jones understands that to get people to realize what he is saying is not just wishful thinking; he
needed to get someone that professionally knew about this topic, and to speak their thoughts. He
then says for the past three years she and I have been studying the ways in which children use
violent stories to meet their emotional and developmental needs (paragraph 11), to prove to the
audience that he does hold some form of authority over this subject, and has been working

towards using this knowledge to help children. Following this he explains some conclusions he
and the psychologist have come to, and references other accounts of troubled children controlling
and understanding themselves better. Jones makes good use of his single authoritative source to
establish his own actual authority presses forward in his argument.
In the last section of his article, he briefly uses logos and makes comparisons in a final
attempt to make his audience understand and accept his viewpoint. Jones acknowledges that
violent media is not entirely good and helpful as he might make it out to be, outright saying that
Im not going to argue that violent entertainment is harmless. I think it has helped inspire some
people to real-life violence. (paragraph 16) By acknowledging this, he takes away a possible
point that someone that opposes him might say, and turns it into something he uses as another
stepping stone to show that the benefits outweigh the negatives of it, saying its helped hundreds
of people for everyone its hurt, and that it can help more if we learn to use it well. (paragraph
16) The argument he makes here is that it is simply a piece of media, not a sentient evil being,
and that it depends on how it is presented and used. Jones draws parallels between the way
violent media is treated currently and the way Victorians treated sexuality back then, that when
we try to protect our children from their own feelings and fantasies, we shelter them not against
violence but against power and selfhood.(paragraph 17) This is to point out the irrational and
illogical way that adults and parents treat violent media, and that they need to come to terms with
the idea that it is natural for children to find comfort in things that have violence, rather than
actively discouraging and shaming children when they enjoy these things. Jones says that simply
restricting things of this nature will work against them in the future, and that by keeping children
sheltered from violent things, they will not know how to properly deal with things regarding

violence or conflict, or will have difficulties accepting themselves and having confidence in who
they are.
Jones article makes good use of personal accounts and rhetoric such as pathos, ethos, and
logos. He concludes by acknowledging the opposing views someone might have and providing a
response to it, saying that depending on its use, it can help just as much, if not more than how
much it can hurt others, and that sheltering children from negative things in comics will make
them unprepared for negative things in the real world.