Ray Rice’s press conference

The controversial Ray Rice scandal recently appeared in the news and aroused many reactions supporting or opposing Rice’s actions.

This scandal has led the professional football player to confront the press through public speeches in order to justify his actions.

(Link to the video: http://www.baltimoreravens.com/videos/videos/Ray-Rices-Full-Press-Conference/405fea46-d4d4-44c7-b381-33497bf6d12f)

Ray Rice has been filmed by CCTV cameras punching his wife in an elevator and knocking her down. This act went public recently and had for consequence the suspension of the footballer by the NFL. Both the husband and the wife attended a press conference where they explained the situation and where they tried to defend Ray Rice.

This speech includes many elements that we have seen in class. Here are a few that I could notice.

First of all we can observe the use of three modes of persuasion: logos, pathos and ethos. The most prominent one is pathos. Ray Rice’s speech was based on emotion, one of the keys to seduce an audience and a great tool of persuasion. The emotion is conveyed through crying, the repetition of his apologies and the fact that he looks lost and destabilized reading his notes on his phone.

The logos appears in the fact that he recognizes that he has made a mistake and that he his explaining that he is willing to change his behavior in the future. This seems to be the most logical reaction to have regarding the mistake he made.

The ethos intervenes through the fact that his speech is supported by his wife sitting next to him. The ethos is also present through what Ray Rice represents. He is a professional football player, which means that he has won credibility through his career and his achievements.

However, the purpose of this conference is to save this credibility that has been impacted by the beating of his wife.  

Overall, I think that even though Ray Rice delivered a speech that can be regarded as honest and emotionally driven, I am not convinced by this performance and I think that his ethos remains weakened by the mistake he did.

Ray Rice is part of the popular culture. His actions are watched by millions of people and he is part of today’s sport culture, therefore I think that this kind of public speech represents interesting texts to be analyzed.