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Oliviah Gearhart

Dr. Bedell

Rhetoric and Civic Life

11 October 2019

Rhetorical Analysis: The Civic Responsibility against Dairy Farming

The dairy industry brings billions of dollars to the United States’ federal, regional, and

local economies each year. This wealth and prosperity is possible due to the heavy consumer

desire for milk. However, beyond the “Got Milk” advertisements and the pictures of free-

roaming cows in pastures is the harsh truth behind the industry. What most do not care to

investigate are the abusive conditions the cows endure and the critically dangerous implications

the industry has on the environment. These hidden aspects of dairy farming are explained

through a video by Daniella Monet titled “The Hardest Part About my Pregnancy” and an

advertisement by Animal Aid. While Daniella Monet’s video and the Animal Aid advertisement

both use proofs, commonplaces, and emergent ideologies in order to propose a similar exigence

to their audience, they present these rhetorical strategies differently and utilize different

urgencies to convince their audience that the horrors of the dairy industry need to cease.

In her video, Daniella Monet relies heavily on intrinsic proofs in order to convince her

audience that dairy farming has detrimental consequences. In the video, a strong sense of ethos is

established. Daniella Monet was an actor on the Nickelodeon television show, Victorious. To a

particular audience, she isn’t a stranger trying to communicate the civic responsibility of

extinguishing the dairy industry. She is a familiar face that the audience can trust. Because the

video is posted on YouTube—a website more frequently used by the younger generation, Monet
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is able to reach the younger generation of people who grew up watching her on television and

would recognize her and take her seriously. She also gains substantial credibility in concern to

this topic because she has been a vegan for sixteen years—an important fact to notice because

she is practicing what she preaches and not supporting the dairy industry.

Monet also appeals to pathos in her video to bring to light their civic responsibility in

regard to dairy farming. She titles her video “The Hardest Part About my Pregnancy,” and

connects how her pregnancy experience is extremely different to that of a mother cow’s

pregnancy because of the cruel conditions of the dairy farming industry. By making this

connection, she allows the audience to connect the experiences of cows in the dairy industry to

themselves as mothers or children. By playing on this unique bond that mothers and children

have, Monet is able to explain the audience’s civic responsibility to end the dairy industry

because of the shared experiences that are drastically different. She also establishes a sense of

empathy that the audience feels due to her reaction to watching videos where the animal abuse in

this industry is recorded. In her reaction she cries a lot while watching the videos. This makes the

audience feel the emotional impact that such an abusive industry should have on them, thus,

encouraging them to fulfill their civic duty to stop it.

Daniella Monet also uses logic in order to convey her audience’s civic responsibility to

put an end to the dairy industry. Throughout the video, she explains why an industry that rips

calves away from their mothers immediately after birth and forces both the calf and the cow into

abusive situations should not exist. She walks through her reasoning, explaining that it does not

make sense for this abuse to be happening because of today’s societal morals and

commonplaces. Because of the existence of the commonplace that every life has value and

should be protected, Monet uses logical reactions to this popular moral in order to convince her
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audience to stop supporting the dairy industry. It is not logical for babies to be ripped away from

their mothers post-birth, so she questions why we allow it to happen in the dairy industry. She

also mentions that it does not make sense that someone could keep the animals in abusive living

conditions, being dragged around by their heads and force-feeding them. Monet questions how it

is logical to accept these conditions in the dairy industry, while it would never be acceptable for

humans to be treated this way in today’s society. In doing so, she makes the audience realize the

logical reasonings behind why it is their civic responsibility to end the dairy industry.

Monet’s video incorporates emergent ideologies into her speech in order to convey the

audience’s civic responsibility to stop supporting the dairy industry. In the video, dairy

alternatives such as soy, coconut, and almond milk are presented as more sustainable options that

protect cows from the present abuse in the dairy industry. Daniella Monet supports the emergent

ideology of using plant-based dairy as substitution to dairy farming. She presents this ideology to

her audience at the end of the video when she is announcing her call-to-action. She supports the

switch from dairy to substitutions in order to put an end to dairy farming and the abuse it entails.

By presenting this ideology, the civic responsibility of ending the dairy industry feels obtainable

to Monet’s audience, encouraging them to fulfil it.

Daniella Monet’s video uses a kairotic moment in order to call on the audience to fulfil

their civic responsibility. The audience hears Monet connecting her pregnancy to a mother cow’s

pregnancy. Without her being pregnant, she would not be able to make this connection, and her

rhetoric would lack a major aspect that she plays on throughout the video. In a time in the United

States where children are being ripped away from their mothers and families are being split apart

at the US-Mexico border, there is no better time to connect the importance of sticking together as

a family, including all lives, such as cows. In taking this kairotic moment to expose the dairy
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industry and present a civic responsibility to the audience, Daniella Monet utilizes successful

rhetoric.

Unlike Daniella Monet’s video’s use of intrinsic proof to communicate the civic

responsibility of discontinuing the dairy industry, the Animal Aid advertisement relies primarily

on extrinsic proofs. The advertisement states facts about water pollution, CO2 emissions, and the

increasing carbon footprint caused by the dairy industry. Using the commonplace that protecting

the Earth is important because it is our only home, the extrinsic proofs make the audience realize

the threat the dairy industry poses on the environment. These extrinsic proofs allow the audience

come to the conclusion that an industry that they might not have thought contributed to the

destruction of the Earth has a role in it. In doing so, the audience feels responsible to protect the

earth from further harm by responding to their civic duty of eliminating the dairy industry.

Despite Monet’s video using mostly intrinsic proofs and the advertisement using extrinsic

proofs, they are both using them to communicate the same idea that the dairy industry has

devastating consequences, and that their audiences has a civic responsibility to switch to plant-

based dairy like soy, almond, or coconut milk and dismantle the dairy industry.

The Animal Aid advertisement uses an emergent ideology similar to the Monet video in

order to communicate the attainability of the civic responsibility being achieved. Like the video,

the advertisement presents the ideology that alternative dairy products are more sustainable and

better for the Earth than the dairy industry. The advertisement presents the idea that soy milk is

cleaner and more efficient than dairy produced by the dairy industry. By offering alternatives, the

audience can see that they do not need to rely on an abusive and environmentally disrupted

industry, and that they can put an end to it. The advertisement and video use this emergent

ideology to prove that profit-hungry dairy industry can be stopped.

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In the advertisement, there is no kairotic moment. This advertisement is part of the

presentation of the exigence throughout time. While saving the environment through the demise

of the dairy industry is important to the solution of the exigence, it is not a kairotic moment. The

advertisement brings awareness to the exigence, but it is not part of a specific moment where

change is necessary. It creates a less pressing atmosphere for the audience to read and understand

that they have a responsibility to protect the Earth by destroying the dairy industry.

Throughout both the Daniella Monet video and the Animal Aid advertisement, intrinsic

and extrinsic proofs are used, along with emergent ideologies and commonplaces, while using

different urgencies to convince the audience that they have a civic duty to end the dairy industry.

While dairy is marketed as important to many aspects of society in terms of economics and

personal growth, the true horrors of the dairy industry hides behind pictures of green pastures

and happy grazing cows. This is not the reality, and the civic responsibility to end this lie shines

through.