Shrestha1

Kristina Shrestha

Dr. Sharity Nelson

English 1301-115

10 November 2023

Rhetorical Analysis Essay

“A Study on the Social and Economic Sustainability of Rewards- Based Crowdfunding in

Africa.” By Joseph Ochieng Onginjo and Zhou Dong Mei in “Environment, Development and

Sustainability, is a research paper exploring “information communication technology

infrastructure, social capital, and backer identity” (9619) supported by geographic location are

the three main reward-based crowdfunding elements that encourage and discourage backer

investment. This paper was written for the scholars of Environment, Development and

Sustainability. Clarifying the possibility that a project will succeed as the number of offline

backers declines and identifying the characteristics that lead to project failure—like a high

degree of social trust based on relational social capital—are the main objectives of this essay.

Because Onginjo & Mei's article explores the impact of reward-based crowdfunding on social

and economic development in Africa—a thorough analysis of its potential to empower

entrepreneurs, promote community engagement, and accelerate economic growth—it effectively

supports the authors' position. This article uses rhetorical devices such as ethos to establish the

author's authority and logos to demonstrate to readers the article's logic, making it convincing.

One of the first way in which the authors use the rhetorical device is by showing logos ; that in

order to ascertain if the likelihood of project success rises with fewer offline backers, Onginjo

and Mei first assessed the effect of ICT infrastructure on crowdfunding, as a result they found
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that “offline backer count negatively correlates with the project outcome which shades more light

on the role of offline backers who are also crucial towards the generation of capital for the

crowdfunding project.” (9639) This was done to make it clear that if a project has fewer offline

backers, it is more likely to be successful and a higher online backer count could indicate that the

project has already gained traction and support, which could lead to more offline backers in the

future.

They also showed the credibility to the readers by giving them the sources of the background

knowledge like, “(Chao et al., 2020) and (Delhey & Newton, 2005) who concurred that, from a

social normative perspective, African countries are often characterized by a relative low level of

social trust.” (9639) They investigated whether or not a high level of relational social trust may

cause a project to fail after reading this article. They demonstrated that relational social trust,

which was expressed in the number of backers and the converted pledged amount, was what

caused projects with longer thresholds due to ambitious project aims to fail, considering “our

results are in line with (Ullah & Zhou, 2020) who stated that, when the money is to be invested

and how much money has already been collected can significantly affect projects’ probability of

success.” (9640)

Onginjo and Mei appealed to the readers by using logical reasoning and evidence that supports

their arguments with proper facts, data, experts opinion. As “Crowdfunding promises survival

and growth for small- medium enterprises creating jobs for more actors that are creative. This

will indirectly allow the implementation of nationally appropriate social protection systems and

achieve substantial coverage of the financially vulnerable”(Garvey et al..2020; Wenxlaff et

al..,2020.) They discovered that although ICT infrastructure is essential for the dissemination and

acquisition of critical information on crowdfunding projects, the African market is still lagging
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behind the rest of the world. However as mentioned by (Rochemont, 2020), The African market

offers a special chance to combine the use of mobile money with the ability to submit payments

through crowdfunding platforms. The use of agent numbers and QR codes for mobile money

payments ensures that fewer paper money is used, providing an environmentally beneficial

solution to the problems of where to get printing raw materials for paper money and the

preservation of trees. They also mentioned the Kickstarter.com website which provided balanced

panel data for the study, which ran from 2009 to 2020. They utilized MS-Excel 2016 to eliminate

redundant and insufficient data from an initial population of 1157 projects, leaving 958 projects

from 44 African countries.

Reward-based crowdfunding is a welcome development in sub-Saharan Africa, where

governments are working to combat poverty and enact laws that encourage the social and

economic development of public infrastructure through sustainable methods. The African

entrepreneur is full of new ideas, but he or she lacks the tools, experience, and/or knowledge

necessary to realize their goals. Thus, crowdsourcing and crowdfunding are essential instruments

that help unite people and communities in pursuit of the shared objective of combining public

and private resources for the welfare of the populace as a whole. In contrast to other continents

like Europe and Asia, the population of entrepreneurs and investors in the African market is

notably younger, which makes it distinct. Consequently, there is a stronger desire to raise the

welfare and level of living of the current generation.

In conclusion, Onginjo and Mei’s article is efficient because it uses rhetorical appeal to support

its position by revealing to the readers the sources of its information. In the unlikely event that

readers are unable to comprehend what they are attempting to convey, they additionally provide
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the facts. Additionally, they employ logos to demonstrate to readers the existence of logical

reasoning and to support their arguments like, in sub-Saharan Africa, where governments are

trying to reduce poverty and implement policies that support the social and economic growth of

public infrastructure through sustainable means, reward-based crowdfunding is a welcome

phenomenon. In contrast to other continents like Europe and Asia, the population of

entrepreneurs and investors in the African market is notably younger, which makes it distinct.

Consequently, there is a stronger desire to raise the welfare and level of living of the current

generation.
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Work Citation

Onginjo, Joseph Ochieng and Zhou Dong Mei. "A Study on the Social and Economic

Sustainability of Rewards-Based Crowdfunding in Africa." Environment, Development and

Sustainability, vol. 25, 2023, pp. 9619-9646. Academic Search

Complete, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-022-02451-y.