Daisy Kendrick. Rhetorical Analysis: Mosquitos, Malaria and Education by Bill Gates

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1 Although TED Talks are not your conventional piece of literature to analyze, I jumped at the freedom to study a talk given by Bill Gates on Mosquitos, Malaria and Education. The main reason being, Gates released a jar of Mosquitos into the audience, this is a tangible and memorable technique that goes beyond what an author could ever convey on a piece of paper and made me more enthusiastic about writing an analysis. During peer review and on my working drafts the main criticism was my abundance to over summarize the video and the necessity to analyze rhetorical elements more deeply. I found over the advanced writing course I suffered in most projects with summarizing too much but the improvement from working drafts to final piece is evident. While the class seemed to panic over the thought of making the essay multimodal I found this to be great opportunity to expand on certain points by using a hyperlink and image. Rhetorical Analysis: Mosquitos, Malaria and Education by Bill Gates As one of the worlds most respected philanthropists, Bill Gates hopes to solve some of the world s biggest problems. In 2009 he took to the TED stage to give an audience of geniuses a stimulating presentation called Mosquitos, Malaria and Education. His 20- minute talk asks two big questions and how we might answer them. In Gates presentation he first focuses on the problems of malaria in poor countries and how we can stop a deadly disease that is spread rapidly by mosquitos. He focuses on Africa and addresses malaria not only from a health perspective but also from a global perspective, and how it is holding back the African economy. The second topic is education and how to make it better. The economy is only providing opportunities to people with a higher education, increasing the inequality gap especially within the United States. By focusing on the common goal of improving education, through innovation and by sharing effective strategies, Gates vision is for people across the country to transform American public education. Bill Gates is the founder and former CEO of Microsoft. Gates is a passionate techie and a shrewd businessman. He changed the world while leading Microsoft to be one of the most successful businesses and now he is doing so again with his own style of philanthropy and passion for innovation. In 2008, Gates left his day job at Microsoft to focus fully on philanthropy. He created with his wife, the Bill and 1

2 Melinda Gates Foundation that has donated staggering sums to HIV programs, agriculture research, disaster relief and vital funding to global health and education. When Gates looks at the world, a world in which millions of preventable deaths occur every year, he sees an inefficient and broken system (TED 2009). Gates refers to himself as an optimist and believes any tough problem can be resolved. It shocks him that people do not see the urgency to tackle problems like malaria and education more head on. With this in mind, the exigence of his presentation was a personal priority and was one of the reasons he felt the call to speak at TED. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, and Design, which are the newest currencies in our world. TED is a free online platform designed to share ideas by inspiring people in around 18 minutes. Today TED has become such an influential platform with over one billion views. Oprah Winfrey once described TED as where brilliant people go to hear other brilliant people share their ideas (Gallo 2014). TED presenters spend months constructing their talks and receiving feedback from many people from different fields in order to adapt their presentation to appeal to a broad audience. TED hosts conferences around the world and attendance are by application only, appealing to the likes of scientists, CEOs, designers and intellectuals. The cost of attending is fairly high; prices begin at $6000 for a week or a membership from $17,000 for what some have described as a mind spa (TED 2009). TED also has another audience, its online viewers. On the TED website alone, Gates Mosquitos, Malaria and Education presentation has almost 3 million views without even mentioning the other websites the presentation will have been posted on. Interestingly, the discourse community of TED is one of the worlds most diverse. The potential outreach of TED is immense, and Gates created headlines in his presentation for the rest of the world to talk about. The audience that was in the room while Gates gave his presentation belonged to an academic discourse community with a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and discourse expertise. The online audience appealed to a much broader set of communities. Gates goal was to primarily provide information and feedback about malaria and education, utilizing both speech and Power Point to furtherance his points. 2

3 From Gates presentation it is evident that our lives and our cultures are composed of many overlapping stories. Gates spends a minute or so describing the history of malaria and how in the early 1900s, malaria was everywhere including the United States and Europe. No one knew how the disease was transmitted until a British man figured out that it was mosquitos. So tools were invented like treating patients with quinine, to reduce the death rate and by 1990 the richer countries were eradicated of malaria but the poorer countries were not. Sadly, whether it is someone suffering from malaria in Africa or someone from a low- income family in the United States, stereotypically the poor suffer. When Gates moves on to speak about education, he stresses how life can be unfair as the economy is only providing for those with a great education. For generations, education has been the springboard to opportunity in America. But today, other countries are catching up and even out pacing. With a globally connected, saturated world, times have changed and American schools need to change with this. The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation is sharing research, school districts, and tools to improve teaching and earning across America. The audience at the live TED presentation, are highly educated academics who may consider themselves fortunate enough to have received an education and may consider passing such tools on to their own discourse communities. In the multi- modal presentation, Gates used statistics, real- life examples and even some real mosquitos to help the audience see his points. The audience gives a presenter a short amount of time to really grab their attention, and Gates captivates them immediately with some shocking statistics at the beginning of each topic. On malaria, Gates begins with Five years ago, 135 million children were born, so more or less than 10 million of them died before five and Over 200 million people at any one time are suffering (Gates 2009), these are huge numbers. With education in the United States, Over 30% of kids never finish high school for minority kids, its over 50% and If you re low income, you have less than a 25% chance of ever completing a college degree (Gates 2009). When Gates delivered these numbers they were the only things to appear on his 3

4 Power Point slide to keep it simple and impress the audience with the statistics themselves. A graph on child mortality rates from Gates Power Point (Gates 2009) Gates also delivers statistics by putting the numbers into context. In his presentation, Gates uses his sense of humor when describing the paradox of the little investment malaria receives because it only remains in poorer countries. For example, there is more money put into baldness drugs than are put into malaria. Now, baldness, it is a terrible thing. And rich men afflicted. And so that s why that priority has been set (Gates 2009). Instead of letting the audiences figure out how little investment malaria receives, Gates uses a laughable comparison in the severity of a global health crisis. Gates Power Point helped him add visuals to his spoken words, stay on track and craft memorable reveals. The simplicity and little use of his Power Point does not distract from what he is 4

5 saying. Too much writing can be overwhelming for viewers so the simplicity of one image with his rhetorical questions clear in bold font, forces the viewer to be concentrated on what he is asking and not distracting them later from his response. The visual impact of his Power Point is an aiding tool throughout his presentation. During a TED talk, not only the way language is conveyed important but also is the verbal delivery. In order for Gates to be a successful presenter he has good body language and an air of confidence. His gestural mode and walking go hand in hand with the fluid language that enhances the message he is trying to convey. Gates did not have most of statistics memorized, but in the moment he used to look over at his power point, it added to ethos because the audience knows the facts are accurate and not altered as he speaks. Gates also brought some mosquitos along with him. He released them into the audience in minute five and said, There is no reason why only poor people should have the experience (Gates 2009). The audience laughed and broke out in applause. Of course those mosquitos were not infected but the use of a prop really connected with the audience and made his presentation memorable. The use of a prop also encouraged his video to become viral online and make news headlines with his novel idea to use a prop during his presentation. The moment Gates released mosquitos into the audience (Gates 2009) 5

6 With only 18 minutes to convey his points, the talk is both serious and short enough to hold the audiences attention. This short time period forced Gates to narrow down what he really wanted to say and he did so in an effective manner by using props and stories to convey pathos, ethos and logos. Gates chose to divide his presentation into two sections asking two important questions. The rhetoric strategy of this is keeping the audience engaged and not to become monotonous with just one topic. The diversity of his topics appeal to a global audience by tackling malaria and somewhere closer to home with addressing the topic of U.S education. Pathos is very important in his presentation; stories plant ideas and emotions into the audiences brains and make the presentation more memorable. Pathos in a presentation leads to a sense of urgency for reform. Gates was able to strongly support his education question through personal experience and admits despite being a college drop out he did have some inspiring teachers. In the case of malaria, sad statistics about most malaria victims being under the age of five, tugs on the heartstrings of the audience. The tone of the presentation is passionate and upbeat, that portrays ethos, with the confidence in which Gates delivers his words. The frequently used logos correlate with his gestures that also enforces ethos making the presentation more credible. TED talks bring together the world s most remarkable people across many fields with extraordinary insights, connections and powerful inspiration. In an environment of curious minds, Gates took the TED opportunity to end his presentation saying It is going to take brilliant people like you to study these things, get other people involved, and your helping to come up with solutions (Gates 2009). Bill Gates TED talk is well thought out and effective in conveying exigence to improve malaria treatment and education. With TEDs influential discourse communities in the room and online, Gates uses the opportunity to call to all parties from all fields to start playing a vital role in improving malaria and education. Gates looks to resolve some of the world s most challenging problems using a new type of philanthropy, in 18 minutes he asks the audience to consider 6

7 two giant questions and what could be their answers. For Gates, poverty is like an application that needs to be debugged and he intends to find a solution for poverty related issues using his success strategy that he used at Microsoft. Bibliography Malaria, Mosquitos and Education, TED 2009, video recording, Gallo, Carmine, 2014, Talk Like TED: The 9 public speaking secrets of the world s top minds, first edition, St Martin s Press, New York Bill Gates, TED 2009, 7