The oceans sustain life on Earth, but man has repaid it with death by plastic. The plastic crisis facing marine environments is exponentially increasing, which affects coastal communities, mankind’s food sources, and life under the water. Plastic production has consistently increased from the world’s 1.9 tons of plastic generated in 1950 to the 330 million tons globally produced in 2013 (Seltenrich 2). With the increase in production, an increase in pollution followed. Though models predict the production of plastic to quadruple by 2050, some organizations are working to combat current effects and create proactive measures to protect the ocean’s future (Oceana 1:50). One of those organizations, Oceana, works to restore the oceans through global policy initiatives with the support of all people. The work Oceana accomplishes would not be possible without its supporters; therefore, Oceana has created multiple marketing tools to increase engagement. The video “Why We Need to Stop Plastic Pollution in Our Oceans for Good,” produced by Oceana, responds to plastic pollution as a rhetorical situation.

Lloyd Bitzer, author of the article “The Rhetorical Situation,” defines multiple terms used to analyze rhetorical situations, which he describes as “a natural context of persons, events, objects, relations, and an exigence which strongly invites utterance” (4). Because of how Bitzer defines a rhetorical situation, one can infer that a situation is required for discourse to occur. In the case of the Oceana video, the rhetorical situation would be the ocean plastic crisis, and the informational video would be the rhetorical discourse. However, to deem the discourse successful in incurring change, one must analyze the situation for three components: exigence, audience, and constraints. The term exigence calls the audience to positive action concerning the discourse. The audience, classified into primary and secondary, consists of the people or groups who can influence the exigence and respond to its call to action. The final aspect of the three components, the constraints, can restrict the change called for by the exigence. Because the delivery and communication constraints limit the exigence, it can lose its effectiveness. Constraints are not only considered people, but, according to Bitzer, they are also events, objects, and relations (8). All three elements present themselves within rhetorical situations and affect the success of the discourse.

Though the exigence set up by the rhetorical situation presented in the Oceana video may seem straightforward, there are multifaceted layers that viewers must understand. The main exigence of the video is the increase in ocean pollution and its effects on the environment and mankind. To inform the audience of the video’s purpose, Oceana states that “17.6 billion pounds of plastic enter the oceans each year” (Oceana 0:25), and that “less than 4% of the oceans remain unaffected by human activity (“What We Do”). These statistics alert the reader to the immediate problem of plastic pollution. After the video establishes the main exigence, it asserts that “four times more plastic will be produced between now and the middle of the century than has been produced in all of history,” which creates an additional exigence: the lack of awareness and political urgency for environmental protections. (Oceana 1:48). Because Oceana’s primary purpose is to bring about positive political changes that protect the future ocean environments, viewers can infer that the exponential increase in plastic production is due to a gap between politicians and the essential environmental policies they create.

Along with exigence, there are usually more than one intended audiences who respond to a rhetorical situation. Though politicians are not the obvious audience for the video, they are part of the secondary audience Oceana aimed to reach. They can change and create policy initiatives that will result in protective regulations for the oceans. The primary audience that Oceana geared the video towards is the public. The reason they chose citizens as their target market for the video is that Oceana needs support from the public to gain support for their cause of ocean restoration. According to an article published by National Geographic, “single-use plastics account for 40% of the plastic produced every year,” which are used by most of the population (Parker). By increasing awareness for plastic pollution and gaining support from the people, Oceana hopes to decrease the demand for single-use plastics. With the decrease in the need for plastics, their supply and presence in the oceans will, as a result, decrease as well.

In theory, gaining public support, changing policies, and changing human behavioral patterns should be enough to change the course of the plastic crisis; however, some constraints will restrict the progress of Oceana and other similar organizations. One of the primary constraints of the rhetorical discourse is the medium to which it was published. Oceana uploaded the five-minute video to YouTube, which constrained the discourse since it is one of the only places, other than live events, that Oceana broadcasts its content. The YouTube algorithms work to show a variety of quality videos; however, because anyone can create content on YouTube, the mere quantity of videos can result in quality videos not being viewed. Recently, social media algorithms have shifted to showing videos the algorithm determines to align with the viewers’ beliefs and interests. As a result, the video may not appear to people who have not interacted with ocean conservation topics beforehand. Therefore, viewers’ beliefs can also be considered a constraint upon the video related to its medium. Though not all viewers will share the same opinions, the video will likely attract viewers interested in sustainability, conservation practices, climate change, etc. Generally, left-leaning liberals focus more on climate change than right-leaning conservatives; however, anyone interested in protecting the environment can promote climate protection policies within their political groups. Another constraint found within the video is the inferred ethnicity of the speaker as a white male for the voiceover. Oceana is a global organization that aims to impact global policies for ocean conservation. However, employing an assumed American creates a disparity between Oceana’s goal of international presence and their actions.

Some constraints, known as affordances, can enable the modification of the exigence. The primary affordance for Oceana’s video is its multimodal nature, as it contains four of the five modes of communication: visual, spatial, aural, and linguistic. Throughout the video, the visual mode conveys the severity of the plastic crisis. One of the images used in the video, displayed to the right, depicts a sea turtle consuming a plastic bag that it mistakes for a jellyfish. The spatial mode also plays

a part in emphasizing the exigence of plastic pollution in marine environments as the video fills the screen with the image of the helpless, unknowing sea turtle, which can invoke empathy in the viewer. The linguistic mode aids the video by allowing visually impaired people and other viewers to listen to the voiceover that explains the issue and how the audience can help be a part of the change. The voiceover, along with the background music, combines to create the aural mode, which guides the thought process of the listener. The music evokes emotions that correspond to the information presented by the voiceover and the visuals. Throughout the video, the background music consistently conveyed the tone and matched with the information explained by the voiceover. The ominous music at the beginning of the video aligned with the presentation of the seemingly hopeless marine plastic issue; however, there is a music shift from ominous to hopeful when the voiceover exclaims the urgency for “plastic-free choices” (Oceana 2:47). Then, the music realigns for a second time later in the video from a hopeful to a victorious tone as the voiceover begins sharing some of the policies that support the positive change of its primary exigence.

The modes presented in the video allow for the occurrence of the design elements as a rhetorical response. Three of the central design elements found in the video are emphasis, contrast, and organization. Emphasis is found where certain words are stressed over other less important words. The video applied emphasis to the words “four, times, more” by having them appear in large bold letters during the key moment of revealing the bleak future of the ocean if the plastic crisis is not addressed (Oceana 1:55). Contrast is the variance in elements that places greater importance on one element over another. At the end of the video, the music ceases, and the voiceover closes with only his voice echoing, “Please join our campaign” against a black screen with the Oceana logo in white letters. The conclusion utilizes aural and visual contrast as a design element to leave the viewers processing how they can be a part of the change against pollution by supporting Oceana’s initiatives (Oceana 4:28). The examples of emphasis and contrast in the video work together to create a tone of power and importance. These two design elements were also strategically used on the points that Oceana wanted its viewers to remember. Throughout the video, text is only used three times, which indicates that Oceana included the text with contrast and emphasis to further emphasize their stance on the effects of plastic pollution. Most of the video comprises clips of dying or stranded animals and the plastic that is killing them, which invokes feelings of sadness, pity, anger, and disgust at the horrors the oceans and their creatures face. By instilling these feelings in the viewers, the design elements achieve their purpose of igniting a passion for the topic in the viewers.

Even with its promotional intentions, Oceana did not mention itself until the last half of the video, which displays the reliance the organization places on the devices used to create a successful rhetorical response to the plastic crisis. The marketing team is relying on the video being powerful enough to urge viewers to join the ocean conservation campaign, rather than directly promoting Oceana as an organization. In doing so, the team effectively creates a video that responds to their predetermined exigence and calls their supporters to action. The concluding words of the video, “Please join our campaign,” present an avenue for the viewers to act against the eight million metric tons of plastic pollution that enter the oceans annually (Stahl Jr.). By giving people the opportunities to engage with the issue, such as signing an Oceana petition, the people who support Oceana induce the positive change needed to work towards Oceana’s mission: to restore the world’s oceans.