Defining media speech effectiveness: A case of Ukrainian president Zelenskyy’s addresses to national parliaments

Abstract

The paper argues that effectiveness of media speeches, i.e., their ability to influence the addressees, largely rests on national prototypes, representing cultural entities and historic events. The national prototypes are clear and accessible, resonating with the addressees’ values, attitudes, and beliefs. The article analyzes rhetorical effectiveness of Ukrainian president’s addresses delivered at the beginning of the Russian-Ukrainian full-scale war to parliaments of seven states: Poland, USA, Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan and Greece. Volodymyr Zelenskyy appeals to the target audiences’ national prototypes representing events or cultural entities correlating with Ukraine’s current plight. It is found that with respect to the similarity to the national prototypes of other countries the arguments employed in Zelenskyy’s speeches fall into three types: direct, implicit, and gradual. The most effective is direct reference to prototypes at the global or national levels of the listeners’ worldviews. Less effective are implicit arguments left for the addressee to be inferred like any other implicature. The least effective are gradual arguments based on presuppositions about some commonly shared information: they modify the existing national prototypes with reference to the present or future which is not always accepted by the audience.