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Running head: Ekstrom speech analysis 1

Ekstrom Speech Analysis

Keanu Gomez

University of Kentucky
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Abstract

This paper serves to examine the rhetorical devices used by Andreas Ekstrom in his TEDx

speech titled, The Moral Bias Behind Your Search Results. It will first summarize the topics

and themes he presents in his speech. It will then discuss and evaluate his use of ethos, logos,

and pathos. In addition, it will analyze the level of persuasion achieved by the speaker and

possible improvements to his overall speech.

Keywords: Andreas Ekstrom, Michelle Obama, Anders Breivik, TEDx, search engine

bias, Google
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Ekstrom Speech Analysis

Andreas Ekstrom, a Swedish journalist and writer whose work focuses on encouraging

digital equality, was given the opportunity to present a TED speech. In his speech titled, The

Moral Bias Behind Your Search Results, he examines the humanistic qualities that tend to

appear in a seemingly artificial technology, digital code. More specifically, he successfully

convinces his audience that even search engines display a discriminatory bias. In his argument,

he juxtaposes two contrasting figures: the first lady of the United States, Michelle Obama; and a

terrorist, Anders Breivik. He tells the story of how these two figures had their image searches

manipulated. Obama had a picture, where her face was morphed as a monkey, searchable under

her name; while Breivik had a picture of dog feces searchable under his. The misrepresentation

under Obamas name was corrected by Google, while the photo of dog poop remained a search

representation for Breivik. It is this unconscious prejudice which Ekstrom is attempting to

uncover. Ekstrom is able to reveal and criticize the digital inequality that occurs as a result of

search engine bias through his masterful use and manipulation of ethos, logos, and pathos.

Figure 1. The morphed picture of Michelle Obama and a monkey. Retrieved from

https://graneyandthepig.wordpress.com/2009/11/25/google-removes-michelle-obama-monkey-

picture/.
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Ekstroms first rhetorical appeal to ethos was demonstrated by the establishment of his

credibility. Within the first two minutes of his speech, he arbitrarily claims that he is a man of

the humanities or a digital humanities man. Despite his semi-formal attire and his

professional demeanor, he fails to verbally establish his credibility. However, it can be assumed

that his audience is somewhat aware of his background. After some preliminary research, it can

be found that Ekstrom is a writer of six books who works at Sydsvenskan, a daily newspaper

company in Sweden. His writings and lectures focus on equality in todays digital revolution. In

his speech, he addresses the traditional values and beliefs behind equality. As he crafted his

argument, he utilized the name and stature of the first lady of the United States, Michelle Obama.

He uses her, an admirable, righteous, and popular figure, to attempt to justify Googles removal

of her demeaning photo. Her credibility is juxtaposed with the that of a terrorist and it exposes

the human bias behind the search engines. Ekstroms argument, however, focuses on the appeals

of logos.

Throughout his argument, Ekstrom explained many concepts to his audience. He uses

logos, or the logical appeal, to convince them. He began by creating a boundary between a

search engines capability of regurgitating facts versus knowledge, which is based on opinion. He

claims that the search engine bias can only be seen when searching for knowledge, not fact. This

is important because his two example searches, that of Obama and Breivik, are not factual, but

instead are more knowledge-based. He then proceeds to discuss the process used by search

engines to locate pictures. He explains how google uses picture captions and picture file names

that match the search query to display and find search results. This very fact was manipulated by

people to publish the demeaning photos of both Obama and Breivik. This information sets up

Ekstroms main argument. He argues that the bias lies in Google removing the search result of
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Obamas monkey photo, while ignoring Breiviks photo. He tries to explain the bias behind

Googles intervention. Breivik is a terrorist who destroyed government buildings and killed

children. Ekstrom also mentions that Breivik actually killed eighty people in that process. This

statistic is primarily used to logically turn the audience against Breivik. By making his own

audience side against Breivik, Ekstrom effectively exposes their tendency to judge people. Since

the audience is now hostile against Breivik, they will agree with Googles lack of intervention

when it came to Breiviks search results. This is the moral bias Ekstrom was trying to uncover all

along.

In addition to Ekstroms use of ethos and logos, he successfully manipulates the audience

through his use of pathos, or emotional appeals. The aforementioned juxtaposition of the two

contrasting figures also serve to appeal to the audiences emotions. Obamas monkey photo is

likely to anger the audience. This anger will be satiated when Ekstrom reveals that the photo was

removed by Google. However, in the case of Breivik it is the opposite. After the audience is told

of Breiviks crimes, they will also be angry, but their anger will be satiated by the fact that the

photo was not taken down. It gives the audience a sense of justice knowing that Breivik was

represented by dog poop. This allows Ekstrom to identify the audiences feelings as the same

humanistic bias displayed by Google. He essentially puts the audience in the identical situation.

As he then concludes his argument, he enumerates many common judgements performed by

people. Through the use of parallel structure, he lists these common prejudices with the hope that

his audience will feel guilty. It is this feeling of guilt which inevitably pushes his audience to be

cognizant of their inherent biases, which are seen perforating through the digital world.

The culmination of these three rhetorical appeals make Ekstroms argument unbelievably

effective. His use and selection of Obama and Breivik were crucial in shaping the persuasion of
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his speech. His language and delivery were also effective since he was able to clearly deliver his

message. Despite his success and flawless delivery, his argument was not representative of all

search engines. He attempted to prove and identify the moral bias held by search engines, but he

only used one example. He only presented two instances of search engine bias. He was wrong to

expect his audience to believe the moral bias of search engines, in general, because he has not

even considered other popular search engines available. He cannot rightfully expect his audience

to encourage the binding of the humanities and technology by only presenting two instances. His

argument would have been more globally applicable if he presented more than two situations.

Although he was not able to reach out to a global audience, his argument was more than enough

to convince his intended audience. He succeeds in identifying the humanistic bias that shines

through the binary digital world.


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References

Ekstrom, A. (2015, December 07). The Moral Bias Behind Your Search Results [Video file].

Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vBggxCNNno

Michelle Obama [Online image]. (2009). Retrieved from

https://graneyandthepig.wordpress.com/2009/11/25/google-removes-michelle-obama-

monkey-picture/

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