Mahoney’s Advanced Comp Blog

For writing a piece in prison, this is magnificent from Antonio Gramsci. Who knew ideas on this could invoke precise thinking?

What I took in from the work was that the term ‘Intellectuals’ means a certain bellwether to society; leadership with a capacity of knowledge that can shift societies. He questions whether intellectuals are an independent group or broken down into a specialized category.

He starts by saying every social group has a root of some sort of entrepreneur, which I agree. Someone out there needs to provide inspiration to a group by making progress by bestowing confidence.

He also lists the typical class of intellectuals–Eccleciastics. They are chalk full of religious ideology, morale, charity, justice, and public school agendas. They are organized & settled through Arisocracy.

Determining ‘Intellectuals’ and ‘Non Intellectuals’ according to Gramsci is weighted by what direction professional activity goes by, not just immeadiate social function. (Elaboration/Muscular Nervous Effort)

I like his analysis on the problem.

People today all can be enlisted as self-conceived ‘intellectuals’ but there needs to be a stopping point because a surplus of jobs would be inferior to one’s choosing. Gramsci nails it by declaring measurement has to come by innovation of physical & social world for a new foundation to be accounted for. The modern times are swimming with experts, pundits, and intellectuals but it becomes a riddle for myself deciding who the real voice of arguement (or logic) may be.

I’ve read chunks of Hermann & Chomsky’s profound article and I found it quite in detail of some ideas I formulated long ago but without the credibility of my own scope. I do enjoy the fact that Chomsky diligently spliced all the details and showed off charts, statistics to prove his insights.

A few words that I need to look up in random thought would be–Aggregate and Contingency…they seemed to be keys to a better understanding of this article in my outlook.

Aside, my main objective going into discussion is what Hermann & Chomsky are trying to open to an audience. Are they saying propaganda is a mechanism systematically used with gadgetry (as in the filters) to spread a macro message that takes away other thoughts concerning local news? Is it certain ownerships and trades seek out affirmation from the wealthy and zip line the most ‘worthy’ news to the public?  (One point does say “the mass media are interested in attracting audiences with buying power…”). There is a central theme or point these authors come across, and it is the dead of night so I will try to figure this dilemma out later Wednesday afternoon if I can.

Though I thought this article was a little difficult to understand, and get through, it did prove some interesting points I didn’t know about before reading. For example, the fact that the propaganda model actually has crucial ingredients in order for it to succeed; without these steps, it would crumble. This is actually true for a lot of things, now I think about it; every single part is essential. For the media, these steps are even more important as competition has become more fierce, since there are a lot more outlets than there have been in years past. Some outlets have even been threatened and directly attacked, which I think is a bit extreme. However, this proves just how desperate people are for recognition, and most importantly money. Besides the different ingredients, the media is also compiled of different tiers, the top tier supplying the lower ones with important international and national news. Not surprisingly, the television makes up the top tier, as most people receive their news from it. However, since this article was printed in the 1980s, I have to wonder if the internet has surpassed the TV, as nowadays people seem to constantly be online.

Reading “A Propoganda Model” I had an epiphany.Either money is the root of all evil, or we just tend to choose what comes natural–self preservation, the pursuit of hapiness, love and all that good stuff Bernays touches on which money can definetely help achieve in today’s society–over something that Americans have been forced to create in order to live in a somewhat organized fashion: Democracy.
Media executives, Chomksy and Edwards point out, is tiered. The top of this tier which is dominated by the prestigous and the wealthy and heavily influenced by those who are suppose to inforce our democracy. Through several filters, this tier decides whats newsworthy or not and feeds it to lower tiers of media, who may or may not be practicing new productions in an ethical manner themselves. This means that the elites manage our public discourse, does it not?
With media taking advertising dollars from companies, this adds another set of elites that have a say on what is new and what is not. And the private citizen, who is not all-knowing, absorbs this information as news, and not polished and influenced information.
So why does this all happen? I think its simple–as simple as defing life in one sentence– its starts with our human nature for preservation and advancement the basis for most people’s rhetoric. If I was thown money to keep my compnay alive I just might fall into the same trap that private media has fallen into. Manufactured government stands no chance against instinctual rhetoric. We are all curroupt in our small ways. It just happens to be on a bigger scale when you become an elite and ther’es a ton of money involved.

I just finished reading ‘A Propaganda Model’ and I will admit I was not a big fan. The reading was very rough to get through, but I understood what it was the authors were trying to say.

The biggest theme I took from the article was that the mass media is controlled by many other individuals and companies. So while they are trying to control and manipulate the public, someone bigger than the media companies is trying to control them. I think it is interesting how this process works, and in all honesty I think it is fair. Media companies should be exploited just as we are being exploited as the public.

Overall, I think this article was slow but proved several good points and I understood the overall themes of the article.

I am rushed for time right now which is why I can not think of what else I would like to respond about.

This is What Living Like This Does
Swaying public opinion nowadays is an everyday routine for most of the population of this world. Whether it is in forms of religion, politics, fashion, musical trends, lifestyle choices, cultures, etc., public opinion can be molded and changed in the matter of a second. It can be swayed in many ways, acting upon any number of emotions, morals and logical reasons. As a society, we strive to act wholly together to support our homeland values and nurture induced patriotism for our ‘ beloved motherland.’ Although, acting wholly for a main concern, we each have individualistic views and purposes our ‘selves’ work into the whole, giving many perspectives in to the “American Dream.” Edward Bernays talks about this when he says; “We repeat constantly our habits and beliefs until they become a cumulative retrogressive force.” But, to advance society further and flow with the ever forceful inertia of the changing of times, we as a civilization are constantly administered products and services by means of advertisement and the public relations swaying us to lean where the leaders want us to, to move our society as a whole further in an advanced state of total choice control. Bernays also states, “It is the power of the small group to sway the larger public in its attitude towards ideas,” in which, “New Ideas, new precedents, are continually striving for a place in the scheme of things.”
To get to the point where a group can sway public opinion, there are many steps and strategies used to come about the plan to do it. There are many ways, but mainly you must understand the psychology of the public itself: what are they, who are they in society, what are their jobs, what is their place in the world, what do they want, what do they need, etc. To sway public opinion you must understand the public, before you understand the idea/product/service.
In turning the views of people, you have to hit the source, and the rest will trickle down from there. Bernays was a master of this craft, affecting what fasionistas and sophisticates were wearing as well as the lower and middle classes. By striking Paris, the capital of fashion he could make American products more wanted then trying at home, because Americans naturally will buy something American mad, instead of buying foreign, especially “if the French approve.” Although already available and know in America, American velvet wasn’t doing too strong, but after premiering American velvet lines at the Louvre in Paris, they became the cat’s meow in America.
Another way to look at this is through Walter Lippmann’s approach of the disenchanted man, or private person, “In the cold light of experience he knows that his sovereignty is a fiction. He reigns in theory, but in fact he does not govern.” This is a notable quote as to the American public are in fact, dumb. We mold and shift opinion so many times, it has become an everyday ritualistic frenzy. We are force-fed advertisements by the millions a day; most we are not even aware of. Thinking of just logos alone, I could rattle off a bunch and a regular person could associate them to the specific company in which they represent. The private person may not feel as though they are a big part of society, but in he grand scheme of it all, they represent a number, a percentage of who is being active in public. It can range if they buy from certain retailers; grocery to clothing, or in politics, religion, and regular morals and beliefs.
An example would be the Abercrombie and Fitch Company (A&F Co.), an upscale retail store that has up-to-date fashion trends for multiple age ranges, from kids to grandparents. One thing you won’t see that existed in years prior were advertisements for them. A few years ago, you would see television commercials, magazine and circular ads also. After the big commotion they caused and how they affected fashion across America, they no longer needed it. They did what was mentioned in The Persuaders, “create loyalty above reason.” They don’t need many advertisements any longer, because they’re so widely known and acknowledged by their followers, that now, the most simplistic for of Public Relation is implemented at no cost to the company, not by the company but by it’s own public, the consumer; that is word of mouth and consumer wear of the product. A&F Co. sold well indeed, appealing to sexuality and intimacy among the public, as well as comfort and fashion. How else would they get a guy to spend 200 dollars on a single pair of jeans, if it were not to impress a woman with a, “Hey look what I’m wearing, I can afford this, and I look ‘damned good’ you should date me mental.” Millions of people are devoted to stores like this, also including Hollister, BeBe, American Eagle, it is the appeal of wanting to be something rather than a speckle in this big blank minded canvas of a nation. Lippmann makes a great statement that ties in to this when he says about the private person, “I shall not denounce him further. My sympathies are with him, for I believe that he has been saddled with an impossible task and that he is asked to practice an unattainable ideal.”
Politically, as a nation, we are not political, this democratic freedom we so love to have, we rarely use, as we elect officials on principle in the beginning and trust then to execute throughout their entire career as that official. We intentionally hand our lives over to a few hundred people, to decide our present and our future. Lippmann basically says later on that we as a public believe what we are told, because we have an everlasting want for knowledge. Also, the difference between an executive and regular member of the general public, if something is hard to us, for instance, astro-physics to me is like the Chinese language, I don’t understand it, nor do I need to, but as long as there is someone who does, that can tell me what I need to know, and not why I should, then I am fine with that. That person would be the executive in that field as where I would be the member of the general public. In retrospective, if it came to matters of Public Relation, the role would be reversed.

Logos vs. Pathos:
The Battle of a Lifetime

The art of persuasion may be the most intricate and most complicated art in mankind’s existence. Why? Persuasion exists in every aspect of life, with every private, public, or executive decision (as Walter Lippmann would explain it), and will continue to exist as long as rhetoric exists. Our society is based on communication, and that communication will always have a purpose for coming about, also known as the rhetoric of one’s actions. And as long as rhetoric exists—with public and private forces to steer it—there will always be issues in marketing and advertising, politics and governing, and any other aspect of life that requires decisions that affect large masses of people. How these decisions are made are based on a simply complicated theory I call Logos vs. pathos.
When private interests are involved in decision-making, it is not rare to see someone act according to their own interest: pathos over logos or emotion over logic. When and advertiser markets a product, he or she wants to appeal to a consumer’s emotions and create “loyalty beyond reason,” a prime example of someone taking advantage of pathos winning over logos. Humans are run by emotion, and sometimes this emotion does not have a logical base, and The Persuaders know how to take advantage of this, a sign of logos over pathos, it maybe—maybe not.
The Persuaders:
The clutter crisis in advertising can be credited to advertisers themselves. The more they try to reach and audience, the harder it is to reach the audience who is presented with so many acts of persuasion. I personally do not see a solution to the clutter crisis because advertising companies will not back down and cannot back down if they wish to stay competitive in the market in which they are competing in. An advertiser’s only hope is to appeal to a consumer’s emotion and hope they bite.
The second part of the video dove into persuasion in politics and there is a reason why the general population is skeptical about politics and governing. Although they are public figures with great responsibility, politicians fall into the same trap that every human is vulnerable to: the battle of pathos vs. logos. Every politicians wants as many votes for their cause as possible, this cause is specific to the person, they will try to persuade as many people as possible that they are the best candidate to head whatever operation they deem essential “for the good of the good of the community at large.” The problem is that the community at large is so mentally diverse that they will all have differing ideals and priorities. The Persuaders known as advertisers turn to something called narrowcasting: appealing to specific demographics’ priorities and interests. The problem with this is that it promotes individualism over a common agenda for the general population (the way broadcasting can). But as long as politicians get their votes, they are happy to get them however possible: pathos over logos yet again.
A prime example of a tie between pathos and logos would be Luntz’s Word lab. Luntz uses logos over pathos in analyzing what words affect people the most and get the most positive reaction in favor of the people he is working for. He is appealing to a population’s emotions (pathos) but his rational and research is completely logically based.
Bernays vs. Lippmann:
Bernays believes that there are simple reasons for people wanting to control public opinion: “The basic instincts of self preservation, procreation, and love…” He defines public opinion as “the power of a group to sway larger publics in its attitudes towards ideas,” rhetoric at its finest. He emphasizes the amount complex and undefined research that goes into analyzing the affects of a person looking to sway public opinion. In reality, all kinds of publics have differing opinions so, I think, they all balance out. Which is somewhat along the lines of what Bernays is saying when he wrote “ a public that learns more and more how to express itself will learn more and more to overthrow tyranny of every sort,” by tyranny Bernays means any person or persons seeking to sway public opinion in their favor.
Lippmann, on the other hand, believes that most private citizens are helpless in the world of public opinion. They do not have the knowledge to know what is being decided by persons in positions of power and only care about what directly affects them: Pathos over logos in the sense that the private citizen cannot be all-knowing of every public opinion influencing bit of information. They have a good reason to not know everything that’s going on because quite simply they have their own matters to take care of, their own opinions to influence. Lippmann says that public opinion is run by those in positions of power and only matters to those in positions of power and the private citizen is left out in the cold. Contradictory to what Bernays believes.

I enjoyed reading the parts of each reading when they spoke about the art of language. I find it interesting how people take things differently from only one piece of work. I very much enjoyed Luntz’s ten rules. “Good language is like the Energizer Bunny. It just keeps going…and going…and going”. Rule four did make sense in that lengthy explinations for certain things to create language that is different, and sometimes difficult for the reader to process. Repetition is a huge principle in advertisement. Without it, consumers won’t stick to a brand or a product. When picking a new brand or a product, consumers want to hear catchy first impression lines that stick to them. I guess another reason why tag lines are a huge part of the selling business is because it helps people remember what they bought before. For example, whenever i go into the grocery store to pick up a pack of towels, I usually see tons of brands on the shelves. If a certain brand had a certain logo or catchy phrase, I might turn to that brand as oppossed to another. Honestly though, if I were to walk into the grocery store and see the Charmin Brand, I would most likely pick up a pack of Charmin towels because they are the only towel brand that I know of that has a catch song… “Charmin Ultra…!”

While reading Lakoff’s article, I found myself very confused. I felt like the piece was repeating itself, just saying that the thinking process in the consumers’ brain is stuck between analyzing and picking apart language, and coming up with how to say something and making an idea. He seems to think that language has a huge impact on our ideas, which is basically what Luntz was saying to begin with.

Lakoff pulls off a sharp association to how and why framing is done in American politics. To be honest, I can’t hold a candle over my knowledge of politics. Conservatives, Liberals, Right Wing/Left Wing is something far from my scope, but I’m slowly understanding.

For Lakoff, I believe he wrote in the sarcastic tone that fuels this article. His metaphor was spot-on as in Bush’s tax relief and wasteful spending garnered cheers and jeers from either side.

I like Lakoff’s analysis of how (from Conservatives) that Nurturance & Care it is immoral to proliferate social programs. With a wity tone, Lakoff says they aren’t greedy…or stupid (which exactly gels with the article) to prove a point that the language (and excessive) of insults illustrates who they are in his opinion.

Lakoff might be trying to illustrate that the downfall in some communication may be that the USA is too self-interested? The ways of mapping out what a certain nation might be in terms of a child or adult also elicits some reasons to why the scale goes well in-favor of us sometimes on how we manage our authority.

(I might be posting further response to this later….just catching up right now)

After reading Lakoff’s “Framing 101″, I found myself a little confused and also a little angry toward some of the issues that were brought up. When James Dobson’s “strict father model” was brought up, I was definitely feeling opposition. His model suggests that parents are supposed to punish their children physically. Parents are able to teach their children right from wrong, morally without using physical means of punishment. Sometimes learning by experience is physically abusing enough depending on the situation. I am also on the fence about the statement that a strict father should “protect the family from a dangerous world”, because of course a father should protect the family but only to a certain degree. I think that some readers would take this too seriously and could create a more threatening problem to the families across the globe by almost protecting too much? Therefore when Lackoff gives his speech before being exposed to the readings of Dobson, I felt that it was his right to base his own perspectives of what a “strict father model” should look like. I had a little bit of difficulty understanding the progressive stand-point that Lackoff put forward but I did however become interested in the way he had a break-down of what each type of progressive person is and how they react to the different situations at hand.

Upon reading “Framing 101: How to take Back Public Discourse,” I felt like Lakoff talks in colloquial terms that we can all understand. One part that made me both laugh and ponder was when brought up Nixon saying, “I am not a crook.” Since Nixon called himself that, we all immediately connected him with that word. He gave himself that negative connotation. This connects to Sarah Palin in the precious election because she constantly made herself look like an idiot. When asked what types of newspapers she read, she could not give an educated answer. Thus, through deductive reasoning, the American public connected her with a less intelligent crowd. Honestly, I think that had a blunder on McCain’s platform.
Later on in the article, Lakoff starts to throw many philosophical terms at us. On page 13, he lists 6 values that we are born into which make us moral people. However, if we were to ask many government officials, I am sure that they would not agree that they have all of these values. As a nation, every individual should share these values, but that is not the case. If it were that way, we would not be in the war right now. It will be interesting to see how the 2012 election will be, since we will surely be in the economic depression still. What new phrases will be brought to life? I guess we can all sit back and wait a couple of years.

Lakoff does something very interesting in this article. He takes a step back from language itself and concentrates more on the way in which the language can be conveyed (built) in order to achieve optimum results. He recognizes that there is a very fine line between analyzing language and thought and effectively creating language and thought. Lakoff stresses the importance of framing an issue from your own perspective. Lakoff finds that it is imperitive that we define our ideas, carefully choose the language in which to present them, and build an infrastructure to communicate them. The constucting of frames and language seem to go hand in hand according to Lakoff as well. He says that “when you think you lack words, what you really lack are ideas. Ideas come from frames.” In this way there is a definite connection between frames and language. Lakoff also warns against using the language of your opponent. Although this technique seems effective at first glance, all it is really doing is picking out a frame that you do not want.

While going through all of the articles and thinking back on the movie that we had watched one question keeps popping up in my mind when it comes to rhetoric. Who makes the final decision ? I mean there are millions of rhetorical people in this world all trying to be heard. The billboards and other such things that cloud our vision and make us lose focus. All of this is out their in the world asking each one of us to make a choice. At the end of the day are we really making a choice or are the choices already made for us by the persuaders and politicians and just people in general. Maybe I am reading too far into it but even amongst the articles the question does come up but no one seems to have an answer.

I thought it was interesting, in the article, how Luntz mentions not only rules imposed by the government, but also unspoken, every day rules that no one even thinks about, such as politeness, and it’s true, I never thought about those type of rules either. Communication too, was brought up, and I liked how he mentioned that, amid all the clutter, noise, and other sorts of persuasion, how does one make their voice heard? This is something I wondered myself until I read that it is words, and not fancy, ideal words but rather practical words, ones that work, that everyone will be able to understand. This is true for persuasion in general; in order to capture an audiences attention, the last thing someone should do is use many overly-complicated words, because, if the audience is anything like me, they won’t understand parts of it and begin to tune the speaker out. Some people may understand even less than me for, reading the handout, I was astounded to find that about half of all Americans haven’t even gotten a college education. Therefore, it is essential to use simpler words, so that the overall language clarifies rather than obscures. It is also much easier to remember something simple, and I loved the examples Luntz uses because it is so true. I’ll probably never forget those silly, cereal taglines. And even if something, like a tagline, is long, Americans automatically shorten it over time. There are abbreviations for so many things it’s no wonder we prefer simplistic language, that and the fact that we simply don’t have time to lengthen words, as seen in things like texting and IMs. The second critical aspect of conversation is whether the statement is honest or not, and I agree that that definately makes a difference. If what a person says turns out to be a lie, chances are one wouldn’t really want to listen to him or her again, for what are the chances that they would be lying again?
People should consider the words they use for, as stated in the article, those words eventually define who they are. This can be a good or a bad thing, and I liked the example they used, of how in just 15 words, John Kerry, now viewed as a flip-flop, his successful run against Bush began to drop, leading to his eventual loss.

After reading Luntz’s work I felt that I had a much broader knowledge of the way that language affects the way a company or politician works. Reading about the ten rules that Luntz created was an interesting approach to not only help producers in creating a product or service that is well loved, but to also inform consumers of the processes that could effectively be taken in order to retrieve the business from them that is expected. My favorite rule, or the one that I think I am most likely to fall for is the rule based on asking questions. I think it could be a tricky rule to follow, because the question that you send out, I feel has to combine some of the other rules, such as the length of the question, and of course your word choice. I think questions have to be short, clear, but also make the consumer think. I think question slogans are much more likely to grab people’s attention as well as keep their focus as if to answer the question inside their own mind(stated that the company is successful with their slogan).  Luntz’s articles were really interesting, and I really felt like he connected to the reader by not only discusses the language used in advertisements but in using his own rules when writing this article.

This is just the beginning part of my draft where I started along the topic of emotion and the way it related to the works that were read and watched…

After exposing myself to the readings and viewings of what the “public opinion” is all about, I realized that without the public opinion companies and products would have no means of contacting the mind of the consumers. The public opinion is essential in finding out what people desire to have in their possession throughout society. It’s vital to know what how and why people want and buy the things that they do. Also, how would businesses be able to satisfy the consumer if they have no idea what the consumers are interested in and what pertains to their individual lifestyle. The most crucial way I found that businesses are now able to determine what defines a product, would be how they connect with the emotional mind of the consumer. Bernays’ touches upon the idea that producers can tap into the emotional mind of consumers almost unconsciously if they take the right steps and listen to what the consumer’s desire.

After watching the Persuaders video, I found that advertisement plays an important role in the way a company grabs the attention of a consumer. Advertisements float all over the place, and many times a consumer can’t ignore them even if they try. Advertisements in all shapes and sizes exist practically every where, it’s a wonder how people could ever even attempt to get away from them. Which brings me to one point based on advertisements: When a company pushes a product too far with advertisements, consumers may start to overlook them. It’s similar to the analogy from the Persuaders video when they talk about how roaches infest a house and you can spray them thousands of times but eventually the roaches will become immune to the spray and find a way around them. That is exactly how consumers look at over-used advertisements. It’s up to businesses to create a “happy-medium” between getting their product out there for people to see but to also not over-do the way the consumer feels about the product. The object is to sell, not annoy.

Edward Bernays’ also brings about the idea of “propaganda” being a positive and essential idea toward society. He states in his article, “..a necessary intervention in the communicative chaos of modern life, a service to the public that helps them interpret and act in a confusing world.” Although his idea was not popular by many government officials and high-standing citizens, Bernays found a way to tap into the mind of the consumers and create emotional riots amongst consumers for a product. For example, the cigarette companies in the early years based their ads off of men smoking cigarettes. However, the advertisement company took a drastic turn when the ads started to target women, in order to make women feel like men. Bernays’ ideas spread and created the idea of the “torches of freedom” which would allow women to protest to the fact that they too can be labeled as men if they wish to smoke.

This was a way to prove to the producers that targeting the emotional needs, (in this case women) is the most influential and successful way of getting into the mind of the consumers. However, I feel that this could cause a problem in deciding which group you wish to target for your products. This is one idea that keeps advertisers busy when trying to figure out with which group of people would be the best people to sell too, and how exactly you would get into the minds of that one particular group. Advertisers work daily basing their creative ideas off of the groups that they wish to distinguish to their product and coming out with effects that either make or break it in the advertising industry almost immediately

After reading and watching, I’ve realized emotion plays a critical role as Frank Luntz’s research on linguistics helped fuel decisions. A good chunk of his findings emphasizes people are sold by the precise style of rhetoric and lexis which plays a larger role in such innovations as ‘narrow casting’ and the uses of research orchestrated by the company Acxiom, which looks into close hand profiles of countless U.S. citizens. Crunching numbers, companies like Acxiom willingly pursue people of all races, creeds, and areas to find the right fit. Like an invasive internet date, they are trying to weave the right ways of winning people over.

I enjoyed the first part of the Persuaders.  I love walking around New York City and seeing the billboards and creative advertisements all around, bunched into one big decorative scene.  I thought that advertisements showing up in movie scenes and tv shows, like the cologne/perfume in Sex and the City and the Fed Ex truck and packages in the one movie, were clever.  I never noticed them before; they made me want to go back to movies I had watched just to find the advertisements.  The other part that interested me was when the man was talking about advertisment dying down over time because of television.  Commercials can be skipped over now with Tivo and Comcast, causing commercials to be neglected.  Also, I thought it was a good point when it was said that Coke a Cola needs not to be advertised as much as other products and things because it is already a known product. 

Part two of the Persuaders was on persuasion, which made me think about my neighbor. He is a salesman, and everything that was brought up in this part of the video related to him in some way.  Just the way that persuasion is used to convince consumers is crazy to me.  It’s almost like the information that they gather from us to get us to buy or use their sales is tweaked so that we just fall for it for reasons that do not appeal to us later.  I enjoyed the first part of the video a lot more than the second if i were to choose.

Part II of the Persuaders was equally interesting to me as the first part. However, I definitely feel that the second part was left open-ended. I believe that the movie would have been a lot better if they spent just as much time exploring the other methods of persuasion as they did for the first part which was mainly advertising. Advertising is not the only method of persuasion that businesses use in order to get across to the media. However, in this movie I felt that the main focus was entirely on advertisement and they just kinda threw in the catagory of “other” means of persuasion in order to touch upon different methods. The movie definitely caught my attention in ways I haven’t really looked at when it comes to persuasion from a business’ standpoint, seeing as I am just another consumer that is falling for every means of persuasion a company throws at me. I just think it would have made the movie much more believable and therefore creditable if they proved to viewers that even though advertisement is a huge factor in getting the public aware of a product, there are other ways to persuade consumers to focus on one company.

At the beginning of class today, I asked you to spend about 10 minutes writing down some of your thoughts to the following two prompts:

1. Do you have any additional thoughts about the film, The Persuaders? Do you see any connections between the film and the articles by Bernays and Lippmann that you read for today?
2. What do you think about the way that Bernays and Lippmann make their cases for particular models of persuasive communication (propaganda/public opinion)?

It was nice to see some exploration into the psychology of all of this, however I had been hoping for a bit more. It was sort of frightening to learn of the various ways we as consumers are targeted for advertising methods. The political part didn’t seem like anything new to me, but I feel it was important to include for those unaware of just how dangerous political advertising can be. An example like the one we viewed at the end of class could easily sum up just how out of whack these political campaign strategies tend to become. My favorite part was in the middle when (can’t think of his name, but studied language and word usage in advertising) was discussing how companies can be more successful by having the same ideas, just projecting them differently. A few swapping of words and his research concludes that it will make something more appealing, and ultimately more successful.  This is something I am interested in following up on. It strikes me because people will not necessarily change their opinion of something based on any hard facts of information given; it may simply sound more friendly and persuading.

I enjoyed the first half better than this half. But there was the idea of narrowcasting in this half of the film that is very pertinant in the world of persuasion. It is how advertisers and others in this business save money. They decide who would best benefit from their product and they go after that niche based on the type of information they steal from our lives. I am not saying that it is fair or even right, but they do it and will continue to do it. Any information they can obtain, they will because it helps them sell a product. Although this business does not exist without the consumer, they could care less about how we feel or what products we are ACTUALLY interested in. They just want to sell their product and they will do whatever it takes and go to any extent to be able to do that. Right or Wrong, Fair or Unfair, they really see no difference.

I enjoyed this part of the movie about the same as the other half. Both parts were very interesting. I really liked the idea of listening to the everyday people such as cab drivers and antique dealers. Using intellect verus emotion, using the word lab, death tax instead of estate tax, climate change instead of global warming. Narrowcasting is interesting, but I dont like the way they do it, getting all the information about people through acxicom, if we wanted our information out there we would volunteer it, not sneak it from our credit cards and stuff like that.

“To create loyalty beyond reason”? That was what stuck out in my mind from the first video. Is it me or is that kind of unethical? The Persuaders will go to any length to get our buck, would’nt they? What happen to the good ol’ days of promoting the product for what it is, not for what emotional strings it pulls when you watch a 30 second commercial. But with so much clutter, Persuadors have to find different means to reach, even of it means persuading to think that Downy will make your baby fall asleep on you in your king-sized bed, in your all white master bedroom. Downy is downy! Brands as a ready-made identity, makes no sense, to me the product is either good quality or not. I don’t think there is a solution to cluttering in the United States, and it will be a major issue in the future years to come.
The second video also tugged on some of my strings, although I can relate to it alot more. I am a advocate in the use of words so that your proposition is more favorable. As long as you live up to the words that you are promoting. Which does not happen too often in the world of politics. But, the thing about persuasion and rhetoric is we are never going to get rid of it- we all use it- so we must educate ourselves so that we are not so easily persuaded