Persuasive Elements and Techniques Freshmen English

Propaganda Techniques  What are they?  The methods and approaches used to further a cause  Examples  Political  Commercial  Religious  Civil

Propaganda Techniques  Why are they used?  To manipulate reason and emotion  To persuade you to  Believe in someone  Buy an item  Vote a certain way

Most Commonly Used Propaganda Techniques  Name Calling  Used to attack a person, not the topic/idea  Glittering Generalities  General statements that cannot be proved or disproved  Transfer  Attempt to convey the prestige of a positive symbol to a person or idea UnAmerican GoodThe Best Candidate American Flag as backdrop for Candidate

Most Commonly Used Propaganda Techniques (cont.)  False Analogy  Two things are portrayed as being similar  Testimonial  “Big Name” personalities are used to endorse a product or idea  Plain Folks  Ads used to depict people as ordinary  Card Stacking  Words may be omitted in an ad or commercial, leading to a series of half-truths

Most Commonly Used Propaganda Techniques (cont.)  Bandwagon  Encourages you to think that because everyone else is doing something, you should do it too.  Either/Or Fallacy  AKA “Black & White” Thinking  Only two choices: If you’re not for us, you’re against us  Faulty Cause and Effect  B follows A, so A must cause B

Errors of Persuasion  Errors of Faulty Logic  Errors of Attack  Errors of Weak Reference

Errors of Faulty Logic  Contradiction  Information presented is in direct opposition to other information within the same argument  Accident  Someone fails to recognize that an argument is based on an exception to the rule  False Cause  Temporal order of events is confused with causality  Begging the Question  A person makes a claim and then argues for it by using the same statements or arguments  AKA “Circular Reasoning”

Errors of Faulty Logic (cont.)  Evading the issue  Someone sidesteps an issue by changing the subject  Arguing from ignorance  Someone argues that a claim is justified because its opposite cannot be proven  Composition and Division  Composition: an assertion about a whole that is true of its parts  Division: an assertion about all of the parts that is true about the whole

Errors of Attack  Poisoning the Well  A person is so committed to a position that he/she explains away absolutely every other offer in opposition  Ad Hominem  A person rejects a claim based on derogatory facts about the person making the claim  Appealing to Force  Someone uses threats to establish the validity of the claim

Errors of Weak Reference  Appeal to Authority  Authority is evoked as the last word on an issue  Appeal to the People  Someone attempts to justify a claim on the basis of popularity  Appeal to Emotion  An emotion-laden “sob” story is used as proof for a claim

Your job: Finish taking notes by writing a summary at the end of what you have learned. Homework: Watch ads on TV (or look for an ad in a newspaper or on the internet.) Describe what the ad is for and what it looks like. Explain at least two persuasive elements used. Would you buy/use this product? Explain