Are we amusing ourselves to death?

Persuasion, Propaganda and Entertainment

Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death

“…in Huxley's vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.” From the Foreword

From the Foreword to Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death

“Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy.

“In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us.

“This book [

Amusing Ourselves to Death]

is about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right.

Television reality has become our reality

• “Television has become… the background radiation of the social and intellectual universe, … so familiar and so thoroughly integrated with American culture that we no longer hear its faint hissing in the background or see the flickering grey light.” • “There is no more disturbing consequence of the electronic and graphic revolution than this: that the world as given to us through television seems natural, not bizarre.” --From Chapter 5

Has TV turned our world into a Brave New World?

“…We have so thoroughly accepted [television’s] definitions of truth, knowledge and reality that irrelevance seems to us to be filled with import, and incoherence seems eminently sane. “Television… is transforming our culture into one vast arena for show business. It is entirely possible, of course, that in the end we shall find that delightful, and decide we like it just fine. This is exactly what Aldous Huxley feared was coming, fifty years ago.” from Chapter 5

How does TV affect you?

“People love technologies that undo their capacity to think” Image and caption from www.twoandahalfd.com

The Medium is the Message

It is impossible to separate media from their power structure.

Super powerful multinational companies produce the majority of media. Media messages tend to reflect the values and ideology of their producers and distributors.

WORLD BRIDGER MEDIA Antonio R. López

Products Have Magical Powers That Influence Human Emotions

• O ur system of mass media is driven by the commercial imperative to sell products.

• “Brands" and products become the most highly prized parts of • Human relations are almost always secondary products (Lopez).

media messages. • They have the power to grant love, happiness and esteem. • Their lack is nearly always portrayed as a cause of misery.

Lopez’s Media Deconstruction Key

To deconstruct a media sample, [such as a television show, magazine or tv ad} answer the following questions in order: 1. What is the context? What environment does the media example come from? What kind of magazine or what channel did the sample appear in?

2.

Who paid for the media? They're the real "storyteller." Companies don't pay millions of dollars for an ad with out a reason. What is it?

3. Who is being targeted? Who is the story being told to? Who are the consumers of the message? Who are the readers of the media?

Subtext

4.

Why is the storyteller presenting this message? What messages and values are being expressed?

5.

What kind of lifestyle is presented? Is it glamorized? How?

4.

What does the story say, and what does it mean? What is the text of the message? Is there a subtext?

7.

The medium constructs a story, whether or not you are consciously aware

How is the story constructed? What techniques is the storyteller using?

8.

9.

What technological tools or attention hooks are used?

What is not being told in the story? Is there missing information or counter-messages the advertiser doesn't want you to think about?

10.

Is the story accurate, fair, truthful and complete? In what ways is this a healthy and/or unhealthy example of media?

Copyright 2004 Antonio Lopez www.world-bridger.com

Advertising Analysis

Media employ specific techniques to construct believable stories. They hook our attention through

psychological devices

and

technical effects.

Technical effects

• • • • • •

Camera angles

enhance perspective, such as low angles that give the subject power.

Close-ups

provide emphasis.

Sound effects

animate products, giving them emotion.

Mise-en-scene

(set and setting inside camera frame) creates cultural and ideological context. Is the set a concert, a mansion, a shopping mall?

Accessories

enhance the product. What's being associated with the product, such as clothes, props, models?

Lighting

is used to draw your eye to certain details.

You, too, can be happy, attractive, and exhilarated if you buy our product Happy and attractive people

are made-up and constructed to enhance the message. •

Music

, popular songs and jingles create

mnemonic devices

program or trigger your memory.

to •

Special effects

bring inanimate things to life and make them exciting. This is especially true with children-targeted ads.

•

Editing

is used to pace and generate excitement. Notice how military and video game ads have very fast cuts, usually a scene change every second.

Common Attention Getting Hooks

•

Emotional Transfer

is the process of generating emotions in order to transfer them to a product. For example, a Coke ad shows happy, beautiful people but tells us nothing about the product. The point is to make you feel good and to transfer that feeling to the brand or product This is the number one and most important process of media manipulation.

•

Sex

sells, without exception.

Who’s afraid of a few flakes?

•

Fear

messages are directed at our insecurities, such as "no one will like you if you have dandruff," or "bald people are losers." This is a very common technique and extra attention is required to resist these messages.

C’mon. All your friends are doing it.

Fitting In

is a very common technique that tries to influence us by stating that if everyone else is buying the product, so should you. This is often seen in beer commercials, which promotes a "big lie" that everyone drinks (alcoholics are the main consumers of alcohol).

Symbols Not so subtle techniques …if you’re paying attention Humor Hype

“Get down at America's favorite waterpark!”

It’s the Best!

Vague Promises

like "might," "maybe," and "could" are red herrings that divert our attention. "Super Glue may heal cuts better than band aids,“ sounds absurd, but you will often hear claims as preposterous as this and it would still be true (because it can't be disproved).

“Hooked on Phonics worked for me!”

Testimonials

are statements by people explaining why certain products are great. Famous or plain folk, or actors can do them. This is more powerful when someone we really like or respect endorses a product(such as Tiger Woods or Michael Jordan).

Lifestyles of the rich and famous

“

Beautiful” people

are usually used to glamorize merchandise, especially unhealthy products like alcohol, tobacco and junk food. Models and actors generally have rare body types, and don't represent average people, but idealized notions of beauty that are constantly changing

Famous People

make products appealing and attractive through association.

Ordinary People

This is common in ads that stress community or family, like Wal-Mart.

are people that might be like you or me.

It’s Easy!

• Simple solutions are often used to convince us that a product will solve our problems, such as "bald spot hair spray will get you a date," or "doorknob disinfectant wipes keep us healthy." Larger ideological messages are common as well, such as "cars enable us to conquer nature." What story does this ad create?

He said, she said

Macho

is generally used to appeal to males, but not exclusively. It demonstrates masculinity and male stereotypes; these are common in military and tobacco ads.

Femininity

is another gender stereotype used in a variety of ads, from teen make-up commercials to alcohol ads.

You can say that again!

Repetition

is used to reiterate a sales pitch over and over again I bet you know who this is and what he is selling…and you didn’t need any hypnopaedia!

Logical Fallacies

A

fallacy

is a statement that makes an argument using faulty logic. • A fallacy may not be false, but often cannot be proven true or false. It is generally misleading • Sometimes advertisers, propagandists, and everyday people intentionally deceive with fallacies.

That doesn’t follow!

Non sequitur.

This term, literally translated, means "it does not follow." A

non sequitur

is an illogical statement, one which seems to draw a conclusion not supported by the premises.

My essay will get a good grade because I put a lot of effort into it.

Jump on the Bandwagon!

Bandwagon argument (argumentum ad populum)

bandwagon

A argument appeals to the beliefs or prejudices of the crowd. Such arguments often depend on popular generalizations and associations and are widely used in advertising and political campaigns.

Everyone believes Martin's ideas are stupid; Martin must be wrong. Drink Pepsi; it’s the choice of a new generation.

Either…or

•

False dichotomy ("Either...or" fallacy)

This is the fallacious presentation of two possibilities as the

only

possibilities. In many cases there

are

only two possibilities: everyone must either consume nourishment or die; a battery terminal is either negative or positive. Often, however, there are other possibilities, as there are, barring bizarre circumstances, in these cases:

Either the Government will silence dissenting voices or it will face anarchy I must pass Geometry, or my life will be ruined

Don’t be too hasty

•

Hasty generalization

Generalizations may well be right

most

of the time, but they are also wrong specific information but by an appeal to

some

of the time. Moreover, they are usually not supported by

common sense

or

common experience

. In short, generalizations present as

general

and

absolute

something which is

limited

and

contingent

. Often, arguments are based on

anecdotal evidence

on specific, undocumented case histories.

Mary's husband beats her; men always oppress women. My Italian brother-in-law makes superb pasta; all Italian men are great cooks

Would you like some red herring with that?

Red herring

A red herring is one which has been salted, dried, and smoked; it has a powerful and distinctive odour. As

Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable

points out, a red herring "drawn across a fox's path destroys the scent and sets the dogs at fault." In argument, a

red herring

describes a statement introducing an unrelated point instead of addressing the question under debate.

Loading students with hours of homework is pointless when the world is about to be destroyed by the greenhouse effect

Everything that glitters isn’t gold

Glittering Generalities (Argument by Slogan)

This is an important-sounding but unspecific claim. It cannot be proved true or false because it really says little or nothing.

"The Real Thing." "Simply the best," "the Right Stuff," "Nutrition That Works."

Glad and bad words

Loaded Words

This is also called the

glad and bad words fallacy

. It involves the use of emotive words to influence the reader. This technique is frequently used in advertisements to persuade us to buy things.

Bad words

are used to make us buy products to rid ourselves of things that we have been persuaded are undesirable.

Glad words

are used to make us buy products to obtain what we have been persuaded is desirable.

"Why suffer the embarrassment of morning mouth? Use ZYX toothpaste every evening and wake up to a fresh,

exciting mouth."

If you do that, the world will end!

Slippery Slope

The assumption that one event can cause of an undesirable chain reaction of events. The

slippery slope

fallacy is a case of

if-then

.

There is also an old saying about a camel's nose that is another example of

slippery slope

: "If you allow a camel to poke his nose into the tent, soon the whole camel will follow."*

"If you don't get to bed early, then you'll be too tired to do well on the GRE tomorrow. If that happens, then you won't get accepted into a decent graduate school, and you'll end up a washed-out alcoholic living in a trash-bin."

Something is making me feel good about Cottonelle, but I don’t know what it is.

Transfer

This fallacy appeals to people's respect or reverence of symbols, such as a politician standing in front of an American flag. There is also a good deal of transfer value in children, pets, or good-looking models.