Response to question #1 from Aarons Nov. 24th posting:

1) In the textbook written by Wood ward and Denton, the authors claim “Persuasion is a tool of communication. It can be used by both good and bad people for equally good or bad purposes…It is the motives of persuaders that determine if the use of specific strategies is good or bad. These motives provide a context for judgment” (342). Furthermore, the authors provide the example of academics and politicians using strategic emotional appeals to produce certain reactions from the audience that some might deem unethical or diverging too far away from statistics and logical appeals to prove a point. Woodward and Denton use the example of fear appeal to produce a teenage anti-drunk driving ad and deem it appropriate because of the ethical intentions of the message. Do you agree with the use of overtly emotional appeals rather than rational appeals? Can you think of an example to support your claim?

How do we define a good or bad purpose in the first place and who are we to decide what that means? What one deems as a good purpose another person could see as a bad purpose. If an anti smoking agency puts out an advertisement about smoking being dangerous and causing cancer then according to these rules we could deem the advertisement to be in good moral standing. However, if you consider the tobacco industry and that if the advertisement put out against smoking is successful causing a huge decrease in cigarette sales that hurts working class Americans employed by the tobacco companies, then the message could be seen as having a bad moral standing. It just depends on who is viewing what is said and how it is viewed.

I agree that Woodward and Denton make a relevant point in that politicians and academics can sometimes stray away from a good or bad moral framework to prove a point. I think that after a while it becomes too difficult to discern what is considered to be in a good or bad moral standing. As for the example of using fear appeal in producing a teenage anti-drunk driving advertisement with the use of overtly emotional appeals rather than a rational appeal, why not appeal to the emotions of teens? I don’t see anything wrong with it but consider what it means. This brings up the point of fantasy theme in the sense that if teens actually feel like drunk driving affects them directly they are more likely to take the issue seriously. However, in the end I don’t think it matters because in most fantasy theme instances the person playing out their fantasy eventually comes to realize that it is just a fantasy. Let me give you an example.

During my senior year in high school just before graduation my school put on a drinking and driving simulation using fear tactics to try and scare all the seniors about understanding the risks of drinking and driving. The simulation was based largely on fantasy theme. Basically, the senior class president was the prom king and the vice president was the prom queen. All of us knew them both on a personal level and they were friends to many of us. We came out to a car that was completely smashed with three people inside and the prom king who was supposed to be drunk had fake blood all over him. The prom queen had blood all over her inside the car and both the people in the back seat also had blood all over them. Fake of course. My high school actually had the fire department come and use the Jaws of Life to get the rest of the passengers out of the car and then a helicopter landed on the soccer field and actually air lifted the prom queen and passengers in the back seat from the field. As seniors we didn’t know that the school was going to make it that real. Everyone was shocked and many of us believed that it was real due to the great lengths our high school went to show us the dangers of drinking and driving. According to Woodward and Denton this example would be considered to be an emotional message with good ethical intentions.

This is a great example of using emotional appeals in the constructing of a teenage anti-drunk driving advertisement. The entire school was at the event so it wasn’t just seniors but we were obviously the target because we were going to graduate and many high school graduation parties involve alcohol. For several days everyone was really affected by the event. This was even after the senior class president was in class the next day. However, after a couple of days the fantasy was dismissed as exactly that, a fantasy. People still drank and drive on graduation and several reported instances from other schools in the area were about high school student fatalities. I guess my point is that it doesn’t matter whether you use emotional or rational appeals because in the end, people are going to do what they want to do. Even if you consider the message to be morally good in nature, the fact is that the demonstration offended some students. Not everyone is ready to handle a scene like that with blood and death. So, while it was morally good in the sense that the demonstration was trying to tell us to not drink and drive, it could still be considered offensive and a form of negative manipulation. After all, not all drinking and driving crashes result in brutal fatalities like the demonstrated one we observed. What are you thoughts on this?