Political Parties- Propaganda

IT’S MORNING AGAIN, IN AMERICA Copy and paste this link: https://www.history.com/topics/us- presidents/ronald- reagan/videos/morning-in-america How did this ad make you feel? What do you think of Ronald Reagan and his message?

What is propaganda? Media that intends to influence the thoughts of the public and promote a political point of view.

Who uses propaganda? The Military The Media Advertisers Politicians You and I

Glittering Generalities The technique of Glittering Generalities uses broad, vague, and pleasant language to influence the attitudes of the audience. It often appeals to universally supported ideas of freedom, liberty, love of country, and desire for peace. Glittering Generalities provide nice descriptions without any information backing them up. Example: “Our candidate will bring us peace and prosperity.” Notice how the example claims that their candidate will bring peace and prosperity, two things that everyone is in favor of, without providing any details on how they will bring these things to us

Name-Calling Uses negative words or attack ads to discredit a candidate’s opponent. The goal of this technique is to push the audience to the candidate who is “name-calling”.

Testimonial/ Endorsement Uses a famous or well known person to recommend a product/candidate to their target audience.

Just Plain folks Just Plain Folks presents their candidate as a relatable and average person. This tactic attempts to cause the audience to favor the candidate because they can relate to them and believe they have similar life experiences. Example: “My father worked in a tire factory and taught me the value of hard work.”   These claims may be true, but our leaders are rarely “average” people. They are often highly educated and often do not share the life experiences of their constituents.

Bandwagon "Bandwagon propaganda" is a type of advertising that attempts to draw people to a specific cause by giving the impression that many others have already joined and are happier or better off for doing so.  Example: “More Americans support our candidate than any other in the race.” Remember the Bandwagon deception: Just because a person or idea has support, that does not validate their argument.

Transfer/Symbol Transfer invokes the feelings the audience has for certain symbolism (flags, veterans, Christianity) and attempts to associate those positive feelings with the candidate. Transfer usually involves lots of patriotic imagery shown alongside the candidate.   Example: An ad showing the candidate speaking in front of a group of veterans. All Americans have a positive view of our veterans, so the ad attempts to get you to transfer your feelings about veterans to the candidate.

Stacked Cards Stacking the Cards is when an argument is manipulated to play to the strengths of a specific candidate. This tactics ignores arguments or evidence that portray their candidate in a negative light and chooses to only focus on the positives. Example: “Our candidate has the best record on the environment.”   While this claim may be true, the opposing candidate may have a better record on many other issues.