Ads in the Classroom: A True/False Quiz
from Hugh Rank's Persuasion Analysis --- http://faculty.govst.edu/pa
Does your school has Channel One? Ask your teachers, principal, PTA members, and school board to take this little quiz.
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___ Most people dismiss TV ads as "trivial annoyances" : bothersome, but not very significant and not very effective.

___ Many teachers accept Channel One's ads as a "reasonable trade-off" because the programs are "good" and the ads aren't really that "bad" -- "They're just regular ads that the kids see on TV anyhow."

___ Ads are units of persuasion.

___ Ads are one-sided "units of persuasion" which intensify the "good" and downplay the "bad" about the product or service.

___ Ads, as one-sided units of persuasion, downplay the "bad" - such as any harms (health, safety) or economic disadvantages about the product or service -- unless forced by regulations -- disclosure laws - the "small print" warnings.

___ Persuasion need not be in direct statements or rational arguments. In fact, most ads today can be described in terms of indirect, nonrational persuasion techniques (such as emotional appeals, "image building," the association technique, nonverbals, and simple repetition.)

___ The association technique simply links (1) the product or policy, with (2) something already liked by (3) the intended audience.

___ Channel One (and its advertisers) benefit from being associated with the schools lending their approval, authority, and prestige.

___ Harms need not be immediate, direct, and obvious; some harms are delayed, indirect, and subtle. The more obvious the harm, the easier it is to get agreement to regulate it.

___ Most advertising controversies today (relating to nutrition, smoking, environmental pollution, materialism) involve issues of delayed, indirect, and subtle harms. While such harms may be real, they are hard to regulate, or even to get common agreement.

___ Schools act as agents to "deliver the audience" to Channel One which then sells this audience (for a very high price) to its advertisers who want to reach a youth market during a "day part" (8 a.m. - 3 p.m.) which is "clutter-free" from competing ads in the traditional commercial marketplace.

___ The marketplace (including commercial television) is the appropriate venue for commercial speech, a venue where people expect one-sided "puffery" and "sellers talk."

___ Schools are the appropriate venue for neutrality, objectivity, and the place to teach the young how to understand the techniques of persuasion common to all persuaders.

___ Advertising in the classroom blurs the distinction between the school and the marketplace.

___ Channel One weakens the credibility, the neutrality, and the moral authority of the schools to deal with some health and safety issues, such as diet and nutrition.

For answers & more about advertising analysis: Persuasion Analysis | http://faculty.govst.edu/pa
For more about the efforts to get Channel One out of the schools: www.CommercialAlert.org