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Persuasion Analysis: Preparation Hints for Teachers A site for teachers who see the need for a systematic analysis of persuasion, but lack the resources. This page has some hints for teachers (Incorporate, Expand, Explain), some of my basic underlying Premises , some Goals, a few Classroom Ideas for younger students,and a brief word from Aristotle about potential abuses. This is non-directive because I don't know your situation, your curriculum demands, nor your students. But. I considered three factors: Age / Experience of your students; Time Available; and In-class / Online.
A Consumer Education class --
or a middle-school English class -- might focus on current
ads closely related to the students' own purchases.
A Consumer Education class -- or a middle school or high school English class --might want to use an alphabet-based teaching aid, "The ABCs of TV Ads,", a re-sorting (in 26 pages, each with 3-5 key ideas) of materials. This is designed for teachers who want to divide up classroom assignments into individuals or small teams. Some pages are harder, longer than others. If you're going to use this, browse first, so you can assign to students appropriate to their strengths. A college freshman course (or H.S. Advanced Placement course) in Rhetoric & Composition might use a whole section A Companion to Composition which has 40 split-screen parallel pages of rhetorical principles: as seen in TV ads applied to student expository writing. A journalism course mind
find the 200 "Questions
You Can Ask About Political Language" a useful investigative
tool, especially the attention it gives to downplaying by means
of omission, diversion, and confusion.
A political science course might want to
test my claim in
"Images and Issues" that all election rhetoric
can be epitomized in one sentence: "I am competent and trustworthy;
from me, you get more good and less bad."
A college course in Formal Logic
might examine how many of the language tactics, traditionally presented
in simple lists of "informal fallacies," are
more coherently grouped within the Intensify/ Downplay
schema, primarily as ways people downplay by means of omission,
diversion, and confusion.
Formal logic texts often dismiss, or prescriptively condemn, these
as "fallacies" in rational argument (which they are)
without pointing out, descriptively, that these are the most
effective tactics of the nonrational persuasion we encounter
today.
A high school class in Literature and Composition might want to focus on a "sense of structure" by comparing the tight, purposeful, underlying structure of a 30-second spot with that of a sonnet or a short story; or, discuss that 30-second spots are the"best compositions of our era." Or, examine the role of simple repetition and complex association. Or, because ads are so rich in "figures of speech," a Literature class might discuss the concept of "ads are the poetry of the corporation" In Background, I narrate the original impetus as part of the NCTE Committee on Public Doublespeak and my development of the Intensify/Downplay Schema and the various Teaching Aids based on this taxonomy. ( Other ways of analyzing ads had existed: the most common being the Institute for Propaganda Analysis list of 7 ("Glittering Generalities, etc.) from the 1930s; later, most advertising textbooks mentioned the AIDA formula (attention-interest-desire-action), Monroe's "Motivated Sequence"; or much later, Donald Gunn's 12 Basic Formats. But, I found these all random and impressionistic, random and fragmentary. Because my own background was in classical rhetoric, my primary debt is to Cicero and Aristotle. From feedback after release. I discovered that the scope of the whole Intensify/Downplay schema was so extensive that teachers didn't know where to start. Repetition, for example, is "so simple... so obvious... so self-evident" that it is seldom even discussed in texts. Association is an extemely important technique, but no one had as elegant a formula as I developed. (Test that claim!) Eventually, because I observed that the most common structural pattern seen in commercial advertising (i.e.where it fits under Intensify / Composition / Structure) could be described in terms of a five part model which I labelled "the pitch" -- a term commonly and loosely used in sales, advertising, and Hollywood -- usually to describe an intense attempt to persuase others. Then I created a useful mnemonic device, an elegant, low-tech 1-2-3-4-5 "fingertip formula" -- with cartoon balloons - as my recommendation as a good starting point, the easiest way for kids to learn in a sequential, coherent way, how to analyze ads by a focus on their structural pattern. This is summarized in a one-page classroom passout:
"The 30-Second-Spot
Quiz." Over a hundred pages are available online
"The Pitch" for explaining the details and illustrating the variations (such as the "soft sell,"in two editions of my book, and now on this website. Please read my Qualifications,
Cautions, Caveats about using these simple tools. Or, read the whole essay: "The Teacher-Heal-Thyself Myth." Incorporate
Usually, the first problem teachers
face is where to incorporate these concepts into an
existing, crowded curriculum. This website has a lot of material
(500+ linked pages), but you'll be limited by your own time
constraints. For useful hints about the process
of how to analyze ads, see Suggestions.
Why is there so little attention to persuasion analysis in the schools? There's no conspiracy (to produce passive consumers and citizens), but it is an unintended consequence, a side-effect, of the many curriculum wars and academic fads. Music, art, and the humanities are also affected by muddled curriculum goals, budget crises, standardized tests, and established interest groups each seeking more time and money. If I were king.... Realistically, however... Telling Tales out of School During my 40 year teaching career, I taught "Rhetoric & Comp" many, many times and was active in various professional groups related to composition studies (NCTE, CCCC, SCA, Rhetoric Society) and Consumer Education. Illinois is one of the two states which requires "Consumer Education" courses in high school. I speak from my own experience as a parent (my 4 kids thought their experience was a "waste of time" in a chaotic, ill-taught course) and as a member of the Illinois Consumer Education group, which I saw as being divided into thirds: the "Home Ec" types (cooking, sewing); the "Business" types, eager to use the free materials prepared by corporate interests (banks, credit cards); and the "Consumerist" types, often fervently -- and randomly -- attacking advertising and corporate abuses. Alas, no one was doing the systematic rhetorical approach which I call persuasion analysis. Even the "Speech" departments (and SCA) were so Balkanized that very few teachers ever looked at ads as "units of persuasion." In high schools English courses, less than 10% (in an EJ survey) discussed advertising, and those that did either used the old 1937 IPA "list" ("glittering generalities...") or did random creative writing exercises.("Let's write an ad!") Even fewer high school teachers formally discussed political language, albeit some used the podium as a partisan pulpit. I thought the best chance to get a wide audience was to write teaching aids directed at the universally-taught college "freshman comp" course. Teachers there often had freedom to incorporate some "Persuasion Analysis" within into their own syllabus. Thus, I first focused attention there. Not all composition teachers will want to use this approach.
At a CCCC convention debate once, after I opened my speech with the
attention-getting claim that 30-second spots "are the best
compositions of our era," my enraged respondent retorted
"You call that the best we can do? They're nothing but
pap and crap!" (I learned several lessons: people hear what they
want to hear; an effective "attention-getter" does not always
win the day; humorous diversions are very effective; my opponent had
the empathy of the audience: he had put their vague feelings into words,
he was "on their side." ) Cautionary Alas, it is risky to teach about
ads and advertising because students have such a vast pent-up reservoir
of examples, feelings, and opinions -- just waiting to be expressed.
You ought to anticipate this enthusiasm
for the subject, and the chaotic randomness of an open discussion,
and be prepared for it. Analyzing political persuasion can also be a "hot potato" issue if done by zealots and partisans: e.g. attacking all advertising, or scrutinizing only one political party, or one side in social issues. Even some of my college students, for example, who easily dealt with the patterns of commercial advertising, would get upset when we studied the predictable patterns of cause group rhetoric. They were uncomfortable when I pointed out that both their favorite cause -- and its opponent --used the same techniques and patterns of persuasion. In a free society, we should expect (and appreciate) many different persuaders, commercial and political. Teachers can be be interested both in developing smart shoppers, informed consumers (very pragmatic, useful skills for the individual), and also in developing citizens who are more adept at analyzing persuasion from any source. Analyzing ads is the easiest way to start learning about all persuasion techniques. Other persuasion (political, social, religious) is harder to analyze because the subjects are more complex, the emotional issues are more involving, and we experience them in bits and fragments -- in headlines, TV news, in random discussions -- usually filtered or edited by others. Ads, however, are usually seen in carefully crafted packages (30-second-spots on TV; in print, on pages) with coherent messages, involving simple transactions ("buy this"). Many rhetorical concepts learned here can be applied to other persuaders; but, first, analyze ads. Expand Download what is useful and appropriate for your students. If students have computer access, create online assignments for individuals or small groups This is a bare-bones site. Although this site is rich in content, it's poor in glitz and graphics. Every page here could use -- should have -- more graphics -- magazine ads, animations, and more links to 30-second spots online as examples. (Alas, if I had world enough and time....) But, you can add these by using a good search engine ( google.com - or ask.com) to find relevant, current examples. For example, note the usefulness of their News section which provides daily reports ("News Alerts") for the search terms you supply (e.g. kids and advertising). New RSS technology will help. Check standard souces: NCTE , for example, occasionally still publishes articles (e.g. "Doublespeak Detection in the English Classroom") written by members of their Doublespeak Committee. For books, I suggest amazon.com because their Product Description pages are a good quick way to get a variety of both editorial reviews and reader reactions. Recognize that these concise classroom
pass-outs, the teaching
aids ("Suggestions: How to Analyze Ads,"
"Suggestions: Why Analyze Ads," "The Intensify/Downplay Schema," "Questions
You Can Ask About Ads," "What's Wrong with Advertising?")
are basically collections of tight topic sentences, prompting
many ways for you to unpack them, many options for you to elaborate.
Recognize that the Intensify/Downplay schema (and the related 400 prompter questions) is a very large comprehensive taxonomy, dealing with both verbal and nonverbal techniques. The Intensify/Downplay schema is too massive to try to use all the details of it; but, it's meant to give an overview of the big picture, so you can see where the parts relate to each other and the whole. Furthermore, links within this site will lead you to rich
and diverse places. For example, if you haven't read James
Twitchell on advertising, I've included samples from his insightful
and delightful writings. Enjoy! Explain
I've tried to simplify without "dumbing down," to clarify by using appositions, and to eliminate jargon. But, my prose is still beyond the grasp of younger students. Help them. Paraphrase. Increase their vocabulary. Teachers need to adapt these ideas to their particular audience. Whether in 7th grade or graduate school, very few students have had any systematic instruction about ads as being "units of persuasion." Kids see 100,000 ads before they reach 1st grade. Pre-schoolers can't even distinguish reality from fantasy, or programs from commercials. Granted, at some point, kids know that ads are "trying to sell you something." But, they are still incredibly innocent or naive about the nonrational and indirect means of persuasion. Junior high school kids, wearing designer jeans and expensive athletic shoes, will sincerely say that "I'm not affected by ads." Roy Fox's research interviews (in
Harvesting
Minds ) of elementary school students confirmed
that After this childhood innocence, do the high schools and colleges have any effect on teaching citizens how to understand the basic techniques of persuasion? Alas, I don't think so. In annual surveys, 75-80% of adults respond: "advertising doesn't affect me." |
--
with its simple 1-2-3-4-5 "fingertip formula" -- might
be a practical starting point for all students, all
levels, to get a quick introduction to ads as "units of persuasion."
This basic structural pattern is easy to see, but teachers of younger
students may need to help explain some of the qualifiers: for example,
about "multiplicity and simultaneity," or "soft sell,"
or "image-building." See the section about If you were to try to explain the complexities of American football to a visiting foreigner, you might start with a general overview, the big picture, answering the basic WWWWW&H questions: Who (Who plays, watches, coaches... e.g. usually males, strong. fast, specific players, etc.); Why (fun, sport, recreation, prestige, money, etc.); When (e.g. Autumn, weekends, after-school); Where (sandlots to stadiums); What (rules and regulations); How (techniques). Some of these would seem simple, obvious, and easy to explain; others, more difficult -- such as techniques. So also, many things about advertising (and political persuasion) seem so obvious because we constantly see ads and politicians on TV. But some things, such as techniques, are more difficult to explain and to learn. It may help to use a useful, sports analogy (which moves from the known to the unknown)
To better understand American football techniques, the observer
must first know the general patterns
before the specifics In football, for
example, the basic concepts of Offense/Defense; then, in descending
sub-categories, in Offense, Run or Pass;
then, Run Through Middle / Around End; Pass
(Long or Short).
After such basics, it helps to know the common
plays ("bread-and-butter" plays) and common
situations (1st & 10; 3rd & Long), before the less-common
plays: the variations, the unusual, the less predictable, or the
more complex (double reverse, end-around, fake punts, Hail Mary pass,
goal-line stand).
Yet. even after knowing all this, some observers, some TV commentators, are better than others, or focus on different things. Furthermore, every game has a different mix of players and situations.
Apply this analogy to analyzing persuasion techniques starting
with the Intensify/Downplay schema. You might as well enjoy analyzing
ads, because you'll have plenty of opportunities!
First grasp some of the general concepts
that we intensify and downplay elements, then those two categories
are each sub-divided by the common ways, the
techniques, by which we intensify (by repetition, association,
composition) and downplay (by omission, diversion, confusion).
Notice that, in the "Questions You can Ask about Advertising....
& "Questions You Can Ask about Political Rhetoric")
over 400 very specific "prompter
questions" are presented to show relationships.
Yet, even many of these common variations are often fairly abstract ideas for most younger students. For example, most of the traditional names for the "informal fallacies" (ad hominem, ad populem, ad misericordium, etc.) are clustered here under "Diversion," treated as side-issue, diverting attention from the main issue.
Within the "Composition" section, I've called two common structures as the Pitch (most ads: the easiest way to start teaching analysis of techniques) and the Pep Talk (some political messages, often intensely emotional -- Leave it alone for a while). After students get used to analyzing parts of a typical ad, then tie that in with some ideas of our own Benefir-Seeking Behaviors, followed by the predictable Benefit-Promising Behaviors of the persuaders.
Nobody is going to be able to grasp the whole "game" at once, the first time you see it, because so many things are going on simultaneously. Even after knowing all this, some observers, some analysts, are going to be better than others, or focus on different things, plus every persuasive message has a different mix of players and situations. There's a lot more specific advice available in "Suggestions: How to Analyze Ads" and "Why Analyze Ads?"
Premises
Confusion and misunderstandings often occur when people do not explicitly state their underlying assumptions and their unspoken basic premises. Here's a brief list of some of mine. You need not agree with some of these premises. But, if you know where I start, it may help clarify some issues: