Thursday, April 15, 2010
Too Much Emotion
In chapter 10, Epstein talks about appeals to emotion and how that relates to our reasoning. Epstein describes the appeal to emotion as the premise that inspires the person emotionally to take action or believe a certain way. One example of an appeal to emotion would be the "Feed the Children" infomercials. The show video footage of starving and injured child to persuade the viewers to take action and donate money. The emotion that this infomercial gives off is sympathetic and depressing. Another kind of appeal that is used pretty often is the "appeal of fear." This gives the sense of urgency to take action fast to be free from danger. Politicians use this kind of appeal a lot to convince voters to vote for them. For example, in President Obama's campaign, he called John McCain a "Flip flopper" stating he cant make up his mind. His premise is that a person that cannot make up his mind should not be president because he cannot back up his decisions. This creates a sense that Obama is a better candidate for president than McCain. And from the results, it worked.
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I enjoyed your description of appeal to fear. I feel that you explained it very well, and I liked your example of the “feed the children” videos, something I have cited on my own post as well as in comments to others. The videos try be shocking and get the viewers attention, all with the goal of raising money. I often wonder what the portrayed chidden and families would think of this portrayal. Would they feel it is justified, or would the feel embarrassed by it? On one hand the children portrayed are receiving donations, but at the expense of their picture being plastered all over the sides of city buses? It Is an interesting subject to say the least. I also enjoyed your connection of appeal of fear to politics, and felt that is an area of American life that is very relevant to the concepts discussed in this chapter.
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