Fallacies in a commercial Essay

At first look, the 2004 Safer, Stronger (Bush, 2004) seems like a good candidate an effective ad, but after reviewing the remaining videos on the Living Room Candidate website, Windsurfing (Bush, 2004) definitely proved to be one of more influential once. “Windsurfing” took an activity that John Kerry was involved in and used it as a metaphor to pass the Bush Campaign’s message that Kerry was indecisive. According McKinnon it was also good to use the footage as windsurfing was perceived as an elitist sport among many voters.2 Ironically, in the 2012 election the

In the third paragraph, Hillary Clinton appealed to the emotions of her audience by using the fallacy of ad misericordiam, which appeals to pity, while describing the treatment of LGBT youth in the inner city and suburbs. The presidential nominee argued, “You can get married on Saturday, post your pictures on Sunday and get fired on Monday. That's why we've got to continue the forward march of progress” (para. 5). That is an example of Clinton making a hasty generalization. She informed her audience of an isolated case and presented it as normal, recurring event. The majority of Clinton’s sixth paragraph employed the fallacy of ad populum. She only explained her plans for office as it pertained to her audience. Her audience was at a fundraiser for leaders and supporters of LGBT rights, thus she only explained her plans to uplift the LGBT community and nothing else. Clinton used the bandwagon appeal to refer to Donald Trump’s supporters when she called to put half of them in a group called the “basket of deplorables” (para. 7). Donald Trump’s supporters are often the subject of attention because of their colorful tactics and Hillary Clinton tried to cash in on that. Lastly, the Democratic presidential nominee also employed the logical fallacy of faulty cause and effect. It is evident when she said, “We will win if people turn out to vote. There is no doubt in my mind that we will win” (para. 10). Hillary Clinton is trying to

During the second Presidential Debate, which was televised on October 9, 2016, I was able to detect many logical fallacies within the arguments of both candidates. For example, when Donald Trump was first asked about the controversial tape that contained footage of him disrespecting and admitting to sexually assaulting women, he avoided this question by attempting to divert attention from this issue. Instead of concretely answering the question, Donald Trump briefly apologized, and then blatantly attempted to ignore the issue by talking about Isis “chopping people’s heads,” and randomly describing all the horrid things that Isis is doing. This logical fallacy is characterized as “Red Herring,” which

In his State of the Union Address for 2016, Barack Obama uses logical and ethical arguments to emphasize shared ground rather than partisan disputes. He also taps into the audience’s desire to feel better about themselves and their country. By using humor and irony, Obama paints his opponents into corners, out of which it would require outrageous extremism to effectively squirm away. At its best, this approach demonstrates how much Americans actually have in common in a culture dominated by ideologically polarized cable-news channels, Facebook, and cultural tribes that increasingly live and socialize apart from one another. The president's technique throughout the speech is to frame issues through a rhetorical jujitsu to persuade his opponents,

Romney’s ad talks about how his leadership will be once he becomes a president of the United States. The ad starts with the questions to persuade an audience, “What will be different about Romney Presidency?”. Romney intends to show enthusiasm toward the decided Republican voters and to sway the decisions of those that are undecided.

The media runs rampant, promoting both true and fraudulent information. Many Americans do not trust political advertising because it lies about personal backgrounds, exaggerates, and take things out of context to manipulate voters’ sentiments. (Gerdes, Louise) Each year, it seems like the candidates find new and clever ways to cast their opponents in negative lights. A more recent example of this was the 2014 North Carolina Senatorial race between Kay Hagan and Thom Tillis. An abundance of bruising commercials aired on the radio and television all around the state, bashing each candidate’s views, from taxation to abortions to women and gay rights. However, despite all this negative campaigning, the American public has learned to decipher between true and false. Mudslinging is not a new occurrence. With a long history dating back to the near founding of the country, negative campaigning had plagued nearly every political candidate in America. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams criticized each other mercilessly during the 1800 election, from foreign and domestic policies to their own person behavior (Gerdes, Louise). Alexander Hamilton, under his pseudonym “Phocion,” accused Thomas Jefferson of having an affair with on of his slaves (Editorial Accuses Jefferson). Jefferson was also accused of being an atheist, causing many older women to bury Bibles in their backyards in case he got elected. During the 1828 campaign, Andrew Jackson himself was accused of murdering Indians. His wife was charged with adultery (Kennedy, David M.). After many decades, Americans have learned to decrypt the negative campaign advertising and find the facts. The people are neither obligated to believe everything they listen to, nor are they required to gather their information from just one source. Newspapers, Internet articles, political speeches, and radio and televised news broadcasts, such as 60 Minutes and Face the

The 1992 and 2012 U.S. Presidential Elections were two of the most famously negative campaigns in history and share multiple similarities despite being separated by twenty years. In 1992, incumbent President George H.W. Bush was seeking reelection against Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton, while the 2012 general election saw incumbent President Barack Obama seeking reelection against former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. The campaigns of both incumbent presidents incorporated heavy use of television attack advertisements in the attempt to improve their political image, discredit their opponent, and win reelection.

Not much imagery goes through the ad, but he does give off a heinous picture of Hillary. Trump targets the whole United States in this one. He puts so much true but awful infromation about Hillary that the whole American community can see the inappropriate side of her. The music that goes throughout most the ad gives a suspenseful tone. The ad uses the technique, “Obtain Disapproval,” he uses this particular one because he wants the American community to disapprove of Hillary.

I found an editorial that had a clear logical fallacy, which was a false dichotomy, in the title of the editorial, but as I read I found a few more invalid arguments. The invalid argument of the editorial that I found, which is titled “If You Don’t Like Either Candidate, Then Vote for Trump’s Policies,” states that voters have two choices: “vote for Trump or help Hillary Clinton get elected.” This invalid argument, written by Wayne Grudem, is a false dichotomy in which Grudem states that voters must choose between Trump and Clinton without giving voters an option between a write-in or a third party candidate. If Grudem were to win his argument, it would most likely result in having an effect on voters in which they feel they should vote for

One fallacy present in television media is the Slippery Slope Fallacy which is “Asserting that if we allow A to happen, then Z will consequently happen too, therefore A should not happen.” This fallacy is present in some of DirecTV’s commercials starring Rob Lowe. While normal Rob Lowe has DirecTV and is completely satisfied, his bizarre alter egos have cable, which supposedly ranks lower than DirecTV in signal reliability, sports broadcasting, Dolby sound quality, picture quality and customer satisfaction. At the end of each commercial, normal Rob Lowe points to his wacky alter ego and tells customers, “Don’t be like this me. Get rid of cable and upgrade to DirecTV.” The commercials tell the audience that if you choose cable over DirecTV,

Wheelan argues that statistics, depending on the metrics used, can be framed to draw support for some corporate, political, or otherwise self-serving cause. In one of Wheelan’s examples (2013), he depicts two hypothetical United States political opponents: one who claims that the majority of states have had falling incomes, and another who claims that 70 percent of Americans have had rising incomes (pp. 81-82). Though these statements are not mutually exclusive, they give two contrasting impressions of the American economy—one of weakness and one of strength. Regardless of which metric more accurately describes the economy, either claim could lure in voters, who may lack the context needed to evaluate the claim. This tactic, the use of true statements in support of a dubious claim, is particularly relevant in the 2016

The ad claims that Jeb Bush would be the best President out of the candidates that ran.

The TV advertisement was made by Mitt Romney’s campaign administration. The main purpose of the ad was to make people believe that Barack Obama did not support small businesses. Also, the ad was meant to sway opinions, and convince people to vote for Romney. This was put on the air during the months leading up to the presidential election, which is when both candidates were trying to gain support. Both of the candidates were putting out commercials similar to this one, and around 75% of all of the presidential campaign ads were negative.

The ad shows video of Romney at what appears to be a debate stating that he cut taxes multiple times and didn’t raise any as of governor of Massachusetts. Furthermore, it shows a statistic that not only did he raise taxes and fees but he did to the tune of 750 million dollars. Lastly, the ad shows some of the ridiculous taxes raised in Massachusetts and that 30 seconds were not enough time to show them all. The following ad I will review from Gov. Mitt Romney is called “Not a tax increase”. This ad begins by showing Obama stating that Obama care was “absolutely not a tax increase” and claiming that his health care plan was one of the largest tax increases in US history. Finally, his ad focuses in on how Obama should have been more focused on creating jobs and spending less instead of pushing for health care reform. The Obama campaigns ad is the clear winner between the two. It was noted that Romney had a difficult time connecting with the middle class and poor due in part to his wealth (Kucinich, Singer 2012). Consequently Romney’s stance that these social classes were receiving handouts led to the disconnect between candidate and voter showing he had little concern for creating jobs for the average American (Kucinich, Singer

The 2012 presidential election finally reached its conclusion late Tuesday night on November 6th, as the incumbent Barack Obama won a second term in the White House over the challenger Mitt Romney. The election, with its reputation as the most expensive presidential race in history, attracted wide attentions not only from the United States but also from many other countries around the globe (Confessore & McGinty, 2012). The election was also noted with a numerous number of debates and discussions in both online and offline about the two candidates’ policies and pledges on every level. However, while a lot of attention was paid to the candidates’ verbally expressed speeches and pledges, the candidates’