Propaganda Techniques in Today’s Advertising Americans

McClintock’s blog post “Propaganda Techniques in Today’s Advertising Americans” focuses on propaganda advertisements and how they influence Americans when it comes to making choices. Overall, the article capacity that although some ads might be informative, most of them, in particular political ones are propagandas are intended to seduce, mislead, and brainwash the audience.
Propaganda advertisers post their messages in newspapers, magazines, and televisions implying that a significant quantity of people absorb the messages and images into their minds. Americans are uncovered to more than 500 different advertisments claims every day. Propaganda advertisers use various techniques along with name-calling, congressional candidates, glittering generalities, transfer, testimonial, plain folks, and bandwagon.
Name calling involves destroying competitor images by calling them negative names. Advertisers use such names to create feelings of mistrust and fear in the audience towards competitors (McClintock para. 5). In contrasts, glittering generalities entails the use of vague and difficult confusing. From the author’s point of view, advertisers use these words to stir positive feelings in people’s mind about ideas presented (McClintock para. 5). Similarly, transfer tactic entails improving products image by associating them with highly respected symbols such as the U.S. flag. The audience believes the messages hoping that “the prestige attached to the product will carry over to the product” (McClintock Para. 15).On the other hand, testimonial capitalizes on people’s admiration for celebrities to make particular products shine regardless of whether the celebrities are experts on the product being sold or not. The author means that the ideas presented are misleading thus advertisers use celebrities to allure the audience (McClintock Para. 16). Regarding plain folks, advertisers liken themselves to the public to convince the audience that they are average or common citizens. Advertisers also use bandwagon which includes creating a perception that all people have accepted a particular idea (McClintock para. 26). That is, they make people want to feel comfortable by doing what others do. Overall, these tactics imply that propagandists use outright deceptions to sway people’s opinions. The techniques work because they appeal to people’s emotions rather than the minds. As such, it is essential to assess each ad and understand how they are used. Work CitedMcClintock, Ann. Propaganda Techniques in Today’s Advertising. English 098, 28 Oct. 2009, http://english098stcsn.blogspot.com/2009/10/ann-mcclintock-essay.html.Accessed 22 February 2017.