Download Study Questions #1

Snyder
English 1A
Section 1
Study Questions #1
Please answer these study questions on a separate sheet of paper. Your answers to these
questions do not constitute a formal writing assignment, so you may handwrite your
answers if you wish. However, if your handwriting is less than legible, typed answers are
always appreciated!! There is no minimum or maximum required length for your answers
to these questions, but I expect that a thoughtful answer will require you to write at least a
decent-length paragraph for each question.
1. In “The Rhetoric of Advertising,” Hirschberg discusses several ways in which
advertisers manipulate their audience (e.g. by using “weasel words,” by promising
“social acceptance” if one uses a certain product of subscribes to a certain ideal,
etc.). Using an example from current media (a TV commercial or a print
advertisement), briefly describe how the advertisement you have chosen is
designed to manipulate the audience. If you choose to use a print ad, please attach
a copy of it to your response. If you use a TV commercial, please describe it fairly
completely, because I likely haven’t seen it! 
2. In Huxley’s “Propaganda under a Dictatorship,” he introduces the idea of “herdpoisoning,” and how Hitler used propaganda to “poison” his “herd” of followers.
Now think about Hirschberg’s “The Rhetoric of Advertising,” in which he
suggests that advertisers skillfully manipulate their audience to “sell” products or
ideas. How do you think contemporary advertising falls into Huxley’s idea of
“herd-poisoning?” Do you see a correlation between the two? Certainly the ideas
of advertisers are broadcast to a wide audience (a “herd”), but that audience is
often not an assembled mass—it is a person sitting at home watching television or
flipping through a magazine. Do you think advertising is successful by “herdpoisoning?” Or do you think advertisers target each specific audience member on
a more singular level? Use an example to support your answer—as before, please
attach your example if it is a print ad or describe it fully if it is a commercial.
3. In “TV News as Entertainment,” Postman and Powers suggest that “the language
of pictures differs radically from oral and written language, and the differences
are crucial for understanding television news.” Certainly the same argument could
be made in relation to print advertisements. Find one example of a print ad and
discuss how the creator of the ad has used the “language of pictures” and “written
language” to convey his or her intended message. (Please attach the print ad to
your response.)