Mass Media Persuasion free essay sample

Public Opinion and how it is influenced Effective persuasion is central to public relations. Persuasion is a feature of most informational communication and organization-public messages. According to Bryant, persuasion is â€Å"the process of adjusting ideas to people and people to ideas. † This process of adjusting ideas to people and people to ideas is very important, because this transaction takes place daily in many facets of our lives. Some of the areas where persuasion is used to sway public opinion are in the news, advertising, and political campaigns. In the world of commerce individuals and businesses thrive off swaying public opinion in their favor. You need persuasion in efforts to sell products and services, efforts to convince stakeholders to trust and support organizational initiatives, efforts to convince legislators to pass favorable regulations, and just simply the effort to exert interpersonal and group influence in order to achieve one’s goal. The ability to shape or control the actions of others is an incredible skill. On the one hand, getting someone to simply acknowledge a point and nod their head in agreement is relatively easy. There is little risk involved, but actually moving people to take action takes a lot more work. The news media are very persuasive with the ability to shape our perceptions and influence our beliefs and attitudes. Some of the techniques the news media uses to affect the public opinion are manipulating the deadlines of stories, manipulating access, and manipulating news assignments. When manipulating deadlines, news media betters their chances of surpassing their competition by bring information to the public first. The downside to manipulating deadlines is compromising the validity or accuracy of your information. If reporters take time to investigate the accuracy of information, they risk having a competitor breaking the story first. It is common that press secretaries or news managers release controversial information as close to deadlines as possible, to minimize critical scrutiny of it. This practice became standard procedure during the final months of the Nixon Watergate investigation. In manipulating access, news managers control the press access to those who have information. For example they accomplish this goal by limiting the number of presidential press conferences or by communicating through press releases. Another way to control access are reporters conducting exclusive interviews. The third highest rated program of the spring 1995 season was Diane Sawyer’s exclusive Prime Time Live interview with pop icon Michael Jackson and his then wife Lisa Marie Presley. The Super Bowl and Academy Awards were the only other programs that drew a larger audience than that of the interview. The interview came right after a settlement of charges against Michael Jackson sexually molesting a young boy. The purpose of the interview and time of its airing was to help promote Michael’s album â€Å"HIStory†, which was also the title of his book. Manipulating news assignments is a very difficult tactic. Many presidents have tried to change reporter’s area of responsibility. Some say it is possible to manipulate news media that cover general assignments. Reporters on beats are very vulnerable to manipulation. The Reagan presidential campaign coverage is a great example of this. Unedited footage of a typical Reagan campaign day revealed that the crowds that came out seemed larger than what they actually were. Reagan’s media staff was very strategic in making crowds seem bigger than what they were by positioning raised camera platforms close to speaker platforms. They also roped off huge press areas, off limits to the public. This technique forced the public to pack tightly in the space between the candidate and the cameras. When Reagan spoke during his campaign functions this technique ensured that he was speaking to a healthy number of people in his audience. Advertising is another area where it is a major goal to have an impact on public opinion. Advertisers use many techniques and tactics to influence how we view their product. We are influenced by product recognition with the use of trademarks, packaging, and slogans. Public opinion is also influenced by advertisers making it possible for us to differentiate their product from others, by creating a unique selling proposition. Trademarks are nothing more than identifiers of a company’s product. A trademark can be a symbol, verbal, or visual identifier. The golden arches are a very familiar trademark of McDonalds. It’s very easy to identify McDonalds and differentiate them from other fast food restaurants. Another example may be in a Sony ad, you may see the statement that â€Å"Sony is the trademark or registered trademark of Sony Corporation. † Slogans also appeal to the public opinion by subliminally affecting your decision on what you want or what is better than another product, due to familiarity. Packaging is another means of providing product identification. For example the Quaker Oats with the smiling Quaker, plastic egg shaped containers for Legg’s panty hose, and in those cases the name of the product and packaging worked together to reinforce one another. To top it all off a slogan is effectively summarizes the ad and provides a memory on which the name of the product is hung. An example of a slogan is we associate the word â€Å"pizza† spoken by a cartoon Caesar with the Little Caesar’s brand and Verizon’s â€Å"Can you hear me now. Through all these tools that advertisers use to persuade our opinion on products being sold, we as the public begin to draw our own conclusions on what products we feel are better. We also as the consumers or audiences of these companies begin to associate ourselves with them by being loyal. The competitors of our favorite brands become our enemies, because they rival the services of our favorite brand or company . An example of this would be an ATT wireless customer down playing new products from another company or their friend’s carrier because it’s in direct competition with their carrier. Lastly, politicians in political campaigns are notorious for tactics of swaying public opinion. Their careers and success depend on their ability to do so. Kenneth Burke said persuasion is based on a concept called identification. Political campaigns use a few types of identification to impact the public opinion about who they are and what they represent. A couple would include â€Å"identification by sympathy, identification by antithesis. † Identification by sympathy makes your audience feel positively toward you, such as â€Å"I have been where you are or I am working for you. Identification by antithesis is invoking commonalities or differences. Politicians must persuade you to join their cause and oppose the ideas or endeavors of their opponent running against them. In political campaigns, controlling media access is a big tool in guiding public opinion. Public officials routinely control press access and media exposure. Control becomes particularly sensitive in times of crisis or war. For example in February 2004 in the face of ongoing press questioning whether Bush had fulfilled his obligations while serving in the Texas Air National Guard, his staff released his military records. The release occurred late on a Friday, because the following Monday was a federal holiday and a long weekend for many reporters. The late Friday release decreased the likelihood that there would be critical coverage over the weekend. In conclusion, between the three areas that public opinion is manipulated in news, advertisement, and political campaign, there are many common techniques being used. After researching this topic I am sure I will be more mindful of what techniques are being used to impact my view on the topic or product being sold to me.