Media Persuasion
Compare and contrast the media theories presented in the chapter. Using your experience with media, discuss the degree to which each explains your relationship with media.
Theorists such as Walter Ong focus on the importance of the medium through which persuasive and other types of communications are conveyed. The electronic media conveys a sense of intimacy. It is possible to follow a politician on Twitter, as well as listen to his or her more carefully-crafted formal speeches. The Internet allows people to gain access to everyday people through reading blogs, as well as media sources from around the world. But the Web can be deceptively intimate, and also only transmit a fairly shallow and superficial presentation of issues because the information must be conveyed quickly. The Internet has undoubtedly contributed to the polarization of the current political environment in America. If desired, people can simply read websites and listen to politicians with whom they agree, rather than be exposed to a balanced perspective on a platform geared to a more general audience. The proliferation...
This denatured some of the confrontational, persuasive power that used to characterize earlier face-to-face debates. Housing someone in your living room via television makes them seem like a friend. However, the Internet has enabled people to communicate with celebrities and television figures alike, as well as merely listen to them in their homes. This demystifies public figures' mystique and breaks down barriers of civility. Instead of the "fireside chat," confrontation is very easy online with a point and a click. Even when conversing with intimates, it is very easy to say things one does not mean online. This is even more the case when one is "talking" on a political message board, where exchanges get heated very quickly, as posters are shielded by their anonymous status.
Q2. Compare and contrast the definition of persuasion provided in the chapter with…
