With all the primary debates that will take place in the near future, it has me thinking a lot about the tactics candidates will use in their speaking to convince audiences to vote for them. While we have talked a little bit in class about persuasion techniques, it is important to note that politicians use a wide variety of them. All debators will try to talk in such a way that will appeal to our ethos. Whether or not they succeed is critical to our decision making. To do this, all candidates will market themselves and develop their reputations by researching important issues that are of concern to the public so that they have expertise in the topics they will speak about.
However, everyone knows just as well as I do that not all of what politicians will say is plausible and truthful. Thus, it is our decision to either believe all of what we are told or do our own research on the issues presented. Related to "The Encomium of Helen", the question is raised of, "Are we, the audience, responsible for being persuaded, on good or bad issues, without acquiring supportive evidence to claims candidates will make or are the candidates solely responsible for persuading their audience about issues of concern?" The answer to this question, I believe, is quite complex.
Especially in politics, I think audiences have an obligation to do outside research on the information being presented to them from candidates at debates. This is due to the fact that most politicians lack morals and perform actions that are unethical, even though they have an obligation to their audiences to provide plausible information. Therefore, if we rely solely on what we are told, we become independently responsible for that particular persuasion, good or bad. Thus, the main reason for reflecting on this area is to encourage my audience to do their part before being easily persuaded by words that may or may not lack validity.
PLEASE RESEARCH BEFORE VOTING IN NOVEMBER!!
I definitely agree that you should research before you vote. Most of the time it seems like people will for the most part stick with the candidates that share the most in common with political and religious views. But I think often times there are candidates that represent something, but are unable to defend the very thing they try to represent. For the most part I think politics can deal alot with deception, but I also think that if it is used correctly, then it becomes a very powerful tool that can allow great things to happen.
ReplyDeleteI also agree that people should research before voting, but at the same time I kind of believe that some of the responsibility falls on the persuader. Some people find it hard to believe that politicians would need to lie, so they find no reason to question or research what they see to be honest words. There are also people that are not quite sure how or where to do research, so they have to trust what they are being told. In all honesty, politicians should not be lying anyway and people should genuinely be able to trust them. In my opinion, a huge responsibility falls on the shoulders of the persuader, more than on the person being persuaded.
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ReplyDeleteNicole, I really liked this blog post. Like David and Danielle, I would agree with you that people should research before they vote. I think it would be interesting to investigate more deeply the rhetorical tactics politicians use today. For instance, does the amount of negative attack ads finally surpass the amount of positive ones? Which is found to be more persuasive? Do the negative ads appeal more to the sense of pathos, in that people feel more strongly about a) politicians who are represented as corrupt or b) politicians who viciously demean their competitors? It is an interesting topic, and I'm glad you brought it up!
ReplyDeleteI strongly agree with this blog post. We are responsible, as members of a democracy, for learning about the issues and making smart decisions with our politicians. This is easier said than done, however, when politicians do tend to lie to earn votes.
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