The first ad I chose to analyze was
the McGovern Defense ad (Nixon, 1972). It showed many appeals to fear while
poking holes in the McGovern proposal for cutting back on our nations defenses.
The narrator even quoted, “It’s not just cutting into manpower. It’s cutting
into the very security of this country,” which deals with the American value of
efficiency. The goal is to get us to
feel like McGovern’s ideas would put our nation at risk for an attack, so we
should vote for Nixon to protect ourselves, which would fulfill Maslow’s need
for safety. The ad also appeals to patriotism because it is showing representations
of the men and women who fight for our country and encouraging people to take a
stand and vote to keep them in our line of defenses. It also has slightly
humorous appeals in that it uses toy soldiers as representations to demonstrate
how large the cutbacks would be, instead of just listing off numbers. Lastly, the
ad showed warmth appeals by stating that Nixon “believes in a strong America to
negotiate for peace from strength,” which coincides with the puritan and
pioneer morality of the American Value System.
The second ad I analyzed was Peace
Little Girl (Johnson, 1964). Warmth appeals are present in that it uses a young
girl that people with children could identify with and the background features
the sound of nature with birds chirping. This ad also appeals to fear by
showing a countdown to a bomb exploding as the girl is pulling the petals off
of a daisy. Johnson is heard saying, “We must either love each other, or we
must die,” in an appeal towards pride and patriotism. This ad makes you
feel guilty that if you don’t vote for Johnson you might be putting the little
girl (or others like her) at risk. On Maslow’s hierarchy, the need it appeals
to is security because he is making it seem like we need protection from threats
on national security. It is also unique in that most of the appeals it makes
are not in word form, but are implied through imagery and sound effects.
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