Recently we faced a presidential race that divided the
country into three groups. Group one consist of overly passionate liberal
Hilary Clinton supporters. Group two consisted of diehard conservative Donald
Trump Supporters. And group three consisted of people who were discussed at the
country as a whole and when time for voting came they suffered from electile dysfunction.
Both potential future presidents realized such and promised anything that made their
side of the country support their campaign and vote for them when the time
came.
Like Roger Waters, Donald Trump uses "The Wall" as
a symbol and a metaphor for a bigger picture. The wall Donald Trump wants to
create is not a wall constructed by concrete but rather a wall constructed by
figurative imagination. It is a tool he uses to not just help America reach success
but help himself succeed.
After reading several pro wall building propagandist
articles on multiple news stations and websites, I've come to the realization
that the wall is not only trumps way to keep the illegal immigrants out and the
"good people" in, but to create an ideology concept to conjure the
half of the American citizens that identify themselves with conservative views.
In other words it was originated as a way to not only get less illegal
immigrants but more legal votes. Trump uses the propaganda strategy of finding
a common enemy/scape goat to unite people within his control.
The wall symbolically represents isolating America from all
the "bad." A way for Donald Trump to enforce his theory of
"making America great again." To half the audience building the wall
seems racist and contradictory of the belief that America is the land of
opportunity while the other half of the country believes that it will help
America regain its patriotic greatness.
It's clear to which party this propagandistic plan benefits
to. But does propaganda really benefit any of us? It has been said that America
is the land of opportunity and the home of the brave. But lately it seems as if
it’s the land of declining opportunity and home of the slave. In a way,
building this wall would not only isolate us from illegal citizenship but could
potentially help isolate us from the rest of the nations. All in all, it’s just
another brick in the wall
I can appreciate the writing style. This post lacks specific focus regarding a current issue. Numerous times in this post you assert broad and unsupported generalizations regarding the public (the election "divided the country into three groups," that "half the audience" sees a border wall as racist and "the other half" sees it as a means to "regain patriotic greatness." How are you basing these sorts of estimations?
ReplyDeleteThe Roger Waters reference seems entirely arbitrary. Pink Floyd's album was about isolation. He famously performed the piece in tribute to the Berlin Wall's dismantling - and there had been discussions of a performance on the Mexican border as another political statement/ticket-selling spectacle. I'm not sure, however, how that stands as any sort of metaphor to Mr. Trump's campaign promise.
Remember that the goal of this class is to develop our capacity to assess messages in an objective way. The methods that we are studying are meant to place such analysis in a realm more valid than a personal opinion. Your creative writing is intriguing, but I'm not sure what direction you plan to take.
Propaganda is not something that "benefits" society at all. Instead, it is designed to jack up emotion and play upon negative stereotypes. Propaganda is designed to manipulate its audience. That said, history has shown it to be an effective way of influencing public opinion - and so it will always be part of the public discourse. Has the Trump campaign used propaganda? Of course - all political campaigns will use persuasion that might be described as propaganda. This class is meant to give you the capacity to recognize how messages - including propaganda - work. Ultimately, you are supposed to choose a specific article (an example of propaganda, or "fake news") as the artifact for your analysis. Please let me know how I can help.
Thank you for appreciating my writing style though I misunderstood the assignment in numerous ways. I can see how my blog lacked the whole spectrum of covering a current issue due to the fact I talked about something that was brought up months ago during the electoral race. When I brought up the whole idea of the countries voters being divided into three different groups, (the liberals, the conservatives and the ones who faced “electial dysfunction,”), I estimated and assumed through my own everyday views, that the liberals were viewing the wall as “racist” and the conservatives were viewing the wall as “a means to regain patriotic greatness.” But after reading your response I came to the realization that I really had no valid evidence to back my stereotypes. For the future, I plan on making my posts based around more concrete proof rather than my own ignorant bullshit conclusions. This future strategy will result in me staying more neutral and properly display and act on more professional rhetoric mannerisms.
DeleteIn your response you questioned how Roger Water’s “wall” and Donald Trump’s “wall,” were relatable and viewed them as arbitrary. Though both “walls” meanings greatly differ in many ways from one another, I find two aspects of each wall to in fact be relatable. The first factor is that both walls, as of now, are in fact imaginary. Though Roger builds a wall during his concert performances of the album and Donald plans on building a wall, as of now neither of their walls are intangible and cannot be actually touched amongst this globe. The other factor both narcissistic walls share in common is the theme of isolation. Roger Water’s “wall” has an underlining theme of personal isolation form society where Donald Trump’s idea of a wall is to create country isolation from illegal immigrants. Both Donald and Roger use the theme of isolation behind their walls whether it be for themselves or their country.
After hearing your thoughts, I am now coming to the realization that my start of the first blog post is off in the wrong direction. I’m planning on maybe doing an entirely new topic that is actually current and easier for me to assess the message in a more objective way. I too agree that my fist blog post was written more off my personal opinion rather than through use of neutral professional rhetoric approaches and methods, and plan on changing that.
In the end of your response you clearly describe the definition of propaganda and how it is always used behind every political campaign. This description helped me come to the realization that my topic was not based off of a concrete propagandistic article rather just my ideas on a broad topic. I plan for my future blogs to analyze a specific piece off propaganda and professionally and neutrally analyzing it.
Thank you for you’re in depth feedback and thoughts. The only question I have left to ask after reading your input, is what topic/specific propaganda article would be good in terms of professional rhetoric.
Well, I'm not sure how to answer your question because the choice of artifact is the first step in your term paper. Your selection of artifact directly relates to the concerns you might have or the method you might prefer to use. I would be happy to discuss the choice with you.
ReplyDeleteI think you could stick with the border wall as the basic area - there have been many efforts on the part of many analysts and pundits to define Trump's border wall as a symbol of this or that political attitude; as being consistent or not with "American" values, etc. It would be that sort of article which might be an appropriate choice for this assignment.
Please let me know how I can help.