RATE THIS EXAMPLE FROM "BENEFICIAL" TO "HARMFUL"
BENEFICIAL HARMFUL
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Elmo on Vaccination
Background Information
The U.S. surgeon general and Elmo team up to promote vaccinations. Elmo explains why they are important and why kids should not be afraid. This is a type of public service announcement.
Technique Used
Simplify Ideas
This is propaganda because
Instead of exploring both sides of the vaccination issue, this is an attempt to simplify concepts and target young audiences (and their parents) with a beloved character.
Testimonial
we think that it is effective
Emotion technique
Effective
Situations that lead to these types of persuasions are caused by fear. Children are, generally, afraid of the pain that comes with shots. Therefore, Elmo demonstrated a fun way to distract himself from the shot (singing a song).
By focusing on the quality of the message, children can gain more confidence in receiving the shot. In following the peripheral route, a child’s belief in a less painful shot will turn into a more positive attitude.
This message is not propaganda because it is not unethical in nature and not based on biases. That depending if you think vaccines are good or bad for you, but for the sake of this assignment I’ll side on the point that they’re good. It could be harmful if vaccines were bad and this video influenced the children to get them, but it’s helpful because vaccines are generally helpful in nature and this video is influencing children to get them. While influencing children is unethical helping the parents to get the children to get their vaccines is not. Children not wanting vaccines is more than likely why this video was made. It take a central route if children are able to comprehend central route processing otherwise its peripheral. This type of processing would be persistent because if they show the child the video and they remember it and sing the song when they’re about to get a vaccine it means the message was delivered and the route helped them.
The mental processing for this ad is most likely peripheral because it takes shortcuts to explaining why children should receive their vaccinations. The mental processing means that the creators are being a bit persistent. If they were being really persistent, they would have made the ad more focused on the parents/guardians who are taking the child to the doctors.
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