This essay explores ways television commercials can teach both media literacy skills and social studies content knowledge. Because of their brevity and concise messages, commercials offer teachers a wide assortment of engaging, content focused lesson topics that can be used to introduce new ideas, as writing or discussion prompts to further…

Rhetorical analysis was a required unit of study for college students enrolled in intermediate English as a second language (ESL) composition. Twenty-six students participated in a project creating an original product and its infomercial. The project aimed at increasing student motivation to continue writing essays in English and providing a space…

Purpose: The goal of this study was to assess the use of "health" messages in food advertising in the USA which target children. The aim was to determine if these messages indicate the promotion of a healthful product or are a marketing tactic to promote unhealthy items, potentially undermining nutrition education efforts.…

Communicators are involved in persuasion every day. For students to be effective in their persuasive attempts, they need experiential practice in creating and evaluating persuasive messages that utilize persuasive strategies. Persuasive strategies can help speakers to influence their audiences to accept proposed ideas and the possible…

As one of the foundations of persuasion, fallacies should be included in the teaching of persuasive speaking. It is important that speakers avoid misleading their audience as they have an ethical responsibility to tell the truth and avoid misleading information. If discovered, fallacies in messages can damage the credibility of the speaker and…

This article details an activity intended for use in a course with a unit on effective listening, including listening courses, public speaking, and interpersonal communication. Students will explain the importance of effective and active listening for a target audience by producing an infomercial for a product or service which they design.

The first campaign commercials were aired on television in 1952, and from their inception, children have played a critical role in the framing of political ads. Understanding these frames provides important insight into a powerful communication element that is used to influence opinions by connecting with deeply held beliefs about American…

The principles of synergy, particularly as described by Charles Hampden-Turner in "Maps of the Mind," can be applied to critical thinking in television broadcasting. Synergy is the process by which one need or person combines optimally with another. A metaphor for the idea of the concrete and the abstract working together while they are…

Concludes that a single television counter advertisement concerning a brand of aspirin did not cause viewers to lessen appreciably their attitude favorability toward the brand. (GT)

Argues that Channel One has brought about a serious escalation of commercialism in the classroom because of three common and incorrect assumptions--that ads are neither significant, effective, nor harmful. (PRA)

Based on the pattern of "the pitch" (Hi/Trust Me/You Need/Hurry/Buy), this sequence of questions can be used to focus on the "skeleton" underneath the surface variations of radio and television commercials, and newspaper and magazine ads. The five questions, which include evaluation criteria, are as follows: (1) What attention-getting techniques…

Empirically analyzed the informational and symbolic content of 150 over-the-counter drug commercials on television. Results suggest that these ads tend to focus on what the drug will do for the consumer, rather than on the reasons why the drug should be ingested. Educational commitment seemed absent in promotional efforts. (RJM)

Studies visual discourses and visual modes of viewer engagement structuring negative political commercials. Finds that, using strategies of pictorial direct address and pictorial narrative, texts construct their visual arguments by creating ambiguity around the natural versus symbolic status of pictorial expression. Shows how pictorial realism can…

Programs aimed at analyzing the propaganda techniques of television commercials need to be developed by the schools. (JH)

A content analysis was made of the advertisements broadcast during a half-hour of prime-time television, in an effort to discern the overt (obvious) and covert (underlying) themes present in television advertising. The analysis revealed an overt theme of a world view of individual determination, initiative, self-confidence and self-reliance, and…