Games of Persuasion: Exercises in Media Literacy

Like rain the media overload pours over us each day each hour each waking moment of our lives. One way to cope is to withdraw from the world to a faraway island unhooked to any satellite.Another way is to grapple with the media so as to understand the nuts and bolts of the persuasive messages that relentlessly hammer us at home at school on the job and on vacation.On TV and the Internet ads never tire of repetition. But to viewers of these messages they appear as so many headache-hammers inflicting true pain.Therefore on the premise that the best defense is an offense every citizen and consumer must go on the offense. How? By mentally creating a number of hypothetical ads using all of the tricks of the trade. Practice makes perfect!The edge need not remain solely with Madison Avenue public relations specialists lobbyists single-issue advocates politicians and other practitioners of persuasion. The citizen and consumer have their ready vaccine their firewall against unwanted manipulation their booster shots of protection in the propaganda wars.