Category: Knowledge and Politics

Frank Luntz War on Terror Memo

January 27, 2015

Here is a link to an amazing document written in the early 2000’s by Republican strategist Frank Luntz to help Republican politicians frame the debate about the War on Terror, the Iraq war, security and other related issues. This document helped communicate and sell to the public ideas that may not have been true. Without actually saying things that were false, they left people with the impression of false information.  Members of the Republican party were amazingly effective at being on the same page as each other and really used a lot of the same language as laid out in this document.

How does language help us communicate? Is it unethical to mislead your audience without ever uttering something untruthful?

Download Luntz Memo On Terrorism

Lyndon B Johnson’s famous “Daisy Ad”

January 27, 2015

One of the most famous and controversial political ads in American history, LBJ’s “Daisy Ad” was a great example of an appeal to emotion argument. Rather than present a reasoned argument or discuss facts, the ad takes one of the scariest prospects of the time, or any time, nuclear war, and tries to capitalize on people’s emotions by saying that a vote for the other guy would lead to nuclear war. The ad was only aired once but had a huge impact.

Here’s How Differently The Media Covers An Assault Before And After Learning It Was Done By A Cop

January 22, 2015

“The next day, the police released images of the attacker and asked the public for help identifying him. The New York Daily News ran the story in their typically sensationalist way. They described the man as a “brute” and a “thug” and described the incident in lurid detail and begged for readers to help ID the coward who attacked the woman and “ran away smiling.”

The problem? The man turned out to be an off-duty NYPD police officer and the New York Daily News, like almost every other media outlet in the country — liberal or conservative — has a completely different set of rules for covering police officers accused of committing a crime. By the next day, the story had been cleaned up.”

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2015/01/04/heres-how-differently-the-media-covers-an-assault-before-and-after-learning-it-was-done-by-a-cop/

Charlie Hebdo hypocrisy: offensive speech demands scrutiny, not censorship

January 21, 2015

“We also believe that with free speech comes great responsibility not to gratuitously offend. But that responsibility belongs to the individual, not the government, and the consequences for breaching it should be social, not governmental. Yet we see an ominous trend toward government restrictions on speech in the very places speech freedoms were born.”

http://www.smh.com.au/comment/charlie-hebdo-hypocrisy-offensive-speech-demands-scrutiny-not-censorship-20150119-12t5m4.html

Gavrilo Princip: hero or villain?

January 21, 2015

“As Balkan countries prepare to mark the start of the first world war, history books show widely different interpretations.

“As the centenary approaches, there is little hope that rival ethnic and political groups in the Balkans will find a shared view, said history professor Zijad Sehic. ‘We will never have agreement on this issue. The views are too far apart. There will never be a common truth.'”

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/06/gavrilo-princip-hero-villain-first-world-war-balkan-history

I have used this article in class. Here is the adapted handout I’ve used in class.

Princip Article Short

Princip WS

Princip WS notes

History Article Princip w Notes