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The psychology of persuasion essay
Theories and applications of persuasion
The psychology of persuasion essay
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The movie , “The Great Debaters”, was produced by Oprah Winfrey and directed by Denzel Washington, the movie was written based on a true story, the movie revolving around the efforts of a debate coach and his team to be recognized among white debating teams, such as Harvard University. In a time, when the Jim Crow laws were common in the South and lynching mobs were around, the debate team coach Melvin B. Tolson, helped raise his debate team of young black students to the top.
The debate team of Wiley College faced many colleges to be recognized and finally in the end winning a debate against the reigning debating champions, Harvard University. One of the debaters who caught my attention was James Farmer Jr., the youngest on the team that started out as an alternative. James Farmer sought recognition from adults and wanted to show everyone he was capable of debating. James Farmer incorporates a lot of Ethos and Pathos into his speech making, allowing him to leave his audience filled with emotions and in awe. Although James Farmer interested me, especially the way he presented his final speech, James Farmer and I are very different in the way we deliver our speeches.
James Farmer Jr. wants to prove himself to his coach, his team, and his family. He feels he is not being treated equally because of his age, thus he works hard to be recognized. One of the earlier scenes in the film depicted his father, James Farmer Sr., a man with a PHD, being threatened by white farmers because he accidently killed their pig. James Jr. wanted to stand up for his father, but could not. This goes to show you, that even a prestigious black man in this time can be killed by a couple of rednecks and...
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...irmative and presented my ideas based on facts and history. I am mainly a logos type of speaker using very little pathos appeal, only using pathos based on the audience I am presenting to. James Farmer used his pathos appeal to win over the crowd based on his experiences and what was happening at the time to blacks.
This film influenced me greatly and how I might be able to go about in my speech making. James Farmer Jr. and his debate team delivered their speeches with a lot of emotion, drawing their audiences in on their side. James Farmer used his own experiences and struggles to drive his speech making, while trying to prove himself to everyone that he was not just a child. Although James Farmer and I are different, especially in the way we present our speeches, I admired the way he used his knowledge and emotions to help win the last debate
The Hawaiian culture is known throughout the western world for their extravagant luaus, beautiful islands, and a language that comes nowhere near being pronounceable to anyone but a Hawaiian. Whenever someone wants to “get away” their first thought is to sit on the beach in Hawai’i with a Mai tai in their hand and watch the sun go down. Haunani-Kay Trask is a native Hawaiian educated on the mainland because it was believed to provide a better education. She questioned the stories of her heritage she heard as a child when she began learning of her ancestors in books at school. Confused by which story was correct, she returned to Hawai’i and discovered that the books of the mainland schools had been all wrong and her heritage was correctly told through the language and teachings of her own people. With her use of pathos and connotative language, Trask does a fine job of defending her argument that the western world destroyed her vibrant Hawaiian culture.
My reception of this film was so positive because of my knowledge, experiences and values. I have always enjoyed learning about the 1960’s and admired the political activism and change that occurred in that time period. I grew up in a very liberal home, where we were freely able to discuss controversial topics and form our own opinions.
Americans have embraced debate since before we were a country. The idea that we would provide reasoned support for any position that we took is what made us different from the English king. Our love of debate came from the old country, and embedded itself in our culture as a defining value. Thus, it should not come as a surprise that the affinity for debate is still strong, and finds itself as a regular feature of the mainstream media. However, if Deborah Tannen of the New York Times is correct, our understanding of what it means to argue may be very different from what it once was; a “culture of critique” has developed within our media, and it relies on the exclusive opposition of two conflicting positions (Tannen). In her 1994 editorial, titled “The Triumph of the Yell”, Tannen claims that journalists, politicians and academics treat public discourse as an argument. Furthermore, she attempts to persuade her readers that this posturing of argument as a conflict leads to a battle, not a debate, and that we would be able to communicate the truth if this culture were not interfering. This paper will discuss the rhetorical strategies that Tannen utilizes, outline the support given in her editorial, and why her argument is less convincing than it should be.
Words have power. However, for them to have the desired impact on the audience, some styles have to be incorporated in articulating them out. Orators of the time are best known for their ability to touch people through words. One such person is President Obama. He has a way of making people remember what he has said. This is because; he has styles that he uses in his speech which capture the interest and emotions of the listener. Oppositely, a speaker may want to bring out a certain point, but the choice of technique may impede the passage of such a point to the audience. Basing on this, it is vital for speakers not just to come with word they think are appropriate but also make a choice of the techniques that will influences the delivery of the desired message. Information regarding the styles and techniques utilized by the speaker cannot be gathered unless thee speech is critically analyzed. Accordingly, one of the speeches by President Obama is going to be analyzed.
Great speakers have always been able to move their audiences with their speeches. In Animal Farm, Old Major gave an empowering speech to the animals of Manor Farm. Martin Luther King Jr also gave a very convincing speech about his dream for equality. Old Major in Animal Farm and Martin Luther King Jr both gave successful speeches that used repetition, emotion and rhetorical questions.
Throughout American history, important, credible individuals have given persuasive speeches on various issues to diverse audiences.
One of the greatest orator of all time is Martin Luther King because of the great speaking abilities he had. For example, he was excellent at using pathos. Pathos is when a speaker is able to appeal to the audience’s emotion. Four of the emotional reference in pathos are people, actions, events, and objects. Within each reference there is a positive and a negative orientation. For people there is saint or sinner. In actions there is virtue and vice. In the third reference, events, there is utopia and wasteland. And for the last reference, objects, there is idol and abomination. His ``I Have a Dream`` speech is where he best used pathos. Due to his great use of pathos in his ``I Have a Dream`` speech, it is the great speech of all time
This movie is a wonderful production starting from 1960 and ending in 1969 covering all the different things that occurred during this unbelievable decade. The movie takes place in many different areas starring two main families; a very suburban, white family who were excepting of blacks, and a very positive black family trying to push black rights in Mississippi. The movie portrayed many historical events while also including the families and how the two were intertwined. These families were very different, yet so much alike, they both portrayed what to me the whole ‘message’ of the movie was. Although everyone was so different they all faced such drastic decisions and issues that affected everyone in so many different ways. It wasn’t like one person’s pain was easier to handle than another is that’s like saying Vietnam was harder on those men than on the men that stood for black rights or vice versa, everyone faced these equally hard issues. So it seemed everyone was very emotionally involved. In fact our whole country was very involved in president elections and campaigns against the war, it seemed everyone really cared.
The movie I decided to analyze was Remember the Titans. I examined the dilemmas and ethical choices that were displayed throughout the story. In the early 1970s, two schools in Alexandria Virginia integrate forming T.C. Williams High School. The Caucasian head coach of the Titans is replaced by an African American coach (Denzel Washington) from North Carolina, which causes a fury among white parents and students. Tensions arise quickly among the players and throughout the community when players of different races are forced together on the same football team. Coach Boone is a great example of a leader. He knows he faces a tough year of teaching his hated team. But, instead of listening to the hating town or administrators, Boone pushes his team to their limits and forces good relationships between players, regardless of race. His vision for the team involves getting the players concerned in what the team needs to become, and not what it is supposed to be; a waste. Boone is a convincing leader with a brutal, boot camp approach to coaching. He believes in making the players re-build themselves as a team. When Boone says, You will wear a jacket, shirt, and tie. If you don't have one buy one, can't afford one then borrow one from your old man, if you don't have an old man, then find a drunk, trade him for his. It showed that he was a handy Craftsman and wanted done what he wanted done no matter what it took.During training camp, Boone pairs black players with white players and instructs them to learn about each other. This idea is met with a lot of fighting, but black linebacker Julius Campbell and stubborn white All-American Gerry Bertier. It was difficult for the players to cope with the fact they had to play with and compete with ...
... oppression blacks faced. King’s appeal to ethos set the stage for other methods of persuasion. By building up this appeal, King was able to establish a common ground between himself and the audience. King delivered an effective appeal to pathos, which in turn evoked an emotional response from the viewers. King also used appeals to logic in order to reason with his audience. By appealing to all three rhetorical elements, pathos, logos, and ethos, King was able to effectively persuade and motivate the audience to achieve equality for all American citizens.
What parts of the film were surprising or made you sit back and say, “Hmmm, I need to think more about that? Or, “Wow, I never thought about that.” The part would be when he was talking about “shared equality” up until the 1970’s was a normal thing and how everybody’s income doubled in size as well.
12 months ago, as I walked into UC Berkeley's Dwinelle hall, I approached papers taped to a wall. I read my name on one paper that read; Skyline vs. Oakland Tech. It was my first time attending a debate tournament, the only motivation that compromised me to go was the free food, because I was unaccustomed to the new environment. Me and my randomly assigned debate partner were given each a 100 page packet of evidence for our topic.
The Tribal College Debate Program was started in the spring of 2013. The program is funded by a 34,000 dollar grant from the Open Society Institute through International Debate Education Association or IDEA, an organization that has been in existence for over 20 years, works with young people from all over the world in realm of debate. The grant has made it so that Rocky’s debate team has been able to teach more than 10 different workshops at several different colleges including
Weekend after weekend, tournament after tournament, high school debate engrossed my life. After coming to college, I did not want to give up the activity. As such, I rechanneled my knowledge into a mentorship role. Once a week, I travel into an impoverished Boston high schools and teach students how to debate effectively and successfully. The students I work with through the Harvard College Mentors for Urban Debate program know nothing about debate. They come in with a blank state. However, through a mentorship process, in the end, they were leaps and bounds ahead of where they started from.
... relationships of the black and white people, and how they learned to interact with each other in a time when this was not the way of life. It displays a team that puts a dent into a major problem in the United States at that time. Through leadership they were able to break through a common thought, and as I have said before it really is inspiring to watch. As Coach Boone said, “Make sure they always remember the night they played the Titans” (Moviequotes.com)”