Approximately 250 word comment on "Who's Afraid of Fear Appeals? Contingency, Courage, and Deliberation in Rhetorical Theory and Practice" by Michael W. Pfau.
To construct an effective fear appeal, one must convince audience members that the potential for disaster is present, and that it is close by. One must explain that others who are greater or equal to themselves, are suffering. One must also explain that there is hope of avoidance of whatever disaster or misfortune. The audience must believe they can have some control over the unpleasant outcome. The article claims that fear appeals used to identify and strengthen an already perceived fear is unethical. Fear appeals that lead to important realization of fear and potential to overcome, are ethical. For example, if I have a preconceived intense fear of snakes, and someone proceeds to try and further scare me, they are acting unethically. If I am using a tanning bed seven days a week and someone comes along and explains to me the potential danger of prolonged sun exposure that I currently do not see as a threat to my well-being, informing me of such danger is ethical. I think it is unethical to present false information with a fear appeal. For example, conveying false solutions to real or imagined fears is an extreme moral violation. I accept fear appeals that present valid dangers where the outcome has the potential to be changed. For example, global warming is a valid fear appeal because some scientists believe the earth and its inhabitants could be spared from an unpleasant outcome.
A clear definition of fear appeal is mentioned in this essay through Walton's 'Scare Tactics'. Fear appeal, "tries to get a target audience to adopt a course of action by portraying the only alternative as some horrible disaster that is very fearful to the audience." A fear appeal argument has three structural characteristics that influence the target audience: The speaker must show there is a possibility of a fearful outcome, the speaker will argue what action should be taken, and finally the audience should act upon the speakers argument of what action to take.
Advertisements against smoking tobacco do a great job of showing fear appeal in their arguments. All of their advertisements show the effects of long-term smoking and what smoking has done to others. They list a number of terrible situations that smokers have faced: removal of vocal cords, lung cancer, death. If the argument is already implied, the advertisements against smoking tobacco will then argue to their target audience that they should immediately stop smoking. It is then up to the audience to make a decision based on their received information. They've been warned of the potential fearful outcome of long-term smoking effects, the advertisement shares how to avoid the effects, now it's up to the target audience.
In this article Aristotle says that “the first thing you have to do in a fear appeal is to bring the person into a state of fear” and that the fear must me close at hand. In fear appeals the people using them use natural disastors, death, bodily harm, and just plain scare tactics to get their message across. They do this by saying that if you don’t do this, or if don’t use our product then it will be the demise of you or the earth will end something along thows lines. Aristotle goes on to say that the Fear is a way for people to impose pain on them to eventually persuade them to do something. I think that the allstate commercials do a good job at this because they are using “mayham” as a threat towards you by saying things like if you have cut rate insurance then all these accidents they show in the commercials then you will have to pay for the damages your self because the company is cheap and don’t want to pay for accidents
In this article, fear appeals are described and defined in many different ways. The article portrays great examples of how fear appeals are associated with the government and politics in general. A fear appeal too many researchers is defined as, “a message designed to elicit fear in an attempt to persuade an individual to pursue some predefined course of action.” The article goes in to give examples of how the United States government has used fear appeals, specifically fears of terrorism, to pursue a variety of agendas. With this being said, the article goes into depth on how the 9/11 attacks specifically drew in more fear appeals that were being portrayed by the government and political leaders. Fear appeals have been increasing from years ago, and it is because of different events such as 9/11 that make these appeals succeed further into people’s daily life. I personally feel that fear appeals has a large effect not only on how people continue to live there daily life’s, but also the way they make executive decisions. These fear appeals make people think differently, not always for the benefit of themselves but for others in their surroundings. Fear appeals to me, is a state of suffering or pain that is forced upon someone to see a specific negative result in return. I also feel that that fear appeals have been not only increasing, but increasing the amount of manipulation in our society. Overall, the article suggests many different views of fear appeals from different times across the board going all the way back to many different philosophers’ perspectives. . It has given me a larger perspective now of how I defer a fear appeal from maybe an emotional appeal.
There is no question that the emotion of fear will never fall short of invoking a reaction. With the objectivity of the social scientific movement rising, we saw the topic of whether fear appeals are ethical or not fading and the "how to's" advancing at an alarming rate. The article brings to light, a fine point when stating how Aristotle focused his rhetorical fear appeals on an audience of "strong". There is no group of society untouched by fear. Keeping the definition of which type of fear the author is referring to is important. The article expresses how every domain of our society is propelled by the power of fear appeals. Bringing a fear to light is not unethical, however deceiving the audience into believing an ultimatum involving that fear is. Let us say for instance, that as a child I was afraid of bugs. So when my parents did not want me to go into a certain room they would tell me there were bugs in there. That would be immoral. However, if they merely brought to light that they had seen a bug in there, than that would not be unjust. Such a fine line comes with the fear appeal and this article shows you all the variety of dimensions.
This article describes many of the theoritical and philsophical views of the definition of fear. It is said that there are two types of fear, “fear-motivated action” and “action done out of fear,” I in essance have to strongly agree with these ideas. “Fear-moticated action” could be an example of many different things, including feeling threatened to the point that the person will perform any action in order to avoid what is causing this scare tactic in their life. Also “action done out of fear,” also has many examples of this situation. For example, a person could be so scared that they perform a violent act that they on an ordinary basis would not fathom the thought of doing such a thing, but out of fear this action is in fact performed. Fear can be seen in many different situation and the most common is in health and politics. In politics things may be stated that are so obsence and exaggerated just to make the public feel as though their leader is taking care of them. This is obviously big in election time periods. A candidate may make the issue of our national debt seem to such an extreme and make the public that this candidate is very knowledgable in this topic and will be able to help the society.
“This means that convincing audiences to fear some object is only the fi rst step in the process of creating a “deliberative” fear appeal.”
This article gives great insight on the different types of fear appeals and scare tactics and the definition of these things in order to help get a better grasp on exactly could be considered as fear.
Michael William Pfau's article does good in outlining the differences in fear appeals that are used in modern society, mainly in political discourse. The theme of the article relates to the ethical use of these fear appeals. Pfau puts Aristotle's concept of "Civic fear" in contrast to the dichotomized nature of current fear appeals. "Civic fear" is presented to a population by making them aware of an unrecognized danger, explaining its preventability, igniting courage in the population and then opening the floor for deliberation on possible solutions. "Civic fear" at its core seems not only unproblematic, but a healthy tool to awaken citizens to impeding danger while also stimulating deliberation between them. It is an appeal to man's cognitive nature and stimulates action that is "fear-based" instead of "acting out of fear". While this tool is healthy, the dichotomized fear appeal in which an already prominent fear is resurfaced to convince citizens to support a very specific idea. This is a turn or burn type fear appeal and while the fear may be logical at the core, the overexposure and exaggeration of the fear causes the population to behave irrationally and blindly. Liberty constraining legislature such as the Patriot Act is a prime example of dichotomized fear tactics blinding the mass of the population into exchanging many of their liberties. Fear appeals can be ethical, but not when the solution presented limits deliberation and becomes the only answer to the fear. Terrorism has become the object to much of the fear appeals in our current political discourse, while this is a threat, it is already well recognized. There are many other important issues that are not being addressed due to the overexposure of terrorist fear appeals. That is where "Civic fear" must take place within the people, to recognize the impending threat of government spending, imperialistic actions on behalf of our government and expanding federal control.
In Michael William Pfau’s article, Phau uses many different examples to describe how fear appeals are used in today’s society as well as how they were thought to be used in the past in the days of Aristotle. Pfau explains the two separate ideas of fear where he describes them as, “Fear-motivated action” and “action done out of fear” these two fear appeals basically set the standard for how and why people decide to use fear as a motivational tool when they are trying to persuade someone to do what they want or change their beliefs about something by either “Motivat[ing] a rational and strategies response to danger” or “Portraying the only alternative as some horrible disaster”. Also, Pfau describes the idea of “civic fear” where the author describes it as “[something] that is cognitive oriented and that there exists some danger…that could or will harm the respondant, as well as a psychological overlay that “drive[s]” the aspect in relation to the object of fear.” I believe that civic fear as Pfau describes it, is the most common use of fear appeals today because, it can be used anywhere from disciplining a child by threatening them by “grounding” them to a political leader telling an audience, “ if they are not elected the world will come to an end.” At times these fear appeals can be used to better a person or an audience as well as persuading an audience to believe in things that will ultimately hurt them or society as a whole.
Michael Williams Pfau's article covers the basics of fear appeals and how the use of such appeals has become increasingly prevalent since the attacks on September 11th. He specifically mentions that numerous incidents where the fear appeals have been used to curtail dissent and our civil liberties. He also speaks about how these fear tactics have become more accepted within academic circles, with an emphasis on how to maximize the motivational uses of fear appeals. Pfau makes an interesting distinction in how fear can create two separate reactions, one being the “fear-motivated action”, and the other being the “action done out of fear”, and he explains that these actions are born from the same fear appeal but produce wildly different results. Pfau also discusses the Aristotelian view of fear appeals. In the Politics Aristotle states that fear appeals must be used so that, “the object of fear must be presented as being nearby. For people will not fear what is far away.” Pfau also delves into the problems a fear appeal causes for the speaker. He states that “since fear is a sense of imminent pain rather than pleasure, the audience will be more likely to attempt to resist.” Aristotle describes that there are two kinds of people likely to resist a fear appeal, “a strong person for they are confident in their situation, and a person who has already gone through great suffering, for they have become indifferent to the future.” There’s only so much you can cover in 250 words, but this article gives very good insight into the rational thoughts behind fear appeals and how they affect audiences.
In this article we learn that fear appeals impact entire communities, economies, and even politics. Fear appeals have often been regarded as controversial due to the fact that they bypass the natural process of “reason and logic that ought to guide the rational human being.” Although they have been debated and criticized, fear appeals have still been accepted and even employed by several members of society, most often in politics. Political leaders have used different forms of fear appeals to push their agendas and gain support for their “unnecessary and counterproductive military actions.” In order to gauge the “appropriateness of fear appeals” it is necessary to examine the rhetorical and dialectical context it is in.
The article goes on to define and explain the differences between “civic fear” and the traditional “dichotomous” fear appeals. Both fear appeals “attempt to achieve opinion change” but the means of how both are implicated are different. Traditional fear appeals attempt to do so “by establishing the negative consequences of failing to agree with the advocated opinion.” Civic fear is different in two ways: the first way being how it “relates to the audience’s preconceptions of the object of fear.” Civic fear draws attention to objects of fear that are not commonly known or are “unrecognized or underappreciated.” In a sense, civic fear brings these new objects of fear into light, in order to warn and alert the audience. The traditional dichotomous fear appeals focus on objects of fear that have already been exposed which only increases the fear that has already been instilled within the audience. This over exposure is often used in order to manipulate the audience. The second difference is the way in which the fear appeals “relate to the character of the actions proposed in response to the object of fear.” Traditional dichotomous fear appeals seek to simply “gain compliance with the message source’s recommended response.” Civic fear, on the other hand, seeks to encourage collective foresight by way of opening up political deliberations regarding the object of fear.” Again the purpose of civic fear is to encourage the audience to open their eyes to what might not have been seen before so that they can be alert and informed, whereas the purpose of dichotomous fear appeals is to gain more support for the already known dangers that are presented.
Human existence is naturally lined with tons of fear. This article examines the significance of different rhetorical strategies that utilize that fear to help develop an argument. Pfau concludes that our rhetoric will ultimately determine what type of decision we will make. He argues that depending on the rhetorical choices one will either a)make a deliberate "fear-motivated action" or b) make a seemingly instinctive panic motivating "action done out of fear". The distinction here is where the heart of Pfau's argument resides. Essentially, we can either make a rational decision that is motivated by a calculated fear that we can weigh the potential outcomes of, or we can instinctively respond with an action that is done out of fear. Perhaps then, this means that embracing fear is a good thing because since its inevitable we should probably include it in our decision making process, because it would be rather arrogant to simply dismiss it as a whole from our decision making. The alternative approach has a pretty good track record of yielding counterproductive and irrational responses. Most scholars have typically dismissed using fear appeals, the reasons why Pfau concludes that typically they might be right but only because that in the instances that other scholars generally discuss fear appeals the fear is not being used to create a logical response but instead is used to create a knee-jerk reaction to otherwise perfectly rational decision making.
In order for a fear tactic to be properly utilized, one must acknowledge the existence of fear and understand what it means to be in fear. Throughout history, there has been a great debate concerning the ethical boundaries of fear tactics. Are they good for people, or do they only create more chaos? In regards to people who look to logic, most philosophers find these fear tactics only to be false, and misguiding. They are perceived as a tool of manipulation that often time overstep the boundaries that citizens deserve. One of the best examples of this is the fear of “Terrorism”. Pfau displays fantastic intuitive analysis that shows the effects of 9/11, which eventually lead to a crackdown on “terrorism”. The tactics of fear that were associated with “Terrorism” eventually lead to the passing of the Patriot Act. The only reason it passed was the fear created by the legislators, officials, political groups, lobbyists etc. Pfau makes the valid point that for fear to be correctly implemented for political gains, the speaker must demonstrate some sort of hope. The fear cannot overwhelm the person or else they will see no potential gain. Though there are times that fear can be used as manipulation, there are also types of fear rhetoric that are necessary. There are some things in life that citizens should be made aware of. An example would be smoking cigarettes. They can kill you, yes, but you can control that as an individual. However more often than not, in regards to the rhetoric of fear, there is almost always another motive behind fear appeal.
Because fear is a pain and not a pleasure, as people we naturally try to avoid and resist the essence of fear. As we are exposed to fear we know we are susceptible to suffering and it’s other consequences. We feel the potential destruction of fear when it is “near at hand,” meaning signs have warned us harm leading to great pains is a possibility in the near future. To be fearful of something we must be aware of a possible outcome in which a recommended course of action must take place in order to avoid. Fear possesses an important cognitive dimension in which are not always fallacious. Politics have taken the role of this emotion and used it in many ways. Some agree that there is a constructive political role for fear. Others believe fear has a corrosive effect on citizen’s freedoms. Therefore maintaining power of state. Events such as the September 11 attacks and the passage of the USA-PATRIOT ACT have dominated fear appeals within politics. Here we see fear among citizens contribute to the survival of the political community. Aristotle also believes that “fear-at it’s best-can actually foster political deliberation.”
Fear is a natural feeling and emotion that we live with every single day. In this article the author illustrates how to use fear as an argumentation device. Several things jumped out at me as I read through this difficult to read article. Firs was Aristotle's argument that fear must be used in the present. He argued that most people don't fear death because it is known that it is so far away. In general that is true. On day to day term we don't even think about death. Its only when faced with it that the fear actually comes into play, This idea helps when it comes to using fear as a persuasive tool. If the speaker can make the audience fearful that they are in immediate danger they are more likely to be able to persuade them to do what they want them to do. Using fear appeals can be productive because emotions play such a strong role in the decision making process. I think a good current example of fear appeals is Fox News. They daily look to scare Americans into thinking the way that they think. Though some Americans are smart enough to see through there web of fear and lies, some eat it up and rely heavily on there product of fear. A lot of news outlets use fear though to get there point and opinions across. On the other side those who do not use fear as an appeal are not nearly as productive when it comes to being persuasive. Lets take an example that many people are probably familiar with. When I was i High School ages ago, we had a man come and speak to our baseball team. He was missing half of his mouth and spoke through a voice box because mouth cancer had taken his lip and voice. This was from dipping snuff his entire life. His presentation would not have been nearly effective if he spoke normally and looked normal. The idea was to scare us into not dipping snuff. For me it worked 100%. I put down my can of Copenhagen and picked up a bag of sunflower seeds. Fear appeals drive the point home and are essential to persuasive presentation.
In this article Fear appeal is defined as getting the audience to do something or take action in order to prevent a disastrous outcome. This is done by portraying that “if you don’t take action now, this horrible thing will happen”. In other words, the speaker is saying that you have two choices: A) you can do what we tell you or B) Disaster happens.
This type of argument can be broken down into three basic parts. Firstly, the one trying to convince the audience must demonstrate the possibility of a disaster if they don’t do something about it. Then some form of action to prevent said disaster must be portrayed. And finally, the speaker must convince the audience that taking this action is the only and best way to prevent disaster from happening.
Examples of this can be seen in all sorts of campaigns for and against certain products. For example, during flu season you will see stores all over saying “buy our flu shot or you WILL get sick”, which presents a clear example of do (a) or (b) will happen. You will also see examples in campaigns against drugs that say “don’t do drug A or drug B or you will become stupid or you will get sick with this disease or you will cause harm to yourself and those around you, etc”. This presents the reverse argument of DON”T do (a) or (b) will happen.
Every day, humans are bound by the strategic placement of fear tactics from superior forces. This, though not the core of Pfau’s argument, is the important piece of philosophical information I both agree and vary with the most. The first idea I can think of is the fact that not all government boundaries are contrived of only the government. For instance, in the case of cigarette campaigns we can see that these are politically driven, sometimes government funded ads that preach fear for results. At first glance we assume a government’s hand has a doing in this, but many campaigns (not limited to tobacco ads) are democratically driven by citizen groups. This means some boundaries come as a result of public involvement through government. Now that we have a clearer understanding of this concept, it seems appropriate to ask the question ‘are governmental boundaries good?’ Pfau describes in the article, at least from my perspective, government boundaries to be bad. He uses the 9/11 attacks as testament to this perspective. In my opinion, the pendulum can swing both ways in this instance. Even if there were boundaries that were seemingly constructed by the government to threaten the nation into supporting bogus legislation, the fact of the matter is without structure we would collapse. So yes I believe certain boundaries are good. I disagree, however, with the fact that the appeals would consist of fear as the emotional motivator. But if you think about it, something all demographics can agree upon is that scary things can motivate you better than most.
Michael W. Pfau does an excellent job and illustrating the fear appeals that are presented in today’s society and how they have worked in the past. He goes in depth about the definition of fear and how people, politics, and society can use it to their advantage. He uses many of Aristotle’s definitions to help clarify what fear actually is. Together they make a great point when describing how fear can manipulate people. “All evils are not feared…” this is true but with the right use of Rhetoric, they can make the audience “believe that a destructive or painful even or object is likely to affect oneself.” This article then talks about “civic fear” and “dichotomous” and the importance of both when trying to influence an audience on the notion of fear. Even though Aristotle didn’t grow up in our century, the man knew what he was talking about when it came to speech. Aristotle’s three stages’ to obtain “civic fear” demonstrate the essential parts of making the audience feel fear. Another thing that caught my attention in this article was the “terror management theory.” I thought that our emotions are what drive our fears but TMT explains it from a different perspective and shows how fear is one of the strongest emotions. Although this article seems somewhat repetitive, Pfau shows us examples of fear appeals that have worked in the past and supports those claims by using the brilliance of Aristotle to show how they are successful.
In “Who’s Afraid of Fear Appeals? Contingency, Courage and Deliberation in Rhetoric Theory and Practice” Michael Pfau argues the ethical use of fear appeals using Aristotle’s works, Politics, Rhetoric and Ethics. He also gives Demosthenes orations in Philippics as an example of Aristotle’s theories in action. Using the historical account of Phillip of Macedonia’s invasion of Greece, Demosthenes is able to use fear appeals awaken the citizens of Athens in the defense of the city. Pfau also makes the arguments against using fear appeals, but I will focus on the arguments for using fear appeals in modern politics.
In order to rally the citizens of Athens to take seriously the threat posed by Phillip of Macedonia Demosthenes reminds the citizens who feel too safe in their wealth and security that others before them have fallen to Phillip’s army. These others were just as wealthy and secure as the Athenians. He creates fear in order to spark action and debate among the citizens. By reminding them of other’s misfortunes Demosthenes was able the get the Athenians to take the threat posed by Phillip seriously, something that wouldn’t have happened otherwise.
We often assume that invoking fear is always a bad thing, but if the fear is based on a real threat it is often the best approach. We see this today in DWI and anti-smoking campaigns. The issues are real and the advertisements, for the most part, don’t distort the truth.
Michael William Pfau’s article “Who’s Afraid of Fear Appeals?” discusses the “pervasiveness of contemporary fear appeals, importance of the issues with which fear appeals have become associated and the disagreement regarding fear appeals among scholars.” I thought the guidelines for an effective fear appeal presented by Aristotle were interesting. For the appeal to induce fear in an individual the object must be close at hand because anything that is perceived as “far off” is not feared. For example the fear of death: we all know we’re going to die at some point and for the most part it doesn’t bother us; what does bring about fear in this subject is the absence of knowledge in how or when we’re going to die. The point I found most effective was “for fear to continue, there must be some hope of being saved from the cause of agony.” For a speaker to execute a successful fear appeal they must not only focus on the object of fear, but have to be careful not to “foreclose the possibility of hope.”
"Fear is an influential emotion whose history reveals its impacts not only on individuals, but on entire communities." Michael William Pfau does a good job explaining fear appeals and how fear is continually used. For example, he explains how the terror attacks on 9/11 placed fear into our country as a whole. I believe on that day that we based our fear off of emotion. Later that night George Bush had a speech that I will personally never forget. He acknowledged the fear that had stained us, but he also put fear into the alleged terrorists. Many people question whether placing fear into politics is right or wrong. Pfau explains that politicians use fear tactics “in order to stifle healthy democratic dissent or crack down on civil liberties.” As they abuse these fear tactics they gain public support because of the fear that has been put in place.
In class we questioned one another on whether placing fear into politics is right. We discussed that in many cases it shouldn’t be moral. But during this discussion I started to question if it is wrong to not use fear at all. Many people complain that the government hides too much information from us citizens, but I believe there is a purpose for that. There are numerous instances when politicians probably have thousands of secrets from around the world that they do not tell us. This is because they want to PREVENT fear.
In Michael Pfau's article, "Who's Afraid of Fear Appeals...," Pfau discusses the use of fear appeals as a fosterer of political deliberation, the use of fear appeals to cause a particular audience to conform, different types of fear, and different outlooks on fear appeals. In my rhetoric course, I became familiar with Plato and Aristotle's definitions of fear, and there general stance on the subject. This article gave me a more in depth definition and explanation behind their two general ideas. I agree more with Aristotle's belief that emotions can be rational and "are dependent on cognitive perceptions of the world" (218-19). Gordon's definitions of "fear-motivated action" and "action done out of fear" are applicable to our society. Also, Walter's "Scare Tactics" are applicable to our nation's history. For example, during WWII, the Nazi's heavily relied on fear appeals in various propaganda to build support for the war by scaring people and making them believe the the alternative was far worse. I think that Walton's take on analyzing arguments is essential to evaluating political debates, advertising, etc. It is important to identity the premise of the argument, and what the supposed reason for the argument is. I found the section about fear appeals in the Aristotelian Political and Rhetorical Theory very interesting. I agree that fears that appear far off are not feared, and that only what seems close in proximity or could cause injury or great suffering will result in fear. I think those who have great fortune are more likely to resist fear appeals. Similarly, those who feel that nothing could get any worse are also more likely to resist fear appeals. Aristotle's categories of events and experience including the necessary and contingent seems to accurately depict our government in many ways. People want to fix what they can. People want to deliberate about "things that are in our power." Topics such as global warming, fossil fuels, and the record budget deficits are often overlooked by policymakers out of fear and the unknown. "Civic fear" appeals would undoubtedly be a useful tactic for legislators and citizens to use when dealing with the issues we are facing today. This article brings up many interesting points and perspectives on fear appeals and their potential role in political deliberation.
Fear in todays world is over used by all users. The media uses fear in the public for ratings and profit rather than looking at the emotional toll onto the viewers, "civic fear". Politics uses fear to gain votes also to hurt the opponents running against. Philosophers think that using fear and emotion clouds logic and judgment which can cause mistakes and arguments. Fear without emotion is impossible because of the many different views that can be taken from it without the control of filtering one-selves own opinion. Plato and Aristotle disagreed on how the effect or affect of fear appeal had upon to the listeners or viewers. Plato saw fear in discussion as a "corruption" while Aristotle saw fear appeal as an awakening to new ideas and logic. In the reading both side are supported and it can be seen as a use of both, not fully one sided from the other. In the reading it gives great examples an in my own opinion fear and emotion are hand in hand and cannot have one without the other. The audience is afraid of fear appeals and so is the competition because of view changes the lose or gain votes. An audience is either hopeless or helpless in these actions because fear appeal is mostly used against them to purposely change an idea or view.
To construct an effective fear appeal, one must convince audience members that the potential for disaster is present, and that it is close by. One must explain that others who are greater or equal to themselves, are suffering. One must also explain that there is hope of avoidance of whatever disaster or misfortune. The audience must believe they can have some control over the unpleasant outcome.
ReplyDeleteThe article claims that fear appeals used to identify and strengthen an already perceived fear is unethical. Fear appeals that lead to important realization of fear and potential to overcome, are ethical. For example, if I have a preconceived intense fear of snakes, and someone proceeds to try and further scare me, they are acting unethically. If I am using a tanning bed seven days a week and someone comes along and explains to me the potential danger of prolonged sun exposure that I currently do not see as a threat to my well-being, informing me of such danger is ethical.
I think it is unethical to present false information with a fear appeal. For example, conveying false solutions to real or imagined fears is an extreme moral violation. I accept fear appeals that present valid dangers where the outcome has the potential to be changed. For example, global warming is a valid fear appeal because some scientists believe the earth and its inhabitants could be spared from an unpleasant outcome.
A clear definition of fear appeal is mentioned in this essay through Walton's 'Scare Tactics'. Fear appeal, "tries to get a target audience to adopt a course of action by portraying the only alternative as some horrible disaster that is very fearful to the audience." A fear appeal argument has three structural characteristics that influence the target audience: The speaker must show there is a possibility of a fearful outcome, the speaker will argue what action should be taken, and finally the audience should act upon the speakers argument of what action to take.
ReplyDeleteAdvertisements against smoking tobacco do a great job of showing fear appeal in their arguments. All of their advertisements show the effects of long-term smoking and what smoking has done to others. They list a number of terrible situations that smokers have faced: removal of vocal cords, lung cancer, death. If the argument is already implied, the advertisements against smoking tobacco will then argue to their target audience that they should immediately stop smoking. It is then up to the audience to make a decision based on their received information. They've been warned of the potential fearful outcome of long-term smoking effects, the advertisement shares how to avoid the effects, now it's up to the target audience.
In this article Aristotle says that “the first thing you have to do in a fear appeal is to bring the person into a state of fear” and that the fear must me close at hand. In fear appeals the people using them use natural disastors, death, bodily harm, and just plain scare tactics to get their message across. They do this by saying that if you don’t do this, or if don’t use our product then it will be the demise of you or the earth will end something along thows lines. Aristotle goes on to say that the Fear is a way for people to impose pain on them to eventually persuade them to do something.
ReplyDeleteI think that the allstate commercials do a good job at this because they are using “mayham” as a threat towards you by saying things like if you have cut rate insurance then all these accidents they show in the commercials then you will have to pay for the damages your self because the company is cheap and don’t want to pay for accidents
In this article, fear appeals are described and defined in many different ways. The article portrays great examples of how fear appeals are associated with the government and politics in general. A fear appeal too many researchers is defined as, “a message designed to elicit fear in an attempt to persuade an individual to pursue some predefined course of action.” The article goes in to give examples of how the United States government has used fear appeals, specifically fears of terrorism, to pursue a variety of agendas. With this being said, the article goes into depth on how the 9/11 attacks specifically drew in more fear appeals that were being portrayed by the government and political leaders. Fear appeals have been increasing from years ago, and it is because of different events such as 9/11 that make these appeals succeed further into people’s daily life. I personally feel that fear appeals has a large effect not only on how people continue to live there daily life’s, but also the way they make executive decisions. These fear appeals make people think differently, not always for the benefit of themselves but for others in their surroundings. Fear appeals to me, is a state of suffering or pain that is forced upon someone to see a specific negative result in return. I also feel that that fear appeals have been not only increasing, but increasing the amount of manipulation in our society. Overall, the article suggests many different views of fear appeals from different times across the board going all the way back to many different philosophers’ perspectives. . It has given me a larger perspective now of how I defer a fear appeal from maybe an emotional appeal.
ReplyDeleteThere is no question that the emotion of fear will never fall short of invoking a reaction. With the objectivity of the social scientific movement rising, we saw the topic of whether fear appeals are ethical or not fading and the "how to's" advancing at an alarming rate. The article brings to light, a fine point when stating how Aristotle focused his rhetorical fear appeals on an audience of "strong". There is no group of society untouched by fear. Keeping the definition of which type of fear the author is referring to is important. The article expresses how every domain of our society is propelled by the power of fear appeals. Bringing a fear to light is not unethical, however deceiving the audience into believing an ultimatum involving that fear is. Let us say for instance, that as a child I was afraid of bugs. So when my parents did not want me to go into a certain room they would tell me there were bugs in there. That would be immoral. However, if they merely brought to light that they had seen a bug in there, than that would not be unjust. Such a fine line comes with the fear appeal and this article shows you all the variety of dimensions.
ReplyDeleteThis article describes many of the theoritical and philsophical views of the definition of fear. It is said that there are two types of fear, “fear-motivated action” and “action done out of fear,” I in essance have to strongly agree with these ideas. “Fear-moticated action” could be an example of many different things, including feeling threatened to the point that the person will perform any action in order to avoid what is causing this scare tactic in their life. Also “action done out of fear,” also has many examples of this situation. For example, a person could be so scared that they perform a violent act that they on an ordinary basis would not fathom the thought of doing such a thing, but out of fear this action is in fact performed.
ReplyDeleteFear can be seen in many different situation and the most common is in health and politics. In politics things may be stated that are so obsence and exaggerated just to make the public feel as though their leader is taking care of them. This is obviously big in election time periods. A candidate may make the issue of our national debt seem to such an extreme and make the public that this candidate is very knowledgable in this topic and will be able to help the society.
“This means that convincing
audiences to fear some object is only the fi rst step in the process of creating a
“deliberative” fear appeal.”
This article gives great insight on the different types of fear appeals and scare tactics and the definition of these things in order to help get a better grasp on exactly could be considered as fear.
Michael William Pfau's article does good in outlining the differences in fear appeals that are used in modern society, mainly in political discourse. The theme of the article relates to the ethical use of these fear appeals. Pfau puts Aristotle's concept of "Civic fear" in contrast to the dichotomized nature of current fear appeals. "Civic fear" is presented to a population by making them aware of an unrecognized danger, explaining its preventability, igniting courage in the population and then opening the floor for deliberation on possible solutions. "Civic fear" at its core seems not only unproblematic, but a healthy tool to awaken citizens to impeding danger while also stimulating deliberation between them. It is an appeal to man's cognitive nature and stimulates action that is "fear-based" instead of "acting out of fear". While this tool is healthy, the dichotomized fear appeal in which an already prominent fear is resurfaced to convince citizens to support a very specific idea. This is a turn or burn type fear appeal and while the fear may be logical at the core, the overexposure and exaggeration of the fear causes the population to behave irrationally and blindly. Liberty constraining legislature such as the Patriot Act is a prime example of dichotomized fear tactics blinding the mass of the population into exchanging many of their liberties. Fear appeals can be ethical, but not when the solution presented limits deliberation and becomes the only answer to the fear. Terrorism has become the object to much of the fear appeals in our current political discourse, while this is a threat, it is already well recognized. There are many other important issues that are not being addressed due to the overexposure of terrorist fear appeals. That is where "Civic fear" must take place within the people, to recognize the impending threat of government spending, imperialistic actions on behalf of our government and expanding federal control.
ReplyDeleteIn Michael William Pfau’s article, Phau uses many different examples to describe how fear appeals are used in today’s society as well as how they were thought to be used in the past in the days of Aristotle. Pfau explains the two separate ideas of fear where he describes them as, “Fear-motivated action” and “action done out of fear” these two fear appeals basically set the standard for how and why people decide to use fear as a motivational tool when they are trying to persuade someone to do what they want or change their beliefs about something by either “Motivat[ing] a rational and strategies response to danger” or “Portraying the only alternative as some horrible disaster”.
ReplyDeleteAlso, Pfau describes the idea of “civic fear” where the author describes it as “[something] that is cognitive oriented and that there exists some danger…that could or will harm the respondant, as well as a psychological overlay that “drive[s]” the aspect in relation to the object of fear.” I believe that civic fear as Pfau describes it, is the most common use of fear appeals today because, it can be used anywhere from disciplining a child by threatening them by “grounding” them to a political leader telling an audience, “ if they are not elected the world will come to an end.” At times these fear appeals can be used to better a person or an audience as well as persuading an audience to believe in things that will ultimately hurt them or society as a whole.
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DeleteMichael Williams Pfau's article covers the basics of fear appeals and how the use of such appeals has become increasingly prevalent since the attacks on September 11th. He specifically mentions that numerous incidents where the fear appeals have been used to curtail dissent and our civil liberties. He also speaks about how these fear tactics have become more accepted within academic circles, with an emphasis on how to maximize the motivational uses of fear appeals. Pfau makes an interesting distinction in how fear can create two separate reactions, one being the “fear-motivated action”, and the other being the “action done out of fear”, and he explains that these actions are born from the same fear appeal but produce wildly different results.
ReplyDeletePfau also discusses the Aristotelian view of fear appeals. In the Politics Aristotle states that fear appeals must be used so that, “the object of fear must be presented as being nearby. For people will not fear what is far away.” Pfau also delves into the problems a fear appeal causes for the speaker. He states that “since fear is a sense of imminent pain rather than pleasure, the audience will be more likely to attempt to resist.” Aristotle describes that there are two kinds of people likely to resist a fear appeal, “a strong person for they are confident in their situation, and a person who has already gone through great suffering, for they have become indifferent to the future.”
There’s only so much you can cover in 250 words, but this article gives very good insight into the rational thoughts behind fear appeals and how they affect audiences.
In this article we learn that fear appeals impact entire communities, economies, and even politics. Fear appeals have often been regarded as controversial due to the fact that they bypass the natural process of “reason and logic that ought to guide the rational human being.” Although they have been debated and criticized, fear appeals have still been accepted and even employed by several members of society, most often in politics. Political leaders have used different forms of fear appeals to push their agendas and gain support for their “unnecessary and counterproductive military actions.” In order to gauge the “appropriateness of fear appeals” it is necessary to examine the rhetorical and dialectical context it is in.
ReplyDeleteThe article goes on to define and explain the differences between “civic fear” and the traditional “dichotomous” fear appeals. Both fear appeals “attempt to achieve opinion change” but the means of how both are implicated are different. Traditional fear appeals attempt to do so “by establishing the negative consequences of failing to agree with the advocated opinion.” Civic fear is different in two ways: the first way being how it “relates to the audience’s preconceptions of the object of fear.” Civic fear draws attention to objects of fear that are not commonly known or are “unrecognized or underappreciated.” In a sense, civic fear brings these new objects of fear into light, in order to warn and alert the audience. The traditional dichotomous fear appeals focus on objects of fear that have already been exposed which only increases the fear that has already been instilled within the audience. This over exposure is often used in order to manipulate the audience. The second difference is the way in which the fear appeals “relate to the character of the actions proposed in response to the object of fear.” Traditional dichotomous fear appeals seek to simply “gain compliance with the message source’s recommended response.” Civic fear, on the other hand, seeks to encourage collective foresight by way of opening up political deliberations regarding the object of fear.” Again the purpose of civic fear is to encourage the audience to open their eyes to what might not have been seen before so that they can be alert and informed, whereas the purpose of dichotomous fear appeals is to gain more support for the already known dangers that are presented.
Human existence is naturally lined with tons of fear. This article examines the significance of different rhetorical strategies that utilize that fear to help develop an argument. Pfau concludes that our rhetoric will ultimately determine what type of decision we will make. He argues that depending on the rhetorical choices one will either a)make a deliberate "fear-motivated action" or b) make a seemingly instinctive panic motivating "action done out of fear". The distinction here is where the heart of Pfau's argument resides. Essentially, we can either make a rational decision that is motivated by a calculated fear that we can weigh the potential outcomes of, or we can instinctively respond with an action that is done out of fear. Perhaps then, this means that embracing fear is a good thing because since its inevitable we should probably include it in our decision making process, because it would be rather arrogant to simply dismiss it as a whole from our decision making. The alternative approach has a pretty good track record of yielding counterproductive and irrational responses. Most scholars have typically dismissed using fear appeals, the reasons why Pfau concludes that typically they might be right but only because that in the instances that other scholars generally discuss fear appeals the fear is not being used to create a logical response but instead is used to create a knee-jerk reaction to otherwise perfectly rational decision making.
ReplyDeleteIn order for a fear tactic to be properly utilized, one must acknowledge the existence of fear and understand what it means to be in fear. Throughout history, there has been a great debate concerning the ethical boundaries of fear tactics. Are they good for people, or do they only create more chaos? In regards to people who look to logic, most philosophers find these fear tactics only to be false, and misguiding. They are perceived as a tool of manipulation that often time overstep the boundaries that citizens deserve. One of the best examples of this is the fear of “Terrorism”. Pfau displays fantastic intuitive analysis that shows the effects of 9/11, which eventually lead to a crackdown on “terrorism”. The tactics of fear that were associated with “Terrorism” eventually lead to the passing of the Patriot Act. The only reason it passed was the fear created by the legislators, officials, political groups, lobbyists etc. Pfau makes the valid point that for fear to be correctly implemented for political gains, the speaker must demonstrate some sort of hope. The fear cannot overwhelm the person or else they will see no potential gain. Though there are times that fear can be used as manipulation, there are also types of fear rhetoric that are necessary. There are some things in life that citizens should be made aware of. An example would be smoking cigarettes. They can kill you, yes, but you can control that as an individual. However more often than not, in regards to the rhetoric of fear, there is almost always another motive behind fear appeal.
DeleteBecause fear is a pain and not a pleasure, as people we naturally try to avoid and resist the essence of fear. As we are exposed to fear we know we are susceptible to suffering and it’s other consequences. We feel the potential destruction of fear when it is “near at hand,” meaning signs have warned us harm leading to great pains is a possibility in the near future. To be fearful of something we must be aware of a possible outcome in which a recommended course of action must take place in order to avoid. Fear possesses an important cognitive dimension in which are not always fallacious.
ReplyDeletePolitics have taken the role of this emotion and used it in many ways. Some agree that there is a constructive political role for fear. Others believe fear has a corrosive effect on citizen’s freedoms. Therefore maintaining power of state. Events such as the September 11 attacks and the passage of the USA-PATRIOT ACT have dominated fear appeals within politics. Here we see fear among citizens contribute to the survival of the political community. Aristotle also believes that “fear-at it’s best-can actually foster political deliberation.”
Fear is a natural feeling and emotion that we live with every single day. In this article the author illustrates how to use fear as an argumentation device. Several things jumped out at me as I read through this difficult to read article. Firs was Aristotle's argument that fear must be used in the present. He argued that most people don't fear death because it is known that it is so far away. In general that is true. On day to day term we don't even think about death. Its only when faced with it that the fear actually comes into play, This idea helps when it comes to using fear as a persuasive tool. If the speaker can make the audience fearful that they are in immediate danger they are more likely to be able to persuade them to do what they want them to do. Using fear appeals can be productive because emotions play such a strong role in the decision making process. I think a good current example of fear appeals is Fox News. They daily look to scare Americans into thinking the way that they think. Though some Americans are smart enough to see through there web of fear and lies, some eat it up and rely heavily on there product of fear. A lot of news outlets use fear though to get there point and opinions across. On the other side those who do not use fear as an appeal are not nearly as productive when it comes to being persuasive. Lets take an example that many people are probably familiar with. When I was i High School ages ago, we had a man come and speak to our baseball team. He was missing half of his mouth and spoke through a voice box because mouth cancer had taken his lip and voice. This was from dipping snuff his entire life. His presentation would not have been nearly effective if he spoke normally and looked normal. The idea was to scare us into not dipping snuff. For me it worked 100%. I put down my can of Copenhagen and picked up a bag of sunflower seeds. Fear appeals drive the point home and are essential to persuasive presentation.
ReplyDeleteIn this article Fear appeal is defined as getting the audience to do something or take action in order to prevent a disastrous outcome. This is done by portraying that “if you don’t take action now, this horrible thing will happen”. In other words, the speaker is saying that you have two choices: A) you can do what we tell you or B) Disaster happens.
ReplyDeleteThis type of argument can be broken down into three basic parts. Firstly, the one trying to convince the audience must demonstrate the possibility of a disaster if they don’t do something about it. Then some form of action to prevent said disaster must be portrayed. And finally, the speaker must convince the audience that taking this action is the only and best way to prevent disaster from happening.
Examples of this can be seen in all sorts of campaigns for and against certain products. For example, during flu season you will see stores all over saying “buy our flu shot or you WILL get sick”, which presents a clear example of do (a) or (b) will happen. You will also see examples in campaigns against drugs that say “don’t do drug A or drug B or you will become stupid or you will get sick with this disease or you will cause harm to yourself and those around you, etc”. This presents the reverse argument of DON”T do (a) or (b) will happen.
Every day, humans are bound by the strategic placement of fear tactics from superior forces. This, though not the core of Pfau’s argument, is the important piece of philosophical information I both agree and vary with the most. The first idea I can think of is the fact that not all government boundaries are contrived of only the government. For instance, in the case of cigarette campaigns we can see that these are politically driven, sometimes government funded ads that preach fear for results. At first glance we assume a government’s hand has a doing in this, but many campaigns (not limited to tobacco ads) are democratically driven by citizen groups. This means some boundaries come as a result of public involvement through government. Now that we have a clearer understanding of this concept, it seems appropriate to ask the question ‘are governmental boundaries good?’
ReplyDeletePfau describes in the article, at least from my perspective, government boundaries to be bad. He uses the 9/11 attacks as testament to this perspective. In my opinion, the pendulum can swing both ways in this instance. Even if there were boundaries that were seemingly constructed by the government to threaten the nation into supporting bogus legislation, the fact of the matter is without structure we would collapse. So yes I believe certain boundaries are good. I disagree, however, with the fact that the appeals would consist of fear as the emotional motivator. But if you think about it, something all demographics can agree upon is that scary things can motivate you better than most.
Michael W. Pfau does an excellent job and illustrating the fear appeals that are presented in today’s society and how they have worked in the past. He goes in depth about the definition of fear and how people, politics, and society can use it to their advantage. He uses many of Aristotle’s definitions to help clarify what fear actually is. Together they make a great point when describing how fear can manipulate people. “All evils are not feared…” this is true but with the right use of Rhetoric, they can make the audience “believe that a destructive or painful even or object is likely to affect oneself.” This article then talks about “civic fear” and “dichotomous” and the importance of both when trying to influence an audience on the notion of fear. Even though Aristotle didn’t grow up in our century, the man knew what he was talking about when it came to speech. Aristotle’s three stages’ to obtain “civic fear” demonstrate the essential parts of making the audience feel fear. Another thing that caught my attention in this article was the “terror management theory.” I thought that our emotions are what drive our fears but TMT explains it from a different perspective and shows how fear is one of the strongest emotions. Although this article seems somewhat repetitive, Pfau shows us examples of fear appeals that have worked in the past and supports those claims by using the brilliance of Aristotle to show how they are successful.
ReplyDeleteIn “Who’s Afraid of Fear Appeals? Contingency, Courage and Deliberation in Rhetoric Theory and Practice” Michael Pfau argues the ethical use of fear appeals using Aristotle’s works, Politics, Rhetoric and Ethics. He also gives Demosthenes orations in Philippics as an example of Aristotle’s theories in action. Using the historical account of Phillip of Macedonia’s invasion of Greece, Demosthenes is able to use fear appeals awaken the citizens of Athens in the defense of the city. Pfau also makes the arguments against using fear appeals, but I will focus on the arguments for using fear appeals in modern politics.
ReplyDeleteIn order to rally the citizens of Athens to take seriously the threat posed by Phillip of Macedonia Demosthenes reminds the citizens who feel too safe in their wealth and security that others before them have fallen to Phillip’s army. These others were just as wealthy and secure as the Athenians. He creates fear in order to spark action and debate among the citizens. By reminding them of other’s misfortunes Demosthenes was able the get the Athenians to take the threat posed by Phillip seriously, something that wouldn’t have happened otherwise.
We often assume that invoking fear is always a bad thing, but if the fear is based on a real threat it is often the best approach. We see this today in DWI and anti-smoking campaigns. The issues are real and the advertisements, for the most part, don’t distort the truth.
Michael William Pfau’s article “Who’s Afraid of Fear Appeals?” discusses the “pervasiveness of contemporary fear appeals, importance of the issues with which fear appeals have become associated and the disagreement regarding fear appeals among scholars.” I thought the guidelines for an effective fear appeal presented by Aristotle were interesting. For the appeal to induce fear in an individual the object must be close at hand because anything that is perceived as “far off” is not feared. For example the fear of death: we all know we’re going to die at some point and for the most part it doesn’t bother us; what does bring about fear in this subject is the absence of knowledge in how or when we’re going to die. The point I found most effective was “for fear to continue, there must be some hope of being saved from the cause of agony.” For a speaker to execute a successful fear appeal they must not only focus on the object of fear, but have to be careful not to “foreclose the possibility of hope.”
Delete"Fear is an influential emotion whose history reveals its impacts not only on individuals, but on entire communities." Michael William Pfau does a good job explaining fear appeals and how fear is continually used. For example, he explains how the terror attacks on 9/11 placed fear into our country as a whole. I believe on that day that we based our fear off of emotion. Later that night George Bush had a speech that I will personally never forget. He acknowledged the fear that had stained us, but he also put fear into the alleged terrorists. Many people question whether placing fear into politics is right or wrong. Pfau explains that politicians use fear tactics “in order to stifle healthy democratic dissent or crack down on civil liberties.” As they abuse these fear tactics they gain public support because of the fear that has been put in place.
DeleteIn class we questioned one another on whether placing fear into politics is right. We discussed that in many cases it shouldn’t be moral. But during this discussion I started to question if it is wrong to not use fear at all. Many people complain that the government hides too much information from us citizens, but I believe there is a purpose for that. There are numerous instances when politicians probably have thousands of secrets from around the world that they do not tell us. This is because they want to PREVENT fear.
In Michael Pfau's article, "Who's Afraid of Fear Appeals...," Pfau discusses the use of fear appeals as a fosterer of political deliberation, the use of fear appeals to cause a particular audience to conform, different types of fear, and different outlooks on fear appeals. In my rhetoric course, I became familiar with Plato and Aristotle's definitions of fear, and there general stance on the subject. This article gave me a more in depth definition and explanation behind their two general ideas. I agree more with Aristotle's belief that emotions can be rational and "are dependent on cognitive perceptions of the world" (218-19). Gordon's definitions of "fear-motivated action" and "action done out of fear" are applicable to our society. Also, Walter's "Scare Tactics" are applicable to our nation's history. For example, during WWII, the Nazi's heavily relied on fear appeals in various propaganda to build support for the war by scaring people and making them believe the the alternative was far worse. I think that Walton's take on analyzing arguments is essential to evaluating political debates, advertising, etc. It is important to identity the premise of the argument, and what the supposed reason for the argument is.
ReplyDeleteI found the section about fear appeals in the Aristotelian Political and Rhetorical Theory very interesting. I agree that fears that appear far off are not feared, and that only what seems close in proximity or could cause injury or great suffering will result in fear. I think those who have great fortune are more likely to resist fear appeals. Similarly, those who feel that nothing could get any worse are also more likely to resist fear appeals. Aristotle's categories of events and experience including the necessary and contingent seems to accurately depict our government in many ways. People want to fix what they can. People want to deliberate about "things that are in our power." Topics such as global warming, fossil fuels, and the record budget deficits are often overlooked by policymakers out of fear and the unknown. "Civic fear" appeals would undoubtedly be a useful tactic for legislators and citizens to use when dealing with the issues we are facing today. This article brings up many interesting points and perspectives on fear appeals and their potential role in political deliberation.
Fear in todays world is over used by all users. The media uses fear in the public for ratings and profit rather than looking at the emotional toll onto the viewers, "civic fear". Politics uses fear to gain votes also to hurt the opponents running against. Philosophers think that using fear and emotion clouds logic and judgment which can cause mistakes and arguments. Fear without emotion is impossible because of the many different views that can be taken from it without the control of filtering one-selves own opinion. Plato and Aristotle disagreed on how the effect or affect of fear appeal had upon to the listeners or viewers. Plato saw fear in discussion as a "corruption" while Aristotle saw fear appeal as an awakening to new ideas and logic. In the reading both side are supported and it can be seen as a use of both, not fully one sided from the other.
ReplyDeleteIn the reading it gives great examples an in my own opinion fear and emotion are hand in hand and cannot have one without the other. The audience is afraid of fear appeals and so is the competition because of view changes the lose or gain votes. An audience is either hopeless or helpless in these actions because fear appeal is mostly used against them to purposely change an idea or view.