Age of Propaganda: The Use and Abuse of Persuasion by Anthony Pratkanis and Elliot Aronson

Today, we are bombarded by messages; not just text messages, or electronic messages, but marketing messages. With modern technological advances, advertisers are competing for the consumer’s attention. When we are crowded by these images, we no longer recognize them and fall into their carefully designed traps. This behavior leads to more extreme tactics deployed by the mass media to catch the attention of its demographic. Eventually, the companies are producing and promoting propaganda. This trend is pointed out in the non-fiction book, Age of Propaganda: The Use and Abuse of Persuasion by Anthony Pratkanis and Elliot Aronson. The two authors explain how the media and advertisers use a calculated formula to convince viewers and consumers to buy their product. The way advertisers do this so effectively is through using the “four stratagems of influence,” as coined by Pratkanis and Aronson. These stratagems are as follows: pre-persuasion, source credibility, message and emotions. Each section is a complicated and yet applicable device to influence and dupe consumers.

The first of the vehicles in which advertisers use to lure their consumers is pre-persuasion. Pratkanis and Aronson define this step by saying, “Pre-persuasion refers to how an issue is structured and how the decision is framed” (Pratkanis and Aronson, 51). In other words, pre-persuasion is setting up a scenario in which the consumer makes a decision regarding the product in the way the advertisers what them to. The scenario is constructed in such a way that the only choice the consumer has is the decision that is already predetermined. A real life example of this step is present in the ACPCA campaign that gets money donated for their animals. The pre-persuasion of th...

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...ter was revoked for controversy, in which the peanut butter changed the slogan to ‘choosy moms choose Jiff.’ That change is also an example of extreme marketing gone wrong.

All in all, the book Age of Propaganda: The Use and Abuse of Persuasion by Partkanis and Aronson points out the flaws in the advertising and marketing methods. The purpose of the four stratagems in marketing is to most effectively catch consumers’ attention and get them to buy their product. The strategies are pre-persuasion, source credibility, message and emotion. The authors point out that the race of corporations to beat one another to consumers has created a world of advertising that is cluttered with tactics that take away the truth of the product. If this trend continues, and these stratagems continue to be installed, our world will be littered with over-the-top and pointless campaigns.