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Little, if any attention was given to political advertising until 1952, when Eisenhower effectively competed for the U.S. presidency. Advertising executives, rather than politicians lead Eisenhower’s presidential campaign. Since 1952, marketing on television has played a more important and even unimportant role in political campaigns. My views somewhat conflict with those represented in the video and textbook, along with my views the textbook and video contradicted themselves on media’s portrayal of politicians. I felt the video contradicted itself because Roser Reeves used two completely different ways of describing what he was doing with political advertising. He called what he was doing as, “Partipulation, participation in your own manipulation”. However, he also said, “Commercials do not educate the public, it is not their purpose, but instead to tell the candidate’s position”. I believe Reeves is trying to say that the public is so uneducated when it comes to politics that they will stick with whatever idea is presented more often with the simplest terms. However, telling the candidate’s position is not exactly, in any form, manipulative. If advertising were simply just telling the candidate’s position, then we would not have tons of commercials that slander opposite political competitors. I doubt, however, that advertising is manipulating the public; I do however suppose that advertisers manipulate the facts.
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