Развитие критического мышления на уроках английского языка «The Role of the Mass Media. The Mass Media Techniques»
методическая разработка по английскому языку (10 класс) по теме

Приложение № 1

A crowd

A crowd is a large and definable group of people, while "the crowd" is referred to as the so-called lower orders of people in general (the mob). A crowd may be definable through a common purpose or set of emotions, such as at a political rally, at a sports event, or during looting (this is known as a psychological crowd), or simply be made up of many people going about their business in a busy area (e.g. shopping). Everybody in the context of general public or the common people is normally referred to as the masses.

Psychological aspects of crowds

Psychological aspects are concerned with the psychology of the crowd as a group and the psychology of those who allow their will and emotions to be informed by the crowd (both discussed more comprehensively under crowd psychology), and other individual responses to crowds, such as crowd-sickness, claustrophobia and agoraphobia. At a general level, crowd psychology is concerned with the behaviour and thought processes of individual crowd members and the crowd as a whole. Given the prevalence of crowd events, and the potential safety issues associated with such large gatherings of people, the topic is receiving increasing attention from agencies responsible for crowd management and also from governments.

Приложение № 2

Mass Media Techniques. Distraction types

Distraction by nationalism

The method is to discredit opposing arguments by appealing to nationalistic pride or memory of past accomplishments, or appealing to fear or dislike of a specific country, or of foreigners in general. It can be very powerful as it discredits foreign journalists (the ones that are least easily manipulated by domestic political or corporate interests).

1. Example: "You want to know what I really think of the Europeans?" asked the senior United States State Department official. "I think they have been wrong on just about every major international issue for the past 20 years."
2.  Example: "Your idea sounds similar to what they are proposing in Turkey. Are you saying the Turks have a better country than us?"
3. Example: "The only criticisms of this proposed treaty come from the United States. But we all know that Americans are arrogant and uneducated, so their complaints are irrelevant."
4. Example: The "Support Our Troops" campaign created by the Republican party during the War on Terror implies that opposing the war effort detracts support away from the individual soldiers fighting the war. Thus patriotic support of the troops becomes a form of support for the war in general.

Straw man fallacy

The "straw man fallacy" is the lumping of a strong opposition argument together with one or many weak ones to create a simplistic weak argument that can easily be refuted.

1. Example: Grouping all opposed to the 2003 invasion of Iraq as "pacifists", so they can be refuted by arguments for war in general. As with most persuasion methods, it can easily be applied in reverse, in this case, to group all those who supported the invasion together and label them as "warmongers" or "lackeys of the United States".

Distraction by unimportance

A combination in which your weakest opponent (or easiest to discredit) is considered as your only important opponent.

1. Example: if many people oppose the new law, but one of them, say Tsutomu Miyazaki, is obviously acting out of self-interest, mention mostly Tsutomu Miyazaki.
2. Example: if many countries oppose an action, but one of them, say Andorra, is obviously acting out of self-interest, mention mostly Andorra.

Distraction by phenomenon

A risky but effective strategy summarized best, by which the public can be distracted, for long periods of time, from an important issue, by one which occupies more news time. When the strategy works, you have a war or other media event taking attention away from misbehaving or crooked leaders. When the strategy does not work, the leader's misbehavior remains in the press, and the war is derided as an attempted distraction.

1. Example: US President Bill Clinton's cruise missile strikes on Afghanistan and Sudan in August 1998 has been suggested as a means to distract attention from the Monica Lewinsky affair.

Distraction by semantics

This involves using euphemistically pleasing terms to obscure the truth. For example saying "reproductive rights", "pro-choice", or "pro-life" instead of referring to the medical term "abortion". The concept of "states' rights" was invoked to defend the continuation of slavery in the United States on the eve of the American Civil War, and again to fight against the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s. The work of Frank Luntz is a notable example when focus groups are convened and the favorable or unfavorable characterizations are used in the selection of special code wording. The more favorable characterization of politicized concepts is thus chosen for future political campaign repetition.

Distraction by regression

This method uses the previous state of the opponent propaganda to prevent the negotiation of actual issues.

Distraction by misleading

This method injects false issues into the opponent's propaganda or attempts to create connections with falsities. Repetition of falsehoods from numerous outlets, nearly simultaneously, is one of the most effective means to mislead by distraction.

Distraction by horror

This method tries to create a connection between an opponent's propaganda and horrific events. (For example when a minority is being arrested by the police and one attempts to create a connection with past unjust actions).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_manipulation