Logical Fallacy: Red Herring in Obama's Campaign

Barack Obama's political campaign displays the logical fallacy of red herring in an advertisement commercial about his opponent John McCain. In this advertisement, Obama makes the effort to merely "win" the argument and ultimately the political race rather than emphasizing a critical issue about the nation's economy. The commercial starts with the claim that John McCain does not "understand the fundamentals of the economy." However, it ends with the assertion that McCain owns seven houses, essentially diverting the attention from the issue of the economy to how much McCain's houses cost. This represents red herring fallacy in that the first topic about McCain being ignorant about the fundamentals of the economy, then a new topic is introduced that is partially relevant but does not fully support the issue presented in the beginning of the argument. Therefore, the original topic is "abandoned" (The Nizkor Project 2011), and a new topic about McCain's houses is introduced. In essence, the argument is "supported" or reasoned by a distracting subject change rather than efficient arguments that strongly relate to the purpose of the claim. The fallacy presented in Obama's campaign advertisement depicts that simply drawing the attention away from the issues presented does not prove an argument reasonable. 

Obama's advertisement can be found here!

Retrospective: The Semester in a Nutshell

Writing blog entries is the transition from the prewriting stage to the first draft stage. Not only does it allow me to expand on my thoughts on one idea, but it also provides me with positive and negative feedback. I have always been acclimated to studying by myself, and I never thought that collaborative learning was effective. However, sharing opinions with others helped me broaden my horizons. I always had better ideas about what to write about after I read others' comments. Also, the due dates on the blogs helped me to manage my time more efficiently, and it gave me more time to think about the essay prompts.

Blogs are useful in the brainstorming process, and I might participate in class-related blogs to exchange ideas for a paper or even about issues in today's society. There is a similar student organization called CIRCLE, which is a group of students who comment back and forth about current events dealing with racial discrimination and stereotypes. I am strongly considering participating in CIRCLE next semester because I found that collaborative learning should definitely be a part of my learning style and any career field I choose to pursue in the future.

   

Self-expression v. Knowledge

After researching and being about to notice trends in Wikipedia articles, I am now less likely to rely on this source to attain information. Prior to the research, I was aware that the common public edited the material in the articles, but after looking at the discussion tab and history of edits made in each article, I found out that some changes were inaccurate and unnecessary. People revise articles only for the sake of participating in heated, needless debates that hardly contribute to the actual subject of the article. Additionally, there are no experts to justify the presented information as accurate, and the conversations detract from critical reasoning. Although the discussions of the Wikipedia system offer a collective environment of individual opinions, the lack of expertise and direction in the conversations make them controversial. In other words, self expression demonstrated by Wikipedia cannot symbolize knowledge and accountability.

Rather than participating in the discussions myself, I would focus more on improving the management of edits and revisions made in Wikipedia articles. I noticed that there are several trends that occur in the discussion sections. Users would change one section of the article, then another user would change the revision back to its original content. Other users would simply regurgitate information just to participate in the debate. Such unnecessary information could be deleted to prevent detraction from the article's focus. With more cited and reliable information and less opinionated contributions, Wikipedia has potential to become an efficient, resourceful database to showcase knowledge in various subject areas.

Furthermore, if I were to join the conversation, I would cite all sources and effectively utilize the electronic "signature" part of Wikipedia discussions to make myself responsible for my revisions. I would also include statistics and dependable facts to emphasize more authoritative facts over individualized opinions. Participating in the conversation would be an excellent opportunity to showcase my interpretation and knowledge, as well as receive feedback. Ultimately, I would attempt to balance both authoritative and individual opinion in my Wikipedia discussion entries. 

The Mobile Voices of LA's Immigrants: Visions and Voices Event

The Immigrant Visions Voices event encompassed the VOZMOB interface, which is an online community designed to collect stories from the working class in Los Angeles. Although it is not limited to this growing metropolis, VOZMOB's system of "mobile voices" allow low-income communities that are marginalized or excluded from society to appropriate the mobile media to create their own stories and essentially share their lives.

Started in Pasadena in 1980's in collaboration with the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California, VOZMOB had a vision to help and work with the immigrant community specifically with literacy and use the words as practice of freedom and adoption of realities. They decided to utilize the flourishing internet and mobile media to showcase their realities of labor. For instance, one would use features such as texts, videos, and pictures and attach a story as an opportunity to possess their "window into the world." The presenters of the event emphasized that because the internet provides such accessible means to communicate with the world, technology is seemed less as a distraction and more as a great benefit to creating bonds with the rest of the community. Additionally, the presenters were active participants, staff members, and founders of VOZMOB and Mobile Voices work on projects with household workers and daily labors. Organized projects are aimed to publicize and promote the stories of VOZMOB. Through these methods, individuals can use the platform of Mobile Voices to amplify the realities of life for laborers and immigrants. Participants of Mobile Voices desire to reflect on their rights as immigrants and laborers and "emphasize power sharing, horizontalism, and community accountability."

Although I learned about something completely new and unknown to the majority of the Los Angeles community, I noticed that the entire presentation was not effectively organized and was informal. There was one translator in the group of presenters, and the rest of the staff members spoke fluent Spanish and minimal English. There was no formal translator for the presentation, and a streaming of twitter messages running across the wall in the background. No one explained the connection between the messages and the presentation itself. Overall, although the presentation did not attempt to engage the audience in any way, the entire presentation ultimately promoted the idea of creating a close-knit community through digital media.

The link to the VOZMOB webiste can be found here. 

Logical Fallacies Blog: Pepsi Advertisement

The well-known Pepsi beverage company creates annual commercials and advertisements usually involving celebrities and individuals of outstanding authority. The advertisement found here includes a handful of these labeled “celebrities,” such as Michael Jackson, Britney Spears, and Kanye West. The commercial captures these individuals representing a variety of actions, from performing exclusive dance routines to simply walking across the street. In performing these seemingly important actions, the celebrities always have a Pepsi bottle in their hands, which is shown to be the factor that makes them invincible and the way they are. 

This use of the appeal to authority logical fallacy illustrates celebrities endorsing the Pepsi product, and thus the common population views the product to be good.  Under the category of appeal to misleading authority, this fallacy represents a falsely legitimate authority on the Pepsi Company, and although the celebrities might be famous, well known individuals in society, they do not qualify to serve as an expert in the subject. In other words, they are not in the range of expertise nor interests in the Pepsi product, but the fact that the general public view the product to be closely linked to the celebrities’ powers and influences make the advertisement fallacious. They only possess “make-believe expertise” that the public essentially fails to identify in the advertisements (Fallacy Files). In addition, most cases of product endorsement include celebrities who are paid to advertise the product or serve as the company’s spokesperson, which exemplifies their apathy and genuine support of the company’s success. This fallacious appeal to authority represents how the people accept an object to be good or a claim to be true simply because a person of “authority” proclaims that it is true. In these cases, expertise in the matter is not the determining factor in accepting an assertion as valid.

Logical Fallacies Blog: Angle v. Reid

The campaigns between extremist Sharron Angle and current U.S. Senator Harry Reid marks one of the most controversial debates in American politics. As a mother, grandmother, and middle-class citizen living in Reno, Nevada, Angle represented immoderate viewpoints on health care, immigration, and Harry Reid himself during her campaigns before the election for U.S. Senate. In the beginning of this interview, Angle demonstrates the ad hominem logical fallacy by claiming personal characteristics of Harry Reid as a person rather than against his strategies and arguments. She mentions that he is a wealthy man living in Washington D.C., who has done nothing but exacerbate the deteriorating conditions of Nevada. She frankly states his personal weaknesses, such as his inability to “man up” and take action upon his words on reformation in Nevada. No statistical data or factual evidence are presented to support her claim and judgment of Harry Reid, and to a viewer, her unsupported and intransigent claims only weaken her standing in the campaign. 

This is an advertisement approved by Sharron Angle that attacks Harry Reid

Also in the interview, Angle failed to answer the question about choosing between denouncing her controversial advertisement as false or claiming that the evidence presented in the advertisement is true. Instead, Angle talks about Reid’s past voting trends on tax breaks for illegal immigrants although Reid had never been in favor of this option. Angle’s response symbolizes the incorrect statement logical fallacy because she made irrelevant points about Reid’s voting for social security in attempt to claim that the contents of her advertisement are absolutely true. In this sense, Angle moved onto other unrelated issues and “did not answer the question,” according to Reid’s immediately following counterargument. Even following Reid’s rebuttal, Angle brought up the issue about securing the borders as something that Harry Reid failed to establish in his years in office. This still does not provide any kind of answer to the question presented. Specifically, Angle made the hasty generalization logical fallacy that “the question has everything to do with social security” when the question was actually about the validity of her advertisement contents. Ultimately, Angle was not able to make a clear and effective argument to justify the harsh comments of her advertisements.

The link to the interview can be found here.

Balance is Key

My tendency to accept the course material in high school was definitely higher than in college so far. In high school, my peers and I were presented with information and apathetically accepted the material as the truth. Whoever argued against the teacher's lectures or even formed any kind of opinion towards the material were viewed with bitterness. I realized that in college, students develop and enhance their abilities and interests in various fields of knowledge and form individual opinions. In a way, authoritative knowledge is less influential  and communal acquisition of knowledge becomes more prominent in the transition from high school to college.

In my English Literature and Composition class, I had to interpret and share my thoughts, in essay form,  on a work of literature discussed in class. Although the objective of the assignment was to expand our ability to effectively interpret literature, I was limited in how I could interpret the information. There was strictly a right and a wrong answer.  By authority, my teacher was able to say what interpretations were accurate and what answers were completely inappropriate. The students were marked down in their essay grade if the presented opinions diverged from his viewpoint. However, I still believe that my teacher's interpretation of the literature represents just one opinion out of an accumulation of variegated opinions and discussions . On the same note, it is believed that online blog entries, forums, and discussion panels  on a subject are not reliable resources. This may be true, but they provide additions to a basic understanding  of information and ideas that cannot be supported by factual statistics alone. Authoritative knowledge illustrates too narrow and restricting points of view, and collaborative discussions do not provide fully accurate results. Therefore, neither an authoritative nor communal acquisition are most useful in obtaining knowledge, but a delicate balance between the two can provide a greater understandings and quench for knowledge beyond one's own potential.