While reading the article “Hidden Layers” it became even more prevalent to me how much persuasion is used in almost every aspect of life. Almost every form of communication we have includes hidden layers of persuasion in our arguments. The simplest of things like a conversation, all the way to an important debate, and even advertisements can use these hidden layers in order to persuade the general population into believing what the author/ orator/arguer wants. These hidden layers can be found in almost anything. Where I can see these things happening the most is in politics, advertisements, schools and debates. Assumptions can be made by the general public based on what the arguer says or shows. These assumptions shape how the target audience will react to the argument and deem it either plausible or not acceptable. Every arguer tries these subtle ways to push the target audiences thinking in a certain direction. One way is to use underlying values. This is the way in which we use language and wording of things to bring the argument towards the good values like love, kindness, friendship instead of focusing on the negative. These capitalize on how strong our values are. Like I said before, theses are not blunt and have people arguing for a specific value. They are very subtle and try to make you relate to the wisdom, which is what everyone wants to obtain. Another sneaky way arguers try to persuade is by using the objectivity in disguise. This tries to make any information, whether it be facts or a personal account, seem unbiased. To me, the first thing that comes to mind is the news or newspaper. Even though the purpose of the news is to relay the facts to the public, taking a closer look at the actual facts it is stating can sway the target audiences opinions or notions in a certain direction. By the way the news reports on an event, it can entirely sway your thoughts away from the real story behind it. I have heard that there are some news stations are solely democratic and republican. It makes me wonder if all of my thoughts about the government have been radically skewed just because of how they word their reports. Since it is so simple to word their arguments a different way to get their point across, I feel like all of my opinions are what someone else wants me to think. Now that I am learning more about this, it is coming to my attention that I actually have to break down everything the news is telling me and figure out if the facts are skewed or not.
