New Terms through Video Clips

So far we have learned a lot of techniques to persuade our audience. But now we are learning what you do in order for them to believe that your answer is going to meet their expectations and values. First we have the tool of the advantageous that consists of making “the audience believe your own choice to be the advantageous one” (107).  It talks about what is best for the audience; you have to make them believe that their well being is more important than yours.

As shown in this video, Petro stated that every citizen should have the privilege to move from one place of the city to another without much difficulty. This clearly makes us believe that our needs are above his, making us vote for him (which was what he clearly wanted). So it makes us vote for him over the rest of the candidates because his purposes seem to favor us more.

Then it comes the use of the commonplace that consists of "any cliché, belief, or value that can serve your audience´s boiled-down public opinion" (107). The only way to shift or change someone´s behavior is by starting by their own position. You can always apply a commonplace to an idea which will make the opposer look as an outsider, as Heinrich will say. A good trick when your ideas are reject is to pay close attention to how they are talking so that you can find their commonplace and use it later on. One good is example is seen in this video of a french cliché explaining how must people around the world see them. 

 On many arguments, when you don´t have anything more to say, you start to babble. Without even noticing we start saying our commonplace. In this video of Phineas and Ferb we can see how Cansas is constantly saying that she is in charge (her commonplace) and that her brothers have to do whatever she says. Truly, the only thing she wants is for them to be caught doing their experiments under her supervision. 

Babbling can be easy to see when you are talking to close friends or to a small group of people, since their commonplace is more likely to be the same or similar. But when you are on national TV it becomes harder because their are a lot of mix opinions that makes it hard to narrow them down. This is exactly what you must do, find a broader context that can appeal to most.

Humor and commonplaces aren't the only tools you can use to convince people, facts and logos are also very useful. Heinrichs calls this stance and according to him you have to follow several steps:
  - term changing
  - redifinition
  - definition jujitsu
  - definition judo

In this video we can see how the girl uses facts and logos to convince her parents that she is ready to go out on a date.