Touro Communication Club Notes #36

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BREAKING NEWS!
Communication Club member Olushile Akintade has published his first novel, “Wings of the Wind.” He has been working on it since he left Nigeria and the novel was published just this week. He shared copies of the work with the members of the club this week. The novel, the first of a trilogy, is set in 70AD during the Meroitic Kingdom of Nubia (now Sudan, located south of Egypt in Africa) and tells the story of Samuel who is “torn from his family, sold into slavery and begins a tumultuous journey to find strength enough to return home.” Shile graduated summa cum laude from Touro in June and collected several awards at the ceremony. We congratulate Shile on his literary efforts which contrasts his expertise in computers. He sets a continuing and shining example for all of us at Touro and in the Communication Club.

The news of the week had a number of surprises. On the scientific side, the Red planet of Mars is confirmed to have water, creating speculation that life could have existed there. On the ethical side, Exxon-Mobil, the world’s largest oil company, posted $11.6 billion in profits for just the second quarter. Amazingly, their stock price went down on the market because speculators thought Exxon would post higher profits. (Now, ain’t that sad?) Another Republican senator, Ted Stevens from Alaska, the longest serving Republican, was indicted on several corruption charges. Is it corruption as usual?

And Senators McCain and Obama continued to trade accusations, often interpreting each other’s statements in the worst possible light. Their TV commercials get much more free air time than what they pay for because they are replayed incessantly on the broadcast and cable news organizations.

A category of voters, called “low information voters,” has been getting more attention recently. These are the potential voters who don’t pay much attention to the news and the issues. They vote their emotions. The term is virtually a euphemism for ignorance. Yet, in a democracy, everyone – according to legend – has a right to vote.

For any political campaign, the challenge is to get these “low information voters” to vote for your candidate with little or knowledge. In 2004, “wedge issues,” like abortion, same-sex marriage and stem cell research, were successful in distracting these voters from voting for candidates who espoused basic political realities, like the economy. T his successful strategy affected these voters by using “bumper sticker” statements reducing complex issues to several words or “sound bites.”

Great persuasion device! Advertisers use it all the time! Didn’t Josef Goebbels, Hitler’s propaganda chief, invent the tactic? I think it was called, “The Big Lie.” The strategy: Repeat a falsehood or twisted statement often enough and people will believe it.

In our Communication Club, we are working to become more aware of how certain persuasion strategies affect the outcome a decision.
Here’s the upcoming schedule:

Wednesday, August 6, 2008 – 1 pm Debate –SPAR Instant debates continue – and maybe we’ll choose a new topic if we don’t get distracted. Follow the room signs

Wednesday, July 30, 2008 – 1 pm– Club – Persuasion II continues. Who knows where it will lead? But, without question, it will be fascinating.
What happened on Wednesday, July 30, 2008 – 1 pm – Club – Persuasion I

From the moment we asked for definitions of “persuasion,” we began to see nuances between the approaches. Using a personal experience, Kazi Faltah described his attempt to persuade his fellow Bangladeshis about how wonderful his experience at Touro has been. When confronted with a negative comment, Kazi used an analogy of opening a bag of rice. Inevitably, in every bag of rice, there are a few black grains. He counseled his friends that you don’t throw out the entire bag of rice for a few black grains. What you do, Kazi suggested, is to just throw out the black grains and cook all the good rice. The same is true for any experience, he felt; in every good experience, there is some not-so-good parts, but you don’t throw everything out because of a few negative experiences.

Hal Wicke pointed out that what Kazi was doing was “overcoming objections,” a necessary part of the persuasion process. Every one has objections to another point of view. Just as in debate, you have to prepare for the other side of an argument.

Newcomer Winsom Wong separated the definitions of persuasion and sales. He felt that “sales” was for products and services while “persuasion” was for abstract ideas. The group batted that idea around for several minutes. Richard Green reminded the group that Hal had said that “everything is sales.” He felt the statement was too blatant and not representative of what actually goes on. David Nussbaum extended the discussion of definitions by suggesting perhaps sales is part of persuasion and its use depends on the situation.

Lorinda Moore spoke of her experience as an artist’s representative and event producer where she had to use her persuasive skills to get both the artist and event sponsor to find common ground. And, mind you, all of her efforts currently are for free, but she hopes to get paid for them in the future.

Somewhere during the session, Jetante Morris joined the group with her four grandchildren. Jetante was one of the finalists in the 5^th Speech Contest this past spring. Olushile Atkintade, a Club regular, and English Professor Carlisle Yearwood joined the group as well. Because there were several new faces, we went around introducing ourselves.

The discussion moved toward persuasion in the classroom. Carlisle commented that he had written a haiku and an English sonnet in reaction to Jesse Jackson’s less than elegant statement about Senator Obama’s attitude toward minorities. He explained that the structures of haiku and sonnet forms demand highly reductive use of language to capture a thought.

Talk moved toward how students view their professors. Shile argued that all students “audition” their professors. On the first day and until the drop/add day, students get a sense of how difficult the course and professor will be and, if they feel they can’t get a good grade (an “A” or at least a0B”), they drop the course or change sections. Other students in the group agreed in general to Shile’s concept.

Someone commented that the students were then, in fact, consumers. If they didn’t like the product, they would “return.” Education, for students, is a commodity – a thing, an product – to be bought and sold on the open market.

The Greek myth of Pygmalion was mentioned and explained in connection with the palpable power that instructors hold over their classes. More later.

Unfortunately, the session came to an end, just as this controversial point of view was beginning to gain traction. We would continue the discussion in two weeks.

Hal remembered to ask the group at least one of what we’ll now call Lorinda’s questions. How did i feel about the session? Everyone was extremely excited about the exchange and was looking forward to the next time. Exploration of the other questions was swallowed up in the hubbub of the departure.

As people were leaving, Shile shyly brought out his newly published novel which consumed everyone’s attention.

• These are “Lorinda’s Questions”:

1. How did I feel about the discussion?

2. What part of the discussion influenced me the most?

3. Was there something that did not change the discussi on?

4. What will I definitely do after this discussion?

Join us as we try to promote more light than heat! See you next time. Bring a friend!

Hal Wicke