Essay 1
This ad titled “The Question” is a pro Obama campaign advert (USATODAY, 2012). In it, the logic portrayed is that president Obama has made things better for America and Romney will just make things worse than before. The ad takes broad perspectives from the past when president Obama took power and the present situation. It exemplifies the past by mentioning about the financial collapse during the great depression and in epitomizing the current condition it illustrates workers leaving a channel probably from work or on their way to work. This is meant to demonstrate his policy of creating over 4.6 million jobs. The ad brings in a sharp contrast when it switches to the rich, demonstrated with bungalows and private jumbo jets and the middle class seen saluting president Obama at his home. There is a superimposed warning of a $ 2,000 duty swell up under Romney’s regime. The argument in this pro Obama ad is to discredit Romney’s claims based on the past policies by illustrating the position he has reached currently and also to give the way forward. This thesis is further strengthened by the virtue that Romney would make things worse than they are currently.
Essay 2
In this ad titled “Give me a Break”, Romney attacks Obama’s policies (USATODAY, 2012). In the beginning of the ad, the announcer can be heard talking about the dwindling economy and how president Obama sought help from Bill Clinton to strengthen his otherwise falling campaign. However in this ad, Romney uses some false methods to trick the citizens that Clinton is talking something about Obama’s economic policies. This false impression would make viewers think that Clinton was against Obama’s economic policy, which is not the case because that speech was at a time when he was stumping for his wife back in 2008. In this ad, the thesis is that Romney is trying to attack Obama’s economic policies as way of campaigning in his favor. He even goes further to include false statements made by Clinton to insinuate that president Obama has failed on his economical policies.
In this ad, the approach of economic sociology has been used; this theory explains the relationship between capitalism and modernity (Anderson & Taylor, 2009). It also implies that economic relations between persons or businesses take place within the existing social relations by emphasizing class relations and the contemporary issues. Romney uses this economic sociology to attack president Obama’s candidature by implying that his policies failed in maintaining a stable economic condition (Calhoun et al, 2012). In doing this, he is showing the country that a poor economic situation is a drop in terms of value and class of America. He even goes further and uses Clinton’s speech to ensure a debate amongst the people, that Clinton was also against Obama’s economic policies. This truly indicates how politicians can use the economy in hitting on against one another. Furthermore, the sociology concept that is applied in this ad is the conflict theory (Giddens, 1984). This theory criticizes the overriding socio-political structure or puts emphasis on the disproportion of particular factions in the society (Weber, 1978). In this case, Romney criticizes president Obama’s system based on the economic factor, which he claims that the president has not delivered to Americans. He therefore uses all manner of critique including using Clinton’s speech of 2008 to show that the economic policies of Obama’s system are not correct and hence hated by many in the society. All these efforts are aimed at failing Obama’s political structure by showing how different groups in the society have unequal access. For instance, he says that 23 million Americans are struggling to get work, in this he tries to visualize the inequality condition that exists in the country. In conclusion, it is clear that the thesis of this ad has been strongly argued out using the economy as the tool to attack the other candidates’ bid for presidency.
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