Talk:Bear in the woods

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Contents 1 Repetition? 2 Tone 3 Colbert? 4 Cognitive dissonance?

[edit] Repetition?

The ad won ad industry awards and praise from the political and advertising world. Republican strategist Dan Schnur said of Riney's work: "Most political advertising hits viewers over the head, while his work makes just as strong a point but in a less confrontational and a more soothing manner." This appears in both this article and Morning in America; perhaps some sources for both would serve to differentiate them? Ziggurat 00:37, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tone

Frankly, this article itself reads like a commercial. And I'd really like to see the verification of "It is generally considered one of the most effective political campaign ads ever." And how can a Family of ads be considered one of the most effective political campaign ads (rather than the most effective families of ads)?

Also, this article is highly similar to the "bear in the woods" article. I have a mind to delete large portions of the article for the above reasons. However, I wouldn't want to do anything that smacked of vandalism, so I will wait a few days to see what response this talk gets, first.

I've made the same comments on the "morning in America" article.William Jockusch 21:08, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

I wrote both original articles. I am not at all a supporter of the policies of the Reagan administration, so I am as neutral as can be when I say that the overwhelming consensus is that they are two of the most effective campaign ads in history. Riney's third ad in the series, "America's Back," was inconsequential and subsequently forgotten. It wasn't the family of Riney's ads or Reagan's whole ad campaign (which included Ted Kennedy denouncing Carter and Lee Greenwood's "Proud to Be an American"); it was just those two ads. Here are some more citations to demonstrate teh point:

* This article I cited in the References section because it explains how Riney created the ads, that the ads won praise, and quotes Riney

* This article includes a mention of "Prouder, Stronger, Better" as an expert's example of an ad that strikes a compelling theme

* This article cites both Reagan ads as examples of effective and significant ads

* Uber-conservative Bill Bennet's radio show is called "Morning in America"

* A search for "morning in america" turns up over 300,000 results, including numerous articles and books about Reagan and the '84 campaign that use that phrase as their title

* A search for "bear in the woods" with "reagan" turns up nearly 1,500 results, a number of which describe "Bear" as "killer" or "classic" compare "Bear" with Bush's "Wolves," generally unfavorably for "Wolves"

* This University of Delaware course material uses "Bear" as an example of a creative and most memorable ad type

* This Weekly Standard article by Fred Barnes calls "Bear" the "devastating... clever and amusing."

I'm not suggesting that you shouldn't feel free to revise the text, but "deleting large portions" is ridiculous unless you can show that they are untrue. The articles describe the ads, their impact and lasting resonance, and even include criticism of them; what's to delete? I agree that the two articles could be revised to be less commercial-y and less similar (I wrote them at the same time, from largely the same commercial-y sources, and they were created at the same time by the same guy and got similar results). And I haven't found anywhere that specifically says that "Bear" won any awards, so that can be changed. --Tysto 03:39, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

That is a help. But to support the text, it's your responsibility to cite it. Cites should be within the article itself. I'm not trying to be a pain here -- this is standard Wiki policy. Imagine the impression of someone who comes across all this for the first time, and nothing is cited. I've put in some citation needed tags to poing out where cites would help.

As a seperate issue, it still bugs me that this article and bear in the woods read almost the same. William Jockusch 07:41, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

I thought four citations in the article itself were pretty good. You didn't offer any cites to support your intention to delete information. --Tysto 14:57, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Colbert?

I'm sorry, I know this is rather OT but is this where Stephen Colbert's fear of bears comes from? I'm not from the US but I watch his show, so I miss references quite often. I was just wondering if this is one of them! Thanks. Ruaraidh-dobson 16:59, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Childhood nightmares. --Tysto 01:47, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! Ruaraidh-dobson 12:33, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cognitive dissonance?

I'm removing this from the article (again): the ad purposely set up cognitive dissonance by making claims ("There is a bear in the woods") and then admitting those claims were dubious ("if there is a bear") to get voters to act on their fear despite what they knew intellectually (Soviet leaders were not wild animals). I did this for two reasons. First of all, there is no source for the criticism. No original research is allowed on Wikipedia. Every claim must have a source backing it up.

Secondly, using the word "if" does not imply that the speaker is casting doubt on something. If you think that the word "if" implies that the speaker is doubts the validity of what he is saying, read this very sentence carefully.

Note that I didn't take out the other elements of criticism, just this one, although there ought be sources for those criticisms as well. StarryEyes 19:23, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

I can admit that both "cognitive dissonance" and "Orwellian oxymoron" are probably just my overly colorful phrasing. However it's an obvious fact that the ad claims there is a bear and then admits there might not be one ("There is a bear in the woods" but some "don't see it at all"--that's like the emperor's invisible fabric). I mostly find only tangential criticism (we're talking about a pre-Internet political ad) that calls the ad "vague...relies on unstated assumptions"[1] and such, so I don't have a problem with revising the wording. But here at least are bloggers saying the ending is "totally out of synch with the first assertion"[2], only "comes close to making sense...is deceptive" [3], and "plays to fear"[4].

I don't generally like citing bloggers as references (altho the Decembrist "totally out of synch" article I did cite in the article to begin with), but at least these show that the wording you deleted was a pretty accurate summary of current criticism of the ad. But this should be a collaborative effort. Instead of simply deleting the criticism, why haven't you tried to find valid criticism to keep the article balanced? I don't mean to be a babysitter for this article, but I seem to be the only one interested in providing references here. --Tysto 22:18, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

I think that unless the criticism itself is noteworthy (such as in the Willie Horton ad), then there isn't really a point in including criticism, for any advertisement, political or otherwise. A neutral article about an advertisement doesn't need criticism just to keep it free of bias. If we talk about a Wendy's ad, do we always have to include the McDonald's viewpoint? Political ads are not inherently special. For instance, the Morning in America article (again, largely your work) is about a political ad, but doesn't include criticism for the sake of including critcism, and yet I find it neutral. (An admission, albeit a pragmatic one so you don't think I'm some sort of Reagan zealot: the first example I cited was Daisy (television commercial), but there is a sentence squeezed in there about contemporary criticism. Ah, well. So long as the criticism is notable!) StarryEyes 03:39, 14 August 2006 (UTC)