The summary about critical thinking

Celeblity Advertising: reasonable or unreasonable question?

The professor Isabela lectu-Fairclough mentions the critical thinking with the example of the familiar situation such as advertising. She states why the critical thinking is important for us in her lecture, 'Celeblity Advertising'.


First of all, she defines an argument as a set of statements with the conclusion and premises. The premises include true, sufficient and relevant points. According to her, advertisements sometimes tend to disguise strong arguments. She gives an example of food products such as Sainsbury's wholegrain; there are lots of advantages to buy it on the surface, however, it avoids describing disadvantages like including high in sugar. In short, this mentions that you should not accept advertisements without question.


Next, she argues that the celeblity endorsement is very convincing, as if the celebrity has an authority. The disadvantage for firms is a conventional celebrity endorsement is risky, because if he or she is involved in a scandal, the firms cannot use him or her as an endorser. In fact, a company which used Tiger Woods as an endorser was compelled to change arguments because of his scandal. As a result, it has changed to use animal mascots which are a much safer option than human beings.

In conclusion, the reason why we should think critically is what we come to believe and do has consequences of being persuaded through argument. There is more to most things than meets the eye, thus it is essential for us to see carefully and take a skeptical view.



Saki