No abstract

Many journalists and scholars overlook the discursive role of music in TV political advertisements. But we argue that music is a potent means of political persuasion. Music in advertisements is determinative; all other elements—images, voiceovers, sound effects, written text, and so on—are circumscribed by the music and interpreted in relation to it. Music determines an advertisement’s character through framing and underscoring; musical frames establish interpretative categories and generate expectations, while underscoring comprises music that closely coordinates with images and voiceovers to form a persuasive aesthetic and rhetorical unity. A close reading of a 2004 Bush-Cheney advertisement applies this theory of frames and underscoring to explain the advertisement’s effectiveness. Without music, the advertisement would not only fail to persuade, it would also make no sense.

No abstract

The year 1984 introduced many memorable ads and ad campaigns that remain well known.

Establishment of prairie species has most often been studied in connection with the invasion of disturbed areas such as roadcuts or cultivated and grazed farmland after abandonment. Shimek (1912, 1925) studied the revegetation of several railroad rights-of-way. One such study area was located south of Wilton Junction, Muscatine County, Iowa (Shimek 1925). Undisturbed prairie remnants on and adjacent to the right-of-way served as sources of propagules which successfully spread in 70 years to disturbed areas including cuts and fills along the road bed. One hundred and fifty-seven species were recorded in the intact prairie remnants. Of that group 112 were established on the restored prairie along with 12 additional species. Shimek (1925) also studied the return of prairie species to abandoned cultivated land in Mason City, Iowa, during a period of 15 years. Ad jacent, unplowed prairie furnished propagules. After five years the 1 strip was dominated by Aster spp. and Solidago rigida, and in ten more years the disturbed area contained 52% of the adjacent prairie species.