Editorialist: Advertisers devote millions of dollars to the attempt to instill attitudes and desires that lead people to purchase particular products, and Support advertisers' techniques have been adopted by political strategists in democratic countries, who are paid to manipulate public opinion in every political campaign. █████ ███ ███████ ██ █████████ ██ ██████████ █████████ ██████ ██ ██████ ██ ████████████ ███ █████████████ ███████████ ██ ███ ███████
Election results don’t represent people’s raw opinions. This is because strategists employ techniques to manipulate public opinion for political campaigns.
The author assumes that political strategists’ efforts actually impact people’s behaviours. It could be that the strategists adopt the advertisers’ strategies, and people aren’t affected.
Which one of the following, ██ █████ ████ ███████████ ███ ██████████████ █████████
Public opinion can ██ ███████████ ████ ██████ ██ █████████ ██ █████████████ ███████████ ████ ██ █████ ██ ██████████ ████████████
This does not affect the argument. Nondemocratic governments—and how easily they can influence opinion—are not relevant to the argument, which only discusses democratic governments.
Advertisers' techniques are █████ ████████ ██ ███ ██████ ██ ████ ███ ██████████████ ███ █████████
This does not affect the argument. We don’t know if people being aware of techniques impacts whether they’re influenced or not. People may be aware of these tactics and still be influenced (or not). We’d have to make too many assumptions for this to have an impact.
Many democratic countries ████ ████ ████████ ███ ██████ ████ ███ ██ █████ ██ █████████ ██████████████ ██ ███ █████ █████████
This does not affect the argument. There may be a huge budget or a small one—we’d have to make too many assumptions for this to have any impact.
People who neither █████ ██████████ ███ ████ ███ █████ █████ ███ ████ ██████ ██ ████ ████ ██████ ███ ██ ███ ██ ████ ██ █████ ███████████
This does not affect the argument. The possibility that there are people who do not consume media, and thus aren’t exposed to the strategists’ techniques, does nothing to strengthen the argument that election results don’t represent people’s raw preferences.
Unlike advertisements for ████████ █████████ ████ ██ █████ ████ █████████ ████████ ████████ █████████ ██████████████ █████ ██████ ███████ ████████
This strengthens the argument that election results don't represent people’s raw beliefs by telling us that political ads often change people’s preexisting beliefs. Thus, the conclusion (and its link to the impact of political ads) is strengthened.