The ugly message “Murder the media,” etched into a door of the Capitol by an angry mob of violent Trump supporters January 6, reflects the deep lack of trust in American journalism stoked by a demagogic President and his enablers over the last five years.
The Peace Corps, a service organization run by the U.S. government that dispatches volunteers to foreign countries, is on hold because of the coronavirus pandemic. For the first time in its nearly 60-year history, none of its volunteers is stationed anywhere.
The promise of American greatness knew no bounds in “Morning in America,” the iconic ad created by the group of political consultants and advertising gurus (the “Tuesday Team”) who worked for Ronald Reagan’s 1984 reelection campaign. In the ad, Americans were working, getting married, and buying homes – confident that the country they lived in was “prouder and stronger and better” under President Reagan’s leadership than four short years before.
Since its birth in 1942, the nonprofit Ad Council viewed its public service advertising campaigns as important propaganda weapons to fight communism. The 1961 Peace Corps program trained newly recruited volunteers to recognize communist propaganda tactics abroad and guard against them. Both institutions used direct language when discussing communism in their internal documents but made no mention of communism in the outward facing Peace Corps campaign press releases, fact sheets and advertisements. Instead, each used bridging language where the theme of promoting democracy abroad created a contextual meaning based on myths about heroes, frontier conquest, adventure, and renewal. The bridging language allowed the Peace Corps to use the ad campaign to recruit volunteers as adventure heroes promoting democratic values on new frontiers while artfully masking the true purpose of the program—to help the John F. Kennedy administration slow or halt the march of communism in the Third World.
Melillo writes about how the Democratic National Convention gave Hillary Clinton a much-needed boost. Can Donald Trump give his image a makeover?
In an article written for History News Network, Melillo analyzes the systematic polling problems in the 2016 Presidential Election. The election results, based on the polling, left many shocked. Melillo talks about the weaknesses of the polling system and President Donald Trump's unexpected win.
The latest installment of the Faculty Forum series has Assistant Professor Wendy Melillo discussing her new book "How McGruff and the Crying Indian Changed America: A History of Iconic Ad Council Campaigns."
The Faculty Research & Projects Forum is a monthly lecture series highlighting exciting and high-impact work produced by the faculty at American University's School of Communication. The Forum also features selected external speakers whose work is at the forefront of great communication problems and ideas of our time.
Recorded at American University on October 6, 2013.
The State Department may have snubbed ad executives for its commission on public diplomacy, but the industry is confronting rising
anti-American sentiment on its own.
DDB Worldwide chairman Keith Reinhard is leading a private-sector task force of agencies, businesses and academics to develop ideas for what U.S. companies can do to change anti-American perceptions abroad, including altering their business practices, if necessary.
