Here are some of mind games that convention designers play

[donnay]

Here are some of mind games that convention designers play



By David Lightman

dlightman@mcclatchydc.com

PHILADELPHIA

Democrats are messing with your mind at this convention. Republicans last week did, too.

Democrats are making sure that their star speakers stand in front of soothing colors. They speak on a set that’s wide open and welcoming. Behind them are slogans that the party wants you to associate with Hillary Clinton.

It’s all part of subliminally delivering to millions of television viewers indelible images of Clinton and the Democratic Party. Political strategists have been employing such tactics since conventions became televised spectacles after World War II.

In fact, this has been happening for centuries.

As an example of using texture and contrast to promote an image, says John Gates, a Boston-based lighting designer and consultant, look to Egypt’s pyramids. They were “deliberately designed to be a form not found anywhere in nature near where they were built. Not just their height and mass separates them from their surroundings, the lines and texture do it,” he said.

These tactics are the same as anyone with something to sell. “It’s like the popcorn signs flashing in the movie theater,” said Ann Selzer, an Iowa-based pollster.

Republicans last week had the same goal as Democrats this week: They want to trigger impressions of their party and their candidates as serious, loving mothers, fathers, soldiers and statesmen and stateswomen. For GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump, the silhouetted smoke-filled entrance on Monday after his wife, Melania, spoke suggested the emergence of a strong leader and star.

“You’re combining aesthetics and psychology, and adding some spectacle,” said Tobe Berkovitz, an associate professor of advertising at Boston University and veteran political media consultant.

“Nothing is left to coincidence,” added Kenn Venit, a Hamden, Conn.-based media consultant. “Conventions are staged the same way as a Broadway show.”

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[MelissaWV]

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Here are some of mind games that convention designers play


Democrats are making sure that their star speakers stand in front of soothing colors. They speak on a set that’s wide open and welcoming. Behind them are slogans that the party wants you to associate with Hillary Clinton.
...
Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/poli...e92233482.html

SWC lobbies are playing strange games it appears:

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...66#post6274066