Universitatea "Vasile Alecsandri" Bacău

“Smoking isn't just suicide. It's murder.”

MASTER, AN I, PRACITICI DE COMUNICARE ÎN LIMBA ENGLEZĂ

Mrd. Tabarnac (Tutu) Andreea

Argumentation Theory
Lector univ. dr. Mariana Tirnauceanu
 Background Information
The photo of the child has been taken by Eugenio Recuenco ...

 He is a spanish photographer and director with a degree in painting from the

Universidad Complutense of Madrid.

 He is a very famous advocate of the anti-smoking cause and has done

several other images of young children being hurt by second-hand smoke.

 Many brands call him to create their images, including Nina Ricci, Diesel,
Shanghai Tang, Yves Saint Laurent, Playstation, among many others.

 Among many prices he received are ABC National Photography Award,

Gold, Silver and Bronze Sun at the Sol Festival (2009 and 2017) and Gold
Lions at the Cannes Lions Festival (2006 and 2013)
 Background
... and the printed poster was created by FCB, Chile and released on the
3rd of April 2008 ...

 FCB (Foote, Cone & Belding) is a global, fully integrated marketing

communications company with a heritage of creativity and success
dating from 1873.

 Based on a deeply developed understanding of diversified local markets

and global cultures, FCB focuses on creating “Never Finished” campaign
ideas for clients that reflect a deep understanding of the brand’s past, a
respect for the present and an anticipation of the future potential.

 With more than 8,000 people in 109 operations in 80 countries, the

company is part of the Interpublic Group of Companies
 Background
.... for CONAC.

 National Cancer Corporation (CONAC), an association

opposing cancer, provided this advertisement for their
campaign Smoking is Murder released in April 2008.

 CONAC, also known as Chilean Corporation Against Cancer, is

a private non-profit organization designed to serve the
community through education, prevention, early diagnosis,
research and treatment of cancer in Chile.  
 Background
Why?

 In 2008, it was estimated that 22,000 people in Chile died from a type of cancer.

 Lung cancer accounts for 1.6 million deaths per year according to the World Health
Organization (WHO). In Chile, cancer of the trachea, bronchi, and lungs ( called“lung
cancer”) is the second cause of cancer mortality, following gastric cancer.

 In Chile, the lung cancer mortality rate showed an upward trend in females ... from
2001 to 2008.

 In 2008, the infant mortality rate was 7.9 per 1,000 live births. The main causes of
infant mortality were disorders related to prematurity, congenital malformations of
the heart, and breathing difficulties among newborns. The most frequent causes of
hospitalization for children ... were diseases of the respiratory system (33.4%)
 Background
It was designed to inform people about the
harmful effects of second-hand smoking.
 Intended Audience

 those who or would smoke in front of

children, ranging from the parents to
complete strangers;

 non-smokers who may know a smoker

who commits this act;

 expectant mothers who or would smoke

during pregnancy.
 Text

"Smoking isn't just suicide. It's murder.“

Purpose

The purpose of this image / poster / text is to

show how deadly smoking can be, not just to
the smoker him/herself, but to the ones we
love the most.
 Argumentation

Argumentation is concerned primarily with reaching conclusions through

logical reasoning, that is, claims based on premises.

Argumentation always aims at persuading or convincing the audience to

whom it is addressed of the value of the theses for which it seeks assent.

Because the purpose of all argumentations is to gain or reinforce the

adherence of an audience, it must be well prepared and adjusted to the
audience.

Consequently, the person who presents an argument (either by speech or

in writing to an audience of listeners or readers) must seek to build his
argumentative discourse on theses already accepted by the audience.
 Argumentation
Claim – the text on the poster
Smoking isn't just suicide. It's murder.

Data – the heartbreaking picture of a child crying with bag-like

smoke around his head as if he is suffocating. 

Warrant - the name of the company that

commissioned the poster
Chilean Corporation Against Cancer
 The discourse or persuasion through images

 It is now often suggested that much meaning is conveyed by

visual images.

 We are surrounded by different sorts of visual technologies

such as photography, video, digital graphics, posters, pictures
and paintings…

 and all these convey ideas through images and short

messages.

This analysis pays more attention to the notion of discourse

through various kinds of visual images and short texts.
 Persuasion in advertising

The persuasive advertising techniques are the ways how advertisers

convince the audience through visual effects.

Aristotle mentioned the advertising techniques for the first time. More
than 2,000 years ago, he categorized how rhetoric is used in arguments
into three groups: ethos, pathos and logos (or  the rhetorical triangle).

Each category invokes a different appeal between speaker and

audience.

A good persuasive advertising technique is when you balance all three

…

But using ethos, pathos and logos in commercials sometimes means

featuring one advertising technique prominently.
 Persuasion in advertising
What is ethos?

Ethos is used to convince the audience by offering

reliability, honesty, and credibility.

Ethos advertisement techniques invoke the superior

“character” of a speaker, presenter, writer, or brand.

Ethos examples aim to convince the audience that

the advertiser is reliable and ethical. It’s easier to make
a decision when someone you respect signs off on it.
 Ethos
An ethos advertisement plays off the
consumer’s respect for a given brand. Through
that respect, the brand appears convincing and
trustworthy enough to listen to.

The ethos of this poster is the organization,

CONAC. As a corporation fighting against cancer,
CONAN wants to inform people that smoking
can affect everyone who inhales the toxin. They
want them to stop smoking for the sake of other
people and for their own.

The appeal to ethos is that, if smoking can cause

so much pain and agony to people we love and
who are innocent, we should not do it. Ethically,
we wouldn’t want to hurt them due to the human
mind set of good vs. bad.
 Persuasion in advertising
What is pathos?

 Pathos aims to convince viewers by evoking an

emotional response. This can be a positive one, such
the joy of buying a new pair of shoes. It can be a
negative, as in, “Ouch, my back, I need a pill for relief.”
And how about guilt? “Adopt this cute puppy before
it’s euthanized.” It appeals to compassion and
feelings.

A strategy like this will elicit pity, sympathy and

regret making a viewer act in a way or another.
 Pathos
 The appeal to pathos occurs when one sees a small
child with a plastic bag around his head. It causes one to
feel a sympathetic connection with the young boy due
to the pained expression on his face. It causes a desire
to help him and to end whatever is causing him pain.
 The focus is just on the face of the child. We picture
the children as being happy and innocent, but in this
image with a strong emotional impact, we see a child
screaming and gasping for breath.
 The creators used the child’s expression as pathos
because the targeted audience represents parents who
smoke or people smoking around children.
 The background of the ad is black. Black is associated
with pain, depression, suffering and death. The
advertisers want to suggest that for a second-hand
smoker the death is imminent.
 Another symbol is his clothing. His unbiased clothing
cannot show what is his social class or anything about
him as for rich or poor, the outcome is the same.
 Persuasion in advertising
What is logos?
 Logos is the persuasive technique that aims to
convince an audience by using logic and reasoning.

Also called “the logical appeal,” logos examples in

advertisement include the use of statistics, facts, data,
charts, and graphs.

As the “headiest” of the three main rhetorical

strategies, logos uses a reasoned discourse and
logical arguments to convey a point of view and win
over the audience.
 Logos
Aristotle believed that people are rational, and
appealing to the rational mind with data,
research, and evidence is the best way to win
them over.

The Logical appeal is that everyone knows

that second-hand smoke can hurt non-smokers.
This just gives them a credible source’s approval.

 The appeal to logos is the idea that, if second-

hand smoke has a similar effect to that of
wrapping a plastic bag around someone’s head,
we should stop, because it could have a graver
effect on the second-hand smoker, due to the
fact that he/she is inhaling the ‘plastic bag’ into
his/her lungs.
 Logical Fallacies
 A logical fallacy is a flaw in reasoning. Logical fallacies are like tricks or illusions and
they are often very sneakily used by politicians, the media and advertisers to persuade
the audience.

It is important to realize a few things about fallacies: fallacious arguments are very,
very common and can be quite persuasive to the reader or listener. We can find dozens
of examples of fallacious reasoning in newspapers, advertisements, and other sources.

Fallacies may be created unintentionally, or they may be created intentionally in order

to deceive the audience.

Sometimes the term “fallacy” is used even more broadly to indicate any false belief or
cause of it. 
 Fallacies
 An argument consists of a set of statements, the premises, whose truth supposedly
supports the truth of a single statement called the conclusion of the argument.

An argument is deductively valid when the truth of the premises guarantees the truth
of the conclusion; i.e., the conclusion must be true, because of the form of the
argument, whenever the premises are true.

Some arguments that fail to be deductively valid are acceptable on grounds other
than formal logic, and their conclusions are supported with less than logical necessity.

In other potentially persuasive arguments, the premises give no rational grounds for
accepting the conclusion.

An argument may be fallacious in three ways:

 in its material content, through a misstatement of the facts;
 in its wording, through an incorrect use of terms;
 in its structure (or form), through the use of an improper process of inference.
 As shown in the diagram, fallacies are correspondingly
classified as
 material
in its material content, through a misstatement of the facts;
material
in its verbalcontent, through a misstatement of the facts;
 formal

Groups 2 and 3 are called logical fallacies, or fallacies

“in discourse,” in contrast to the substantive, or material,
fallacies of group 1, called fallacies “in matter”;

Groups 1 and 2, in contrast to group 3, are called

informal fallacies.
 MATERIAL FALLACIES
The material fallacies are also known as fallacies of
presumption, because the premises “presume” too much—
they either covertly assume the conclusion or avoid the
issue in view:

We often arrive at a generalization, but don’t or can’t list

all the exceptions. When we reason with the generalization
as if it has no exceptions, our reasoning contains the Fallacy
of Accident. In our case, the advertisers might say: When
people smoke, the children get suffocated … and smoking
isn’t just suicide, it’s murder. As we can see, there are no
exceptions, but the word “might” would have changed the
meaning: … smoking might be murder. ( inductive reasoning)
 MATERIAL FALLACIES
The conclusion that is drawn is irrelevant to the premises; it misses the point. The fallacy of
irrelevant conclusion is committed when the conclusion changes the point that is at issue in the
premises.

 the argument ad hominem (speaking “against the man” rather than to the issue), in which the
premises may only make a personal attack on a person, instead of offering grounds showing why
what he/she is doing is wrong. In our case, the advertisers try to attack a person that smokes
suggesting that he / she is involved in a crime (murder)

 the argument ad populum (an appeal “to the people”), which, instead of offering logical reasons,
appeals to such popular attitudes as the dislike of injustice. I our case, the advertisers “appeal” to
people who have / love children (being smokers of not) in order to persuade them to stigmatize
people who wouldn't quit smoking.

this reasoning contains the Fallacy of Appeal to Emotions when someone appeals to accept a
claim merely because the appeal arouses your feelings of anger, fear, grief, love, outrage and
sympathy. In our case, the ad appeals to the emotions people feel when seeing a child suffering.

 the argument ad baculum (an appeal “to force”), which rests on a threatened or implied use of
force to induce acceptance of its conclusion. I our case, looking at the child’s facial expression
(pain/suffering) we may consider the psychological threatening (of possibly harming a child)
inducing the acceptance of the claim.
 MATERIAL FALLACIES

The fallacy of false cause (non causa pro causa) misallocates

the cause of one phenomenon in another that is only
sometimes seemingly related. 

the most common version of this fallacy, called post hoc

ergo propter hoc (“after which hence by which”), mistakes
temporal sequence for causal connection. Suppose we
notice that an event of kind A (people smoking, in our case)
is followed in time by an event of kind B (suicide,
eventually murder) , and then hastily leap to the
conclusion that A caused B. If so, the reasoning on the ad
contains the Post Hoc Fallacy.
 VERBAL FALLACIES
These fallacies, called Fallacies of Ambiguity, arise when the conclusion is achieved through
an improper use of words / images.

 The Accent Fallacy is a fallacy of ambiguity due to the different ways a word or syllable is
emphasized. In our case, when the advertisers are emphasizing the word “smoking”, the
audience could understand that “smoking only” causes suicide or murder. When highlighting
the words “suicide” and “murder”, the audience could understand that there is only one
outcome “suicide” or “murder”

 The Composition Fallacy occurs when the premise that the parts of a whole are of a certain
nature is improperly used to infer that the whole itself must also be of this nature (example: a
story made up of good paragraphs is thus said to be a good story). In our case, we “listen” to
a story of a child gasping for breath, surrounded by bag-like smoke provoking pain and
suffering … and the ones producing this situation would be the parents or people smoking
near children.

 Merely because a group as a whole has a characteristic, it often doesn’t follow that
individuals in the group have that characteristic. If the advertisers suppose that it does
follow, when it doesn’t, their reasoning contains the Fallacy of Division. In our case, the
advertisers suggest that all the second-hand smokers would get hurt (murdered). They could
have used the word “some” or “probably / might ”: Smoking isn’t just suicide. It’s “probably”
murder (“some would/ might die”).
 VERBAL FALLACIES
These fallacies, called Fallacies of Ambiguity, arise when the conclusion is
achieved through an improper use of words / images.

 Innuendo / Apophasis occurs when statement A suggests the truth of

statement B, without logically implying it. This technique is used effectively by
advertisers, in order to suggest that the consumer / audience should believe
certain things about the products / advertised messages (in our case): Smoking
is murder and, without saying it, the advertisers suggest that the blame is on
all the people who smoke.

 Proof by Verbosity or Proof by Intimidation is an argument that is far too

complicated or the person making the argument is so well-reputed that one
takes his claims as plausible, though they are superficially researched. In our
case, CONAC is a well-known organization dealing with cancer issues and
people tend to trust the conveyed message without further research.
 FORMAL FALLACIES
 Formal Fallacies are all the cases or kinds of reasoning that fail to be
deductively valid.

 Formal fallacies are also called Logical Fallacies or Invalidities. They are
deductively invalid arguments that are too often believed to be
deductively valid.

 Most of the traditionally considered formal fallacies are related to

the syllogisms and we may consider this syllogism, for our study as an
Affirmation of the Consequent …

People who smoke commit suicide.

Non-smokers inhale the smoke as second-hand smokers.
(So) “Smoking isn’t just suicide. It’s murder.”

… an error in formal logic where if the consequent is said to be true,

and the antecedent is said to be true, as a result.
 LOGICAL FALLACIES
Logical Fallacies are common errors in reasoning that will undermine the logic of the
argument. Logical Fallacies can be either illegitimate arguments or irrelevant points,
and are often identified because they lack evidence that supports their claim.

Slippery Slope is when the advertiser (in our case) claims that a first step (in a chain
of causes and effects, or a chain of reasoning) will probably lead to a second step that in
turn will probably lead to another step and so on until a final step ends in trouble.

(If you start / or smoke in somebody’s proximity)… smoking (step by step) causes murder.

Hasty Generalization is when a conclusion is based on insufficient or biased

evidence. In other words, the targeted audience is rushing to a conclusion before
searching for all the relevant facts: statistics, types of cancer, causes of death, other
associated health problems, etc…

Post hoc ergo propter hoc is when a conclusion assumes that if 'A' occurred after 'B'
then 'B' must have caused 'A.' In our case, people smoke and second-hand smokers die, so
smoking causes murder. In this example, the advertiser (the one raising awareness, in
fact) assumes that if one event chronologically follows another the first event must
have caused the second. The death, though, could have been caused by other health
problems.
 LOGICAL FALLACIES
Circular Argument is when the speaker / communicator restates the argument rather
than actually proving it. The Fallacy of Circular Reasoning also occurs when the reason
begins with what he / she is trying to end up with. In our case, the advertiser doesn’t
come with any proofs.

Either … or / The Black-White fallacy is a False Dilemma Fallacy that limits you

unfairly to only two choices, as if you were made to choose between black and white.
This is a conclusion that oversimplifies the argument by reducing it to only two sides or
choices. 

People that smoke can either stop smoking or murder innocent children.

In this example, the two choices are presented as the only options, yet the
communicator ignores a range of other choices in between such as: reducing the
smoking, avoiding other’s proximity when smoking …

Red Herring is a distraction that leads the reasoner off the track of considering only
relevant information. In our case, the image of the suffering child leads the audience
into believing that the message is correct.
 LOGICAL FALLACIES
Moral Equivalence (in an exaggerated way) is the fallacy that compares
minor misdeeds with major atrocities, suggesting that both are equally
immoral.
Smoking and murder

In this example, the author is comparing the relatively harmful actions of a

person like smoking with the horrific idea of murder. This comparison might
be a bit unfair and inaccurate.

“Ad Hominem” means “to the person” as in being “directed at the

person” and the ad hominem fallacy may be called a Circumstantial Ad
Hominem Fallacy.

In this example, the ad might be directed to expectant mothers that

constantly smoke during pregnancy or to mothers smoking around kids
stating that smoking would not only kill the mother, but also the child … so,
the ad is putting the blame on mothers. The child in the photo didn’t chose his
destiny, but his mother did.
 LOGICAL FALLACIES
 The Name Calling Fallacy is linking a person or an idea to a negative symbol. In our
case, smoking means murder and murder is a crime and the ones smoking are criminals.
In another way, the use of this type of fallacy is an insult to the people who wouldn’t
harm anyone when smoking.

Overgeneralization and Oversimplification which are two different types of Logical

Fallacies, but they both resume to the same thing: reducing multiple causes to just one
and making that one overegeneralized. We often arrive at a generalization, but don’t or
can’t list all the exceptions. When we reason with the generalization as if it
has no exceptions, this fallacy is sometimes called the “Fallacy of Sweeping
Generalization.”
Oversimplification – Smoking isn’t just suicide. It’s murder – reducing the causes of
murder to smoking
Overgeneralization – Smoking isn’t just suicide. It’s murder – generalizing that all
second-hand smokers will be murdered, eventually.

Polarization Fallacy means viewing and putting everything binary into strict two
categories: right – wrong, positive – negative, innocent – guilty, good – evil. Here, the
child is innocent and the smokers guilty. Not harming a child is right, but smoking is
wrong. The children only are innocent, but the adults are guilty. Non-smoking is right,
smoking is wrong.
 Conclusions
We all have our comfort zones, our habits, and yes, even our biases, and it
all adds up to us making the same mistakes over and over again. We are
not learning from past mistakes when making impulse purchases /
assuming / believing … we constantly do things that may not work out to
be the best decision in the long run.

Some very smart people are paid a lot of money to take advantage of our
inbuilt flaws, and sell / persuade us into buying or believing in their
products or ideas).

In our case, this advertising campaign initiated by CONAC has an ethical

message. It raises awareness of how dangerous the smoking can be and,
considering how controversial and sensitive the matter is, we may
overlook the fallacies of all kinds related to this ad and react in a sensible
way.

However, it’s not just companies who are doing this, the people around us
when trying to prove a point … and I might be guilty (now) of doing the
same thing! Thank you!
 Bibliography & Webography
 Lecture notes:
Lector univ. dr. Mariana Tirnauceanu
Argumentation Theory

 Web sources:
 https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/fallacies/
 https://www.miguelangelmartinez.net/IMG/pdf/2001_Rose_Visual_Methodologies_book.pdf
 https://www.logicalfallacies.org/proof-by-verbosity.html
 https://www.britannica.com/to https://springhole.net/logical-
 https://iep.utm.edu/fallacy/?
fbclid=IwAR0Rpu1od9vZbiHJMHnOt2hptlyvpoxZ9rIsDMSAq_RCvwwVwzZVTgAFJA#Accidentfallac
ies/polarization.htmpic/fallacy
 https://www.csus.edu/indiv/g/gaskilld/business_computer_ethics/truth%20in%20advertising.html
 https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/academic_writing/logic_in_argumentative_writing/fa
llacies.html
 https://www.slideshare.net/Mich62/logic-fallacies-in-advertisement-15487851
 https://www.paho.org/salud-en-las-americas-2012/index.php?
option=com_docman&view=download&category_slug=hia-2012-country-chapters-22&alias=224-
chile-224&Itemid=231&lang=en
 https://113joson.weebly.com/visual-analysis.html
 https://www.fcb.com/
 https://dictionary.cambridge.org
 https://www.wehelpstudio.com/eugenio-recuenco/