Ok, somebody on the Bush team snuck a subliminal word “Rats” on one of Bushes ads, whilst they were talking about the Gore health plan, ie Gore=Rats. Shades of the “dirty tricks squad”. Did RMN “make him do it”? (“Da debbil made me do it”). Will this have an effect on the Election?
For the record, this is one news story covering the ad in question. Bush’s camp denies wrongdoing.
As to whether it will affect the outcome in November…probably no more than any other political ad. Certainly not in my case (I don’t watch TV, so I couldn’t care less how much mud the contestants…er…candidates sling at each other over the airwaves).
there’s already a thread on this
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=38233
By definition, it can’t be considered “subliminal” if it can be noticed by the conscious mind (which it can). This is just another case of “attempted buzzword-induced terror”.
“Hey, Pa, th’ Enquirer says that wily rascal Dubya is a-tryin’ to steal our minds again!”
“Ma, git mah gun.”
spoofe: It apparently cannot be SEEN, but it can be noticed, of course. The only way to actually see it clearly is to run it frame-by-frame, thus it is a true subliminal.
Daniel, they just showed the commercial earlier (I think it was 60 Minutes II). The big “Rats” was capable of being seen. They rant he commercial once, at normal speed, and during the “flashing” segment, I thought I noticed “Rats”, but it could have been mistaken for something else. Then they ran it again and paused the tape where “Rats” had been seen.
In short, no, it was not a subliminal message.
Quote from the above link.
<<<<<<He said he faded in the word “bureaucrats” to make the ad visually interesting, and that it was just a coincidence that the letters appearing first spell the name of a rodent.>>>>>>>>
This may well be the lamest excuse I have ever heard.
But, I don’t think we can blame G. Dubya for this.
What’s the big deal? It’s not like:
a) This is the worst thing these two are going to call each other, or;
b) So-called “subliminal advertisements” actually do anything.
Good grief. That isn’t W’s own work, for sure. If he really wanted to insult Gore, he would have called him a major-league asshole.
Does anyone remember when it was the Republicans who saw sinister messages in everything on TV and nominated anti-free speech religious zealot guys to their tickets?
I miss the old days.
CMK – Did you see Tom Browkaw on Conan last night? He was actually quite funny. He knows the NYT reporter and said the guy was only mad because Bush hadn’t added “and future hall-of-famer”. 
And actually, the thing I thought was funniest about the “rats” thing (and this was highlighted repeatedly on the talk shows last night) was that Bush cannot even pronounce “subliminal.” He said – repeatedly – “subliminalable.” I’m more concerned with the fact that he has apparently never heard the word than I am with whether or not he knew about the placement – which, in any event, I do not think he did.
This is definitely an attempt at subliminal messaging. What’s scary is, I didn’t notice “rats” until I saw to report. And I saw that commercial several times. Anyone who believe that this was an accident (despite the fact that every second of any add is generally scrutinised before released) either is blatantly partisan or has their head in the sand.
However, I doubt this Dubya’s doing. It’s stupid to expect that the candidate, any candidate, can be involved with one hundred percent of his campaign. Quite frankly, I am under the impression that George W has little to do with his campaign or anything other decision his managers make.
I was going to vote for Gore, but then I saw this Republican commercial and and now I just can’t seem to shake the feeling that the Dems are a bunch of…can’t quite put my finger on it. Just got this vague feeling that there is something about Al Gore.
No, the definition of subliminal is basically any stimulus that is conciously processable less than 50% of the time. It does not have to be a message of any type. (Psychology, David G. Myers, 5th Edition)
As for the general thread: It is frankly iditic to suggest that anyone threw this in for anything more than an “easter egg” or that this could affect anyones opinions in the slightest. “Subliminal messages” can only influence ones affective state for seconds, not even minutes. Again, same cite. Additionally, it is not possible for subliminal messages to be implanted well through stimulae requiring advanced cognative processing such as writting. Now a picture of a rat MIGHT provide an affective mood change, but the word rat is basically worthless.
I seriously cannot believe that anyone got worked up over this. If anything, this add will detract from Bush because of a hysteria or against Gore (hopefully) to even say that this “subliminal message” had potential influences upon people.
-Webster’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary
Cecil himself said subliminal advertising has been disproved to have any effect. Cecil said it, I believe it, that settles it.
SPOOF, looks like we have an old-fashioned dispute of terms. Anyone else wish to throw their hat (and cites) into the ring on this dispute?
No the ‘rats’ commercial was supposed to be one of a series of ads for the Bush campaign. The next comercial was supposed to be Susan from Survivor restating her infamous quote, only this time calling Bush a snake and Gore a rat.
Oh, I didn’t mean to start up a dispute, I just wanted to point out where I got my information. I apologize if I gave the wrong impression. Of course there’s going to be a differential in definitions, since the dictionary would only provide the static, “official” (English-wise) definition, while your Psychology book would give the “slang-ish/field-slanted” view, where the word is given an expanded definition to fit certain circumstances.
No problem.
I guess that with time, compassion, and understanding, we can grow to have peace between the two great definitions of both definition number 1 and 2.