  The overshooting convective motions in the solar photosphere are frequently
proposed as the source for the excitation of Alfv\'en waves. However, the
photosphere is a) very weakly ionized, and, b) the dynamics of the plasma
particles in this region is heavily influenced by the plasma-neutral
collisions. The purpose of this work is to check the consequences of these two
facts on the above scenario and their effects on the electromagnetic waves. It
is shown that the ions and electrons in the photosphere are both un-magnetized;
their collision frequency with neutrals is much larger than the gyro-frequency.
This implies that eventual Alfv\'en-type electromagnetic perturbations must
involve the neutrals as well. This has the following serious consequences: i)
in the presence of perturbations, the whole fluid (plasma + neutrals) moves;
ii) the Alfv\'en velocity includes the total (plasma + neutrals) density and is
thus considerably smaller compared to the collision-less case; iii) the
perturbed velocity of a unit volume, which now includes both plasma and
neutrals, becomes much smaller compared to the ideal (collision-less) case; and
iv) the corresponding wave energy flux for the given parameters becomes much
smaller compared to the ideal case.
