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Propaganda
Early propaganda study
• The first propaganda studies followed the
First World War
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Development of mass media
Creel Committee
Allied propaganda
Exorbitant claims by PR/ad people after the war
was over
Goals of early propaganda study
• Arm citizens against insidious
communication
• Learn rules of effective rhetoric
• Develop methods for successful use of
propaganda by business and government
Between the wars
• The Institute for Propaganda Analysis set up
• Developed a list of “seven common
propaganda devices”
– Appeal to emotion rather than reason
– “They make us believe and do something we
would not believe or do if we thought about it
calmly, dispassionately . . .”
Seven devices
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The name calling device
The glittering generalities device
The transfer device
The testimonial device
The plain folks device
The card stacking device
The band wagon device
Name calling
• “a device to make us form a judgment
without examining the evidence on which it
should be based”
• Propagandist attempts to attach negative
labels to those she wants us to condemn
• “terrorist” “extremist” “dictator”
• Very common form of propaganda
Glittering generalities
• “propagandist identifies his program with
virtue by the use of ‘virtue words’”
• “truth” “freedom” “honor”
• Meant to make us accept and approve of the
propagandist’s position, group, etc. without
an analysis of the facts.
Transfer
• “the propagandist carries over the authority,
sanction, and prestige of something we
respect and revere to something he would
have us accept”
• Have church or nation approve of action
– Flags, crosses in background
Testimonial
• An individual professes support or
opposition
• “I think President Bush is doing a
wonderful job.”
Plain Folks
• Related to testimonial
• Propagandists “win our confidence by
appearing to be people like ourselves—‘just
plain folks among the neighbors’”
• Candidates kiss babies, government
officials hang out on the front porch for
photo ops, eat local cuisine
Card stacking
• Propagandist “uses underemphasis and
overemphasis to dodge issues and evade
facts. He resorts to lies, censorship, and
distortion. He omits facts.
– Raises “red herring” issues to draw attention
away from embarrassing issues
Band Wagon
• “a device to make us follow the crowd . . .
His theme is ‘everybody’s doing it’”
More recent work on propaganda
• Though the seven devices are a good start,
they have several problems
– Some are vague (card stacking)
– They are limited mainly to specific word usage
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What is not said
Context
Societal myths
Visuals
Framing
Bias
• Much of recent study of propaganda, news
and other forms of political propaganda
look at bias
• Bias is the uneven treatment of sides to an
issue
• Often looked at as unfair treatment of one
side of a bipolar conflict—
Democrat/Republican, conservative/liberal
Bias
• Indications of bias
– One side gets more time/better placement
– Tougher questioning of one side than the other
– One side is treated more kindly
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Adjectives/adverbs
Rolling the eyes, etc.
Softball questions
Other demonstrations of support
Context
• Recent events
• Social mood
• Wider discussion that the individual issue,
etc. is placed within
– Explicit allusions
Framing/ideology
• More sophisticated, and more difficult is the
attempt to determine the larger story being
told, and how it may distort a fair analysis
of an issue, action, etc.
• Assumptions inherent in the culture
• Master narratives that have great impact
• Socially agreed-upon biases
Assumptions inherent in the
culture
• U.S. is
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Secularized
Democratic
Capitalist
Conservative economically
Liberal socially
Racist
Sexist (though not too bad by comparison with other
societies)
– Individualist
Master narratives
• Societal myths provide significant source
for the discussion of topics, powerful
support for varied positions:
• Horatio Alger myth
• Cold War scenario
• Cowboy/wild west myth
Socially agreed-upon biases
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Progress
Technology
Christian religions
Sexual liberalism
Framing
• Telling the larger story within which the
individual incident, policy, or action is
placed
• Powerful, relatively invisible form of
propaganda
• Uses all the earlier techniques to “frame”
discussion of policy
Framing
• Certain arguments, possibilities, actions,
beliefs, groups, positions are “framed in.”
Others are “framed out”
– Certain facts/beliefs are considered relevant or
irrelevant
– Arguments are more or less appropriate
– Narratives are said to be good explanations or
not
• Pro-Life vs. Pro-Choice
Tactical vs. strategic critique
• Chomsky discussed the difference between
‘tactical’ and ‘strategic’ critique
– Tactical critique accepts the goals and overall
justification for the action, but questions
whether the costs are too high, the solution
effective, etc.
– Strategic critique questions the justification for
the action, the basic assumptions underlying the
position, the moral implications
Chomsky on Vietnam
• Chomsky argued that the press and the
administration engaged in tactical debate over
Vietnam but never did the debate expand to the
realm of strategic debate
– Johnson and Nixon were challenged as the the costs of
the war, whether or not it could be won, whether we
really wanted to pay the price, etc. They were not
significantly challenged as to the morality of the war,
whether this was really a case of the “domino effect” or
whether we were supporting a dictatorship, etc.
Personalization
• Though a conflict is between nations,
groups, etc. try to define the enemy as a
single person
– Hussein
– Bin Laden
Demonization
• Once you have defined the conflict as an
opposition to a single individual, define that
individual in absolute, negative terms
Nationalism
• Call upon love of country as a reason for
support of policy
• Define being “American” as more important
than anything else in the conflict
• Say that the opposition has attacked
America as a whole, rather than an
individual or group within the country