Propaganda Techniques

 

Propaganda is a specific type of message presentation, aimed at serving an agenda. Even if the message conveys true information, it may be partisan and fail to paint a complete picture. The book Propaganda And Persuasion defines propaganda as "the deliberate, systematic attempt to shape perceptions, manipulate cognitions, and direct behavior to achieve a response that furthers the desired intent of the propagandist."     

Kinds of Propaganda

Propaganda shares many techniques with advertising or public relations; in fact, advertising and PR can be said to be propaganda promoting a commercial product. As commonly understood, however, the term usually refers to political or nationalist messages. It can take the form of leaflets, posters, TV broadcasts or radio broadcasts. In a narrower and more common use of the term, propaganda refers to deliberately false or misleading information that supports a political cause or the interests of those in power. The propagandist seeks to change the way people understand an issue or situation, for the purpose of changing their actions and expectations in ways that are desirable to the interest group. In this sense, propaganda serves as a corollary to censorship, in which the same purpose is achieved, not by filling people's heads with false information, but by preventing people from knowing true information. What sets propaganda apart from other forms of advocacy is the willingness of the propagandist to change people's understanding through deception and confusion, rather than persuasion and understanding. The leaders of an organization know the information to be one sided or untrue but this may not be true for the rank and file members who help to disseminate the propaganda.

 Propaganda is a mighty weapon and its aim is usually to dehumanize groups and to create hatred against a special group. The technique is to create a false image in the mind. This can be done by using special words, special avoidance of words or by saying that someone else is responsible for certain things he never did. In every propaganda war two things are needed: Injustice and faint. The faint or the injustice may be fictitious or may be based on facts; the aim is always to create hate.

 Propaganda is also one of the methods used in psychological warfare. In an even narrower, less commonly used but legitimate sense of the term, propaganda refers only to false information meant to reassure people who already believe. The assumption is that, if people believe something false, they will constantly be assailed by doubts. Since these doubts are unpleasant (see cognitive dissonance), people will be eager to have them extinguished, and are therefore receptive to the reassurances of those in power. For this reason propaganda is often addressed to people who are already sympathetic to the agenda.

 Other general methods used for controlling populations:

1) Isolation/control: Isolating groups can take many forms whether racial, demographic or social. Isolating groups politically can be a simple or complex process but always results in leveraged control and potential political marginalization with potential ultimate control as in a one-party Marist state. Propaganda is an essential tool in providing the information that will allow a particular group of people to be isolated from the mass,much the same way our government leaders are.

2) Confusion/diversion: Splitting a major issue into separate components can work to resurrect failed but desired consequences, for example when one contentious element of an issue fails related or independent components of the issue serve as new justifications.

3) Separation: Related to isolation and control, behavioral psychologists sometimes refer to the principle of "divide and conquer". Divide and conquer is an extremely useful tool to maintain control over disparate groups and propaganda provides the information upon which separation is based.

4) Reaction: strength is based upon action and it is desirable to place the people and unruly groups in positions where they must react, propaganda is a useful tool and adjunct in forcing people to react as a large group. Government takes its strength from action where the strong act upon certain information and the weak and unwary are left to react.

5) Disinformation as weakness: weakness is indicated by reaction, reaction is induced by misinformation and disinformation. Strength is manifest in action to which an adjunct may be the supply of misinformation or disinformation. Individuals must not be allowed to act or think independently, and individuals must not be permitted to act in the face of government coercion. By forcing people to react to disinformation and misinformation individuals in power can pursue their own private agenda.

6) Coercion: a government's capability is determined by the government's ability to coerce citizens into adopting certain behaviors. In this manner the government may control and condition its people or the government cannot be successful. Propaganda is an essential tool and sometimes directs the manner in which the coercion is focused.

 The modern political sense of the term "propaganda" dates from World War I, and was not originally negative. Propaganda techniques were first codified and applied in a scientific manner by journalist Walter Lippman and psychologist Edward Bernays (nephew of Sigmund Freud) early in the 20th century. During World War I, Lippman and Bernays both worked for the Creel Committee on Public Information  which was created by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson to sway popular opinion to enter the war on the side of Britain. The Creel Committee's pro-war propaganda campaign produced within six months an intense anti-German hysteria. Its success permanently impressed American business (and Adolf Hitler, among others, with the potential of large-scale propaganda to control public opinion. Bernays coined the terms "group mind" and "engineering consent", important concepts in practical propaganda work.The current public relations industry is a direct outgrowth of the Creel Committee's work and is still used extensively by the United States government. Several of the early figures in the public relations industry were members of the Creel Committee, including Bernays, Ivy Lee and Carl Byoir.World War II saw continued use of propaganda as a weapon of war, both by Hitler's propagandist Joseph Goebbels and the British Political Warfare Executive.

 Cold War Propaganda

The United States and the Soviet Union both used propaganda extensively during the Cold War. Both sides used film, television and radio programming to influence their own citizens, each other and Third World nations. The United States Information Agency operated the Voice of America as an official government station. Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, in part supported by the Central Intelligence Agency, provided gray propaganda in news and entertainment programs to Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union respectively. The Soviet Union's official government station Radio Moscow, broadcast white propaganda, while Radio Peace and Freedom broadcast grey propaganda. Both sides also broadcast black propaganda programs around special crises.One of the most insightful authors of the Cold War was George Orwell, whose novels Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four are virtual textbooks on the use of propaganda. Though not set in the Soviet Union, their characters live under totalitarian regimes in which language is constantly corrupted for political purposes. Those novels were used for explicit propaganda. The CIA, for example, secretly commissioned an animated film adaptation of Animal Farm in the 1950s.

Techniques of Propaganda Generation:

Saddam Hussein pictured as a decisive war leader in an Iraqi propaganda picture. A number of techniques are used to create messages which are persuasive, but false. Many of these same techniques can be found under logical fallacies since propagandists use arguments which, although sometimes convincing, are not necessarily valid. Some time has been spent analyzing the means by which propaganda messages are transmitted, and that work is important, but it's clear that information dissemination strategies only become propaganda strategies when coupled with propagandistic messages. Identifying these propaganda messages is a necessary prerequisite to studying the methods by which those messages are spread. That's why it is essential to have some knowledge of the following techniques for generating propaganda:

Appeal to fear: Appeals to fear seeks to build support by instilling fear in the general population - for example Joseph Goebbels exploited Theodore Kaufman's Germany Must Perish! to claim that the Allies sought the extermination of the German people.

Appeal to authority: Appeals to authority cite prominent figures to support a position idea, argument, or course of action.

Obtain disapproval: This technique is used to get the audience to disapprove an action or idea by suggesting the idea is popular with groups hated, feared, or held in contempt by the target audience. Thus, if a group which supports a policy is led to believe that undesirable, subversive, or contemptible people also support it; the members of the group might decide to change their position.

Rationalization: Individuals or groups may use favorable generalities to rationalize questionable acts or beliefs. Vague and pleasant phrases are often used to justify such actions or beliefs.

Intentional vagueness: Generalities are deliberately vague so that the audience may supply its own interpretations. The intention is to move the audience by use of undefined phrases, without analyzing their validity or attempting to determine their reasonableness or application

Labeling: This technique attempts to arouse prejudices in an audience by labeling the object of the propaganda campaign as something the target audience fears, hates, loathes, or finds undesirable.

Scapegoating: Assigning blame to an individual or group that isn't really responsible, thus alleviating feelings of guilt from responsible parties and/or distracting attention from the need to fix the problem for which blame is being assigned.

Virtue words: These are words in the value system of the target audience which tend to produce a positive image when attached to a person or issue. Peace, happiness, security, wise leadership, freedom, etc., are virtue words.

Slogans: A slogan is a brief striking phrase that may include labeling and stereotyping. If ideas can be sloganized, they should be, as good slogans are self-perpetuating memes. See also doublespeak, information warfare, meme, psyops. 

Techniques of Propaganda Transmission

Common methods for transmitting propaganda messages include news reports, government reports, historical revision, theater, books, leaflets, movies, radio and television, and posters. 

Recognizing Propaganda

Some of the most effective propaganda techniques work by misdirecting or distracting the public's finite attention away from important issues. It's important to read between the lines of the news and see what isn't being reported, or what is reported once, quietly, and not followed up. In an age of information overload, distraction techniques can as effective as active propaganda. One way to test for distraction is to look for items that appear repeatedly in foreign press (from neutral and hostile countries) and that don't appear in your own. But beware of deliberately placed lies that are repeated with the hope that people will believe it if it is repeated often enough.

All active propaganda techniques can be tested by asking if they intend for the target audience to act in the best interests of the distributor of the propaganda. Propaganda presents one point of view as if it were the best or only way to look at a situation. Sometimes propaganda can be detected by the fact that it changes before and after a critical event, whereas more honest information like medicine, science or any training manual should largely remain the same after the event as before. If there are big disparities, or if some "valuable lesson" or "wake-up call" has occurred, it means that what was provided before the fact was not really "instruction" but "guessing," or - if there is no consistent explanation that survives - then it is propaganda. 

Politicians use many types of propaganda techniques to mislead and confuse voters. Today’s voters must be versed in the many types of information management that is used by the government, politicians, news media, and others that are attempting to control how the public thinks!!! I will try to convey these various types of propaganda on this web site and hopefully we can all begin to see the real picture of what is going on in our country.                    

1. Assertion:

Assertion is commonly used in advertising and modern political propaganda. An assertion is an enthusiastic or energetic statement presented as a fact, although it is not necessarily true. They often imply that the statement requires no explanation or back up, but that it should merely be accepted without question. Examples of assertion can be found often in modern advertising and political propaganda. Any time someone states that their candidate or product is the best without providing evidence for this, they are using an assertion. The subject, ideally, should simply agree to the statement without searching for additional information or reasoning. Assertions, although usually simple to spot, are often dangerous forms of propaganda because they often include falsehoods or lies. The best example of this technique is the use by liberal democrats of the ageless slogan “all republicans support the rich upper class who donate big money to them”! The reality is that the largest amount of money from the rich upper class and big corporations goes to democrats! The list of rich fat cats who support the democrats is LARGE, in fact one of the richest men in America is Mr. George Soros and he has bought and paid for many democrat representatives and senators in congress.

2. Bandwagon:

Bandwagon is one of the most common techniques in the liberal political and news media discourse and plays an important part in modern advertising. Bandwagon is also one of the seven main propaganda techniques identified by the Institute for Propaganda Analysis. Bandwagon is an appeal to the subject to follow the crowd, to join in because others are doing so as well. Bandwagon propaganda is, essentially, trying to convince the subject that one side is the winning side, because more people have joined it. The subject is meant to believe that since so many people have joined, that victory is inevitable and defeat impossible. Since the average person always wants to be on the winning side, he or she is compelled to join in. However, in modern propaganda, bandwagon has taken a new twist. The subject is to be convinced by the propaganda that since everyone else is doing it, they will be left out if they do not. This is, effectively, the opposite of the other type of bandwagon, but usually provokes the same results. Subjects of bandwagon are compelled to join in because everyone else is doing so as well. When confronted with bandwagon propaganda, we should weigh the pros and cons of joining in independently from the amount of people who have already joined, and, as with most types of propaganda, we should seek more information. We see this method used by the news media when it promotes man made climate change.

3. Card stacking:

Card stacking, or selective omission, is one of the seven techniques identified by the IPA, or Institute for Propaganda Analysis. It involves only presenting information that is positive to an idea or proposal and omitting information contrary to it. Card stacking is used in almost all forms of propaganda, and is extremely effective in convincing the public. Although the majority of information presented by the card stacking approach is true; it is dangerous because it omits important information. This is the current method of choice of the Main Street Media!!!  The best way to deal with card stacking is to get more information.

4. Glittering Generalities:     

Glittering generalities was one of the seven main propaganda techniques identified by the Institute for Propaganda Analysis. It also occurs very often in politics and political propaganda. Glittering generalities are words that have different positive meaning for individual subjects, but are linked to highly valued concepts. When these words are used, they demand approval without thinking, simply because such an important concept is involved. For example, when a person is asked to do something in "defense of democracy" they are more likely to agree. The concept of democracy has a positive connotation to them because it is linked to a concept that they value. Words often used as glittering generalities are honor, glory, love of country, and especially in the United States, freedom. When coming across with glittering generalities, we should especially consider the merits of the idea itself when separated from specific words.

5. Lesser of Two Evils:

The "lesser of two evils" technique tries to convince us of an idea or proposal by presenting it as the least offensive option. This technique is often implemented to convince people of the need for sacrifices or to justify difficult decisions. This technique is often accompanied by adding blame on an enemy country or political group. One idea or proposal is often depicted as one of the only options or paths. When confronted with this technique, the subject should consider the value of any proposal independently of those it is being compared with.

6. Name Calling:

Name calling occurs often in politics and is used by liberal democrats in many scenarios! It is another of the seven main techniques designated by the Institute for Propaganda Analysis. It is the use of derogatory language or words that carry a negative connotation when describing an enemy. The propaganda attempts to arouse prejudice among the public by labeling the target something that the public dislikes. Often, name calling is employed using sarcasm and ridicule, and shows up often in political cartoons or writings. When examining name calling propaganda, we should attempt to separate our feelings about the name and our feelings about the actual idea or proposal.

7. Pinpointing the Enemy:

Pinpointing the enemy is used extremely often during wartime, and also in political campaigns and debates. This is an attempt to simplify a complex situation by presenting one specific group or person as the enemy. Although there may be other factors involved the subject is urged to simply view the situation in terms of clear-cut right and wrong. When coming in contact with this technique, the subject should attempt to consider all other factors tied into the situation. As with almost all propaganda techniques, the subject should attempt to find more information on the topic. An informed person is much less susceptible to this sort of propaganda.

8. Plain Folks:

The plain folks propaganda technique was another of the seven main techniques identified by the IPA, or Institute for Propaganda Analysis. The plain folks device is an attempt by the propagandist to convince the public that his views reflect those of the common person and that they are also working for the benefit of the common person. The propagandist will often attempt to use the accent of a specific audience as well as using specific idioms or jokes. Also, the propagandist, especially during speeches, may attempt to increase the illusion through imperfect       pronunciation, stuttering, and a more limited vocabulary. Errors such as these help add to the impression of sincerity and spontaneity. This technique is usually most effective when used with glittering generalities, in an attempt to convince the public that the propagandist views about highly valued ideas are similar to their own and therefore more valid. When confronted by this type of propaganda, the subject should consider the proposals and ideas separately from the personality of the presenter. Today’s democrats use this method to perfection and the party base falls for it hook line and sinker. The reality is that the liberal elite could care less about the common person and believe that they are not capable of caring for themselves; therefore, a bigger government must be setup to care for them!    

9. Simplification (Stereotyping):     

Simplification is extremely similar to pinpointing the enemy, in that it often reduces a complex situation to a clear-cut choice involving good and evil. This technique is often useful in swaying uneducated audiences so is often used by liberal democrats. When faced with simplification, it is often useful to examine other factors and pieces of the proposal or idea, and, as with all other forms of propaganda, it is essential to get more information.       

10. Testimonials:

Testimonials are another of the seven main forms of propaganda identified by the Institute for Propaganda Analysis. Testimonials are quotations or endorsements, in or out of context, which attempt to connect a famous or respectable person with a product or item. Testimonials are very closely connected to the transfer technique, in that an attempt is made to connect an agreeable person to another item. Testimonials are often used in advertising and political campaigns. When coming across testimonials, the subject should consider the merits of the item or proposal independently of the person of organization giving the testimonial.     

11. Transfer:

Transfer is another of the seven main propaganda terms first used by the Institute for Propaganda Analysis. Transfer is often used in politics and Main Street News Media. It is an attempt to make the subject view a certain item in the same way as they view another item, to link the two in the subjects mind. Although this technique is often used to transfer negative feelings for one object to another, it can also be used in positive ways. By linking an item to something the subject respects or enjoys, positive feelings can be generated for it. However, in politics, transfer is most often used to transfer blame or bad feelings from one politician to another of his friends or party members, or even to the party itself. When confronted with propaganda using the transfer technique, we should question the merits or problems of the proposal or idea independently of convictions about other objects or proposals.

Propagandists use a variety of other propaganda techniques to influence opinions and to avoid the truth. Often these techniques rely on some element of censorship or manipulation, either omitting significant information or distorting it.   During the period between World Wars I and II, the now-defunct Institute for Propaganda Analysis (IPA) developed a list of common rhetorical techniques used for propaganda purposes. Their list included the following list that I will attempt to define at a later time:    

  doublespeak

  fear

  glittering generalities

  name-calling

  ad hominem

  apologize

  astroturf

  bad science

  bait and switch

  big lie

  buzz

  buzzwords

  comic books

  controlling the message

  demonizing the opposition

  disinformation

  divide and conquer

  echo chamber

  front group

  greenwashing

  guerrilla marketing

  junk science

  misinformation

  photographic manipulation

  policy laundering

  politics of personal destruction

  Political Code Words

  product placement

  providing pictures

  Public Service Announcements

  push poll

  quoting out of context

  release of forged documents

  repetition

  straw man

  swiftboating

  using celebrities

  talking points

  vagueness

  video news releases

  viral marketing (word of mouth)