Social and Political Propaganda Essay

During World War II propaganda was ubiquitous. It consisted of a wide range of carriers including leaflets, radio, television, and most importantly posters. Posters were used based on their appeal: they were colorful, creative, concise, and mentally stimulating. Posters often portrayed the artist's views on the war. They demonstrated the artist concern for the war, their hopes for the war, and reflected the way enemies were envisioned. Posters also show a nations political status: they reflect a nations allies and enemies, how the nation saw itself, and its greatest hopes and fears of the war.

Propaganda was used in 3 main types of ways in the First World War. It

In her essay, “Propaganda: How Not to Be Bamboozled”, author Donna Woolfolk Cross explains the different types of propaganda and how it is used in the United States. The essay was first published in Speaking of Words: A Language Reader (1977). Cross defines propaganda as “simply a means of persuasion and so it can be put to work for good causes as well as bad” (247). In her article she discusses how propaganda works and explains how propaganda is used with thirteen different devices to manipulate people’s thoughts, opinions, and ideas. She uses this essay as an informative piece, giving advice on how not to be manipulated by propaganda.

Propaganda takes many forms, the most aggressive example in society is political campaigning for powers in office. A prominent

Ever since its birth as a country in 1776, the United States of America has been a country surrounded by a certain aura that is not shared by other countries throughout the world. The country is one that was born out of a struggle and revolution, which has helped shape the character of its citizens and its national identity. Throughout the various wars the country has fought, such as the war of 1812, both World Wars, and the Vietnam War, propaganda has played an important role in influencing the people of America. The government of the United States has effectively used propaganda over the centuries to generate funds for war or relief efforts, save resources for war efforts, to get out and work or to possibly sway the minds of its citizens towards particular political ideals. Propaganda throughout the history of the United States, and throughout the world, have had various themes such as slandering an enemy as seen in anti-German, Italian, and Japanese propaganda in World War 2, or the opposite when trying to gain support for an ally. The main purpose of propaganda throughout history has been to persuade people to buy into or follow a set of ideals set out by whoever created the propaganda. Propaganda has played a large part in shaping the understanding of the United States by causing its citizens to buy into the beliefs of the government, which is a large reason why the country was able to become the great nation that it is today.

Both negative and positive, propaganda affects our lives daily sometimes without us even acknowledging that it exists. The main goal of propaganda is trying to sell your product or idea to other people, one major form of Propaganda occurs in the news. Propaganda is used for companies and trend setters who want to get their products and ideas out in the world so that they could potentially become popular. Smart propagandists discovered that to create the best propaganda, the viewer must not even realize that the product or idea is being sold to them. Propaganda creates an extremely large impact on us and is sometimes mistaken for being “just another advertisement” when they actually change the way we live our lives.

In Oceania, rumors, myths, ideas and false information controls the minds of the citizens. The Party uses propaganda as a powerful weapon against the citizens. There are many types of propaganda used. Propaganda is brainwash. The citizens of Oceania are brainwashed to think that the Party is really there to help them, to make them happy. “WAR IS PEACE. FREEDOM IS SLAVERY. IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.” and “Big Brother is Watching You” are examples of doublethink. These uses of propaganda prevent rebellion of the citizens of Oceania because they believe that this society is the ideal society. They believe they are protected, and that they could not be happier. Propaganda is the Party’s

"Propaganda tries to force a doctrine on the whole people... Propaganda works on the general public from the standpoint of an idea and makes them ripe for the victory of this idea." ( Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, 1926).

The Cold War was one of the wars that made everyone hold their breaths and ponder would would happen next and when. The Cold War was a time period between 1947 to1991 in which the Western powers (US) and the USSR competed with each other in a tense rivalry and strive to outperform one another. It was also one of the key moments in history which spiked a motive and drive to develop and produce new strategies, weapons, and technologies. There was no actual fighting which took place (hence the name Cold War), but the two were always trying to best each other. The two superpowers often contested with each other militaristically, socially, politically, and economically. With this in mind: what weapons were used to fight the Cold War? Generally, Cold War weapons included the use of propaganda, nuclear weapons, and new technological development.

When people hear the word ‘propaganda’, a negative image automatically seems to pop up in their heads. Propaganda generally revolves around hiding the whole story with information often being provided in a biased or misleading fashion.

We live in a world of technological innovation where mass media is a major part of us today. People make assumptions on what they hear. They do not try to analyze the situation to see who is right and who is wrong, and mass media is the main source of manipulating one's mind. The concept of propaganda has changed over time. Propagandists create ideas stereotypically through the use of propaganda and use media to promote it and target people's minds to have influence on their views towards a certain group of people. These ideas create negative or positive images in the intended audience's minds. However, it is notable that the information is only the one that is exemplified through media and therefore, can be

As to my observations and reading I created an opinion in which I found that people often relate to propaganda as an extreme and horrible tool while at the same time it is a part of our daily life. Whether propaganda has a bad reputation or a good one, I do not believe our world is possible to live without this adaptive and evolving tool. “It is always a much easier task to educate uneducated people than to re-educate the miss-educated” ~ Herbert M. Shelton (Goodreads, 2014).

First, one must define propaganda and since many have done so already, I shall use the Sheryl Ross model. Her model defines propaganda as “an epistemically defective message designed with the intention to persuade a socially significant group of people on behalf of a political institution, organization, or cause.”

The soviet communist party, or the Bolsheviks, always new that strong propaganda was essential to increase the consciousness of the masses. As stated in the Encyclopedia of Propaganda, " propaganda was central to Marxist-Leninist ideology long before the Bolshevik revolution of 1917."(675) The power of persuasion and coercion were exercised with great force by Soviet leaders. The two leaders whom utilized propaganda to influence public opinion in the USSR were Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin. Both men used many different facets of the media to spread their propaganda. They also used the troubled social climate along with the ignorance of the masses to custom tailor a regime that lasted for over seven decades.

The newspaper article simply stated facts on the presidents and the years of attempts made by the United States. It gave a historic chart of positives and negatives. It also did not show any favoritism to either one of the presidents. The article showed a historic view of 1977 to the present. However, the Time article focused mainly on the positive attempts made by President Obama. The article also gave much credit to all the efforts made from 2009 up to now. The Time article only showed President Obama’s photograph and gave a perspective of the steps taken by Obama.