The Power Of Propaganda

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.

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.

Propaganda often receives a bad name. People believe that influencing people as negative, however “propaganda as a mere tool is no more moral or immoral than a pump handle” (Laswell pg 21). It is not until the writers of the propaganda intentionally become vicious and spread lies that it becomes

World War II is one of many, most horrific and crucial events in world history and one of the most important events in the 20th century. Leonard and John (2007) define propaganda as “notions, facts, or accusations that are spread purposely with the objective of furthering one’s cause or damaging an opponent’s cause”. (7) They used media and propaganda in order to increase support for their side of the war. An immense feeling of patriotism was building up, and the nations used all the resources at their disposal to get their nations ahead of the race regardless of how humiliating and misleading the allegations were. Throughout World War II, propaganda was used to maintain the heat in fights and create unity among the citizens of a nation to achieve a single cause. People receive information on a daily basis since the beginning of the war and the parties of the confrontation. United States of America used propaganda for the creation of massive advertisements in the course of the war that could be interpreted as degrading to rival forces (Cogan, Brian & Tony, 53). Propaganda and information were distributed through numerous sources—radio, films, books and newspapers. The major aim was to impose on people the way of thinking and acting, both consciously and subconsciously (Rhodes 5). Though news sources attempted to be objective, there has always been ways to influence the way in which people interpret information.

Propaganda, though not the most effective war time strategy, allows people to come together as one to contribute to the success of the country as a whole. However with this idea, there is also the idea that they are not whole truths being told by governments within countries. Propaganda is a form of a lie seen in both North Korea in the book Escape from Camp 14, and in one of the world’s darkest times, World War II; the world allows these lies to surface due to the fact that they do no outwardly hurt another race.

​Throughout the history of the United States, the American government has employed many propaganda techniques, usually during times of war and hardships, to evoke an intended reaction from Americans. "Propaganda is the deliberate, systematic attempt to shape perceptions, manipulate cognitions, and direct behavior to achieve a response that furthers the desired intent of the propagandist.” To control the public during difficult times, the government heavily utilized propaganda. The wars that propaganda was most prominently employed in were World War I and World War II. Propaganda, specifically in World War I and World War II, has had far more negative effects on American society than positive effects.

Propaganda is a form of rhetoric that manipulates information to influence public opinion. It lacks critical balance as it overemphasizes elements that support a position and ignores opposing viewpoints. Although propaganda, in its original sense, could be used to promote positive causes, it has acquired a negative connotation and is used as a pejorative to describe ideological messages that people usually disagree with. Film is regarded as the most effective medium to distribute propaganda to a large audience of different classes. “In comparison with other arts, film has a particular forceful and lasting psychological and propagandistic impact because of its effect not on the intellect, but principally on the emotions and the visual sense” (Interview with Fritz Hippler qtd.

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

The fact that wars give rise to intensive propaganda campaigns has made many people suppose that propaganda is something new. The truth is, it is not. The battle with persuasion for power and men’s minds is as old as human history (Casey, 1994d)

Propaganda is the most dangerous form of controlled media, as it is widespread and manipulates the viewer to think whatever idea or opinion it is projecting. However, propaganda is often simply an “effective appeal to the emotions”(Weir) of citizens and does not actually deliver the truth, let alone the whole story. The issue of propaganda is that people “believe what they are fed,”(Weir) but that may not be their fault. If media is censored and any outside sources of information are unreachable, it is impossible for unbiased or more factual reports to be found. All citizens’ decisions must be based off of what they have been told, rather than from their own opinion. Any ideas or viewpoints have been morphed into thoughts that are compliant with what the government wants. Citizens can no longer make decisions for themselves, rather they must benefit the

Crowd psychology is the fundamental idea behind the term propaganda. One of the most successful public relations influencers Edward Bernays wrote in his book “Propaganda”. ”If we understand the mechanisms and the motives of the group mind, it is now possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without them knowing it.” Many argue that propaganda is unethical due to the fact that it is a manipulation and control of the group mind. In this paper, I will be studying what makes propaganda ethical and compare the effective propaganda techniques that have been used in some of the most recent campaigns. Specifically, focusing on public relations campaigns in such as Always, Under Armour, and Dove" campaigns that have recently

Propaganda is performed through print, audio, and visual mass media. It is used for the promotion of the public’s activities in their life such as purchasing goods through market propaganda, and it is also found in politics, foreign affairs, and in many other fields. Most importantly propaganda is depicted in the informercialization of the news, which is connected with subliminal advertising and commercialization of public events and individual promotion such in communication websites. However, there is great debate over propaganda and persuasion that is casted in the media, which I will be elaborating in this essay.

“A lie told once remains a lie but a lie told a thousand times becomes the truth” – Joseph Goebbels, German Reich Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda. This is the exact words of Nazis most famous propagandist in using media as a mass weapon of propaganda and mind control. Could you imagine Germany in 1930s, without Television channel, without the Internet, without every mobile device in your palm, what channel of information will you get? Of course, newspapers, flies, images, celebrities were used as tools for propaganda purposes, designed to provoke a reaction, and ultimately, a form of control over their citizen. Nowadays, with all the advanced of technologies, information can reach everyone in every corner of the Earth, the message is delivered in the subtlest ways, without people’s conscious, has shaped everyone’s decision, or at least shape their behavior toward the decision that the orchestrator want the audience to perceive. With the booming of internet, information sharing seamlessly, we must ask ourselves, the role of media in conveying, shaping the society that we are living in. Let look at few examples of U.S propaganda machine, and later, the particular case of fish sauce in Viet Nam back in October 2016.

There are two types of propaganda: sociological propaganda; the spreading of an ideology through the mass media, and political propaganda; efforts that are sponsored by governments and political groups that alter a persons’ interests. All propaganda has a direction, and the overall quality determines whether it will have a positive or negative effect over the masses. Our entire nation is a vast propaganda operational system that is greatly linked to education, consumerism and politics. A great deal of what makes up propaganda and how it is placed among the masses lies in understanding the overall emotional and physical states of these groups of people and in finding a way to draw a persons’ attention to capture their hearts, breaking down