Transcript Propaganda, Persuasion and Democracy

Propaganda, Persuasion and Democracy
CMNS 130-04
Lecture 4
Spring 2007
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Propaganda: Objectives
• How is it defined?
– History of the Term
– Key Distinctions from education and from persuasion
• Identify TWO Propaganda Techniques
• Chomsky & Herman’s Propaganda Model
• Come away from Control Room with examples of propaganda at
work
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Critical Theories of the Press
• From critical political economy
– Marx: in every epoch, the ruling ideas are the ideas of the ruling
class
– Media are central to the operation of capitalism
• they sell goods and services
• They carry economic news
• They are important for coordinating supply and demand
• So essential to economic system, they are controlled by the
bourgeoisie, or ruling elites
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Neo-Marxian views
– Argue growth of capitalists/ concentration of ownership
forecloses diversity
– AJ Liebling: Freedom of the Press belongs to those who own
one.
– That is, the structure of ownership and control
• if very concentrated in the hands of a few,
• runs the risk that the gatekeepers may freeze out certain ideas in
the desire to maximize profits ( see custom courseware, p. 119)
– The media become tools to maintain the dominant ideology of
capitalist power
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A Marxist Model of the Press
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Media should serve and be controlled by workers
Media should serve society by education, and mobilization
Must respond to the people
People have a right, with the worker’s party, to decide when to use
censorship before or after the fact
• Media should provide a complete picture of society, in accordance
with Marxist principles,
• Support progressive movements at home and abroad
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The Critical View of Ideology
– Ideologies are not only particular ways of seeing or
systems of representation ( CC: 121)
» They exclude, limit
» They set the boundaries on what we are able to
understand and what we accept as possible
– They are always contested between elites and masses
and elites
» But a common strategy is to present dominant values
as ‘normal’
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Critical View Cont’d
– Ideologies, then, are a particular operation
of the power of propaganda
– Albert Camus:
» Words are more powerful than munitions.
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Stephen Brooks
– Reminds us that the media are agents of socialization
– Set the contours of modern political discourse
– Agents of social learning
• The process of acquiring knowledge, values, and beliefs about the
world and ourselves
• Contribute to what Walter Lippmann called ‘the pictures in our
heads’ ( CC: 183)
• Especially powerful agents of ideology on issues where personal
experience is unavailable
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Propaganda
• Definition:
– The deliberate attempt to persuade people to think and behave
in a desired way consistent with benefiting those doing the
persuasion
• Includes advertising, public relations, and other forms
• Includes censorship
– More formally: an organized program of publicity to propagate a
doctrine or practice
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History of Term
– Roots of the term lie with the Catholic Church’s attempts to
overthrow the Reformation
– In botany: process for sowing, germinating and cultivating ideas (
propagation)
– In biology: dividing of cells: germs.
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Ideological Context of Term
• Connotation is negative
– Implies suppression of judgment
– A critical view of mass capacity
• Also historically has implied war
– Propaganda in service of a just war is ‘good’: what the enemy does is
bad
• Such moral relativism obscures its operation in service of ideology
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Myths about Propaganda
• Not something made for certain purposes
– Not untruth
• A sociological phenomenon
– Instead, half truth, limited truth,truth out of context
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Key Distinctions
• How does it differ from education?
– Education, in the humanist tradition tells people how to think
– Propaganda tells people what to think:
• in authoritarian regimes, the education is used for social and
political engineering.
• What distinguishes propaganda from other forms of persuasion ?
– Key is intent: propaganda is designed to serve the self interests
of the communicator
– Most often associated with war ( but incorrectly)
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Central Issues of Propaganda
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How freely does information flow?
Who controls it?
Why? To what end?
Are we being told everything?
Is news propaganda?
If all news is propaganda are journalists and audiences merely
puppets?
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Common Elements of War Propaganda
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The Big Lie
– War atrocity stories ( the Operation Desert Storm, 1991, Kuwaiti babies)
– WWI the human soap factory ( 1919)
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Demonizing the Other
– Deck of 52 most wanted of Saddam Hussein’s colleagues
– Axis of Evil: Iraq, Syria, N. Korea
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Issuance of Disinformation
– Private Jessica Lynch raid
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Tight communication control
– Embedding journalists, news pools, joint bureau
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Coercion, pre and post censorship or other uses of totalitarian power
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Precedents
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First World War
WWII
Gulf War 1991
Invasion of Afghanistan(2001)
War on Iraq ( 2002)
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Traditional Theories of Persuasion
Appeals based on ethos ( character and credibility)
Pathos ( emotion or feeling)
Logos ( argument)
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The Psychosocial Dimension:
Totalitarian Propaganda plays on fear of other, will to
security, uncertainty, tendency to conformity
- especially with dehumanization, advocacy of hatred,
disrespect to human life
Democratic Propaganda plays on desire for well being,
happiness. Sense of belongingness
- the ‘good life’, noble cause, patriotism
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Propaganda Methods
Technique
• Black art: plant an authority
endorsing a view
• Name calling and
demonization of the other
• Glittering Generality
Illustration
• Seek trusted third parties to
support your point of view
• Use epithets consistent with
the times ‘blackguard’
• Words with a virtuous
connotation: eg. Democracy,
Freedom
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After 9-11 Operation Infinite Justice,
Enduring Freedom
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Propaganda Methods II
• Transference: guilt/halo by
association
• EG. Portrayal with the flag,
what will resonate well. Or
photomontage/fakery
• Testimonials
• Having a respected person
support the view ( appeal to
other authority)
• Plain Folks/Populism
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• Aw shucks, this is what we all
want. Ideas are ‘of the people’
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Propaganda Methods III
• Card Stacking: selective use of
information
• Lie by omission: present
preponderance of confirming
information
• Or commission
• Bandwagon effect
• Create impression everyone
doing it: spiral of silence gets
to work … mass rallies
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Other techniques
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Quoting out of context
Bold assertion
Twisting or Distortion
Logical Fallacies
- Leaping to causal judgment
- Hasty generalization
- False analogy
Manipulation of Language
- Delete the agent of a sentence – obscures responsibility.
Instead of US declared war, War was declared.
- Delete experiencer—imputes a harder fact. Instead of
journalists estimated 10,000 at the demonstration, say 10,000 hit
the streets.
- Control Naming: Orwell: Ministry of Truth. Operation Desert
Storm.
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Constructing News Images
• “Seeing is believing”; “The camera never lies”—are clichés which
draw attention to popular beliefs and apparent faith in observation
and visual representation.
• However, camera positioning and angle, picture framing and
lighting, image selection, photographic retouching, digital image
manipulation, editorial cropping and final juxtaposition can all
radically change or even invert the sense of depicted scenes—’the
camera can lie”.
• ‘Time for Peace: Time to Go’! (overhead)
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Signifier (shot)
Definition
Signified
(meaning)
•Close-up
•Face only
•Media shot
•Most of body •Personal
relationship
•Context, scope,
•Setting and
public distance
characters
•Long shot
•Full shot
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•Full body of
person
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•Intimacy
•Social
relationship
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Signifier (film/video)
•Pan down
Definition
•Pan Up
•Camera looks
down
•Camera looks up
•Zoom in
•Camera moves in
•Fade in
•Image appears on
blank screen
•Image screen
goes blank
•Switch from one
image to another
•Image wiped off
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•Fade Out
•Cut
•Wipe
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Signified (meaning)
•Power, Authority
•Smallness,
weakness
•Observation, focus
•Beginning
•Ending
•Simultaneity,
exitement
•Imposed
conclusion.
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QUOTE OF THE DAY
• “We are all propagandists to varying degrees, just as we
are victims of propaganda”.
• “there is no real point in making moral judgements
concerning whether propaganda is a ‘good’ or a ‘bad’
thing: it merely is. Rather, redirect moral judgement
..more to the intentions and goals of those employing
propaganda”
• We need more propaganda, not less ( Taylor: 320)
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Criteria for discerning democratic from
despotic propaganda
• Where propaganda is based on
democratic principles
– Persuasion, rather than coercion
– Commitment to as much truth as possible
without jeapardizing lives
– Respect for individual rights and freedoms
– Tolerant of minorities
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Sources
• Stuart Allen, Custom Courseware, pp. 270-273
• Philip M. Taylor. 2003. Munitions of the Mind: a History of
Propaganda from the ancient world to present day. Manchester:
Manchester University Press.
• Randal Marlin. 2002. Propaganda & the Ethics of Persuasion.
Toronto: Broadview Press.
• Jeffery Klaehn. 2001. ‘A Critical Review and Assessment of Herman
and Chomsky’s ‘Propaganda Model’ in European Journal of
Communication 17(2), 147-182.
• Augie Fleras. 2003. Media as Democratic Propaganda in Mass
Media in Canada. Toronto. Nelson. 53-57.
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