Propaganda A Tale Well Told
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Your first clue may simply be a lie of omission.
You know what happened, but the side-lined print and network media failed to mention it. You saw pictures of hundreds of thousands of people gathered on the capital mall, but only found coverage of celebrities calling the protesters a collection of abject racists.
Or, perhaps you saw a video of speeches in which presidential appointee, Green Jobs Czar, Van Jones, described himself as a radical Marxist, dedicated to using scare tactics from the environmental movement to implement his ideal of social justice. Or, you saw him call George Bush a "crackhead" and Republicans an anatomical obscenity. Perhaps you heard he had signed a 9/11 Truth-er petition demanding an investigation into allegations that Pres. Bush had planned and executed the Twin Towers attack to create a deliberate pretext to war.
In contrast, following Jones' resignation, all you saw in the very surprised side-lined press was his statement that he was the victim of a vicious smear campaign with Howard Dean bemoaning the substantial "loss for the country."
Perhaps you noticed it took the Senate to cut off funds for ACORN before network news noticed the scandal that had been raging for more than a week. When they did, the coverage was sympathetic, emphasized the claims of a smear campaign, and failed to mention the organization's left wing political associations, that it was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars by the Obama election campaign, and that it is still under investigation for voter registration fraud.
Are these omissions just oversights, a failure of the media to live up to the Jeffersonian ideal of keeping the electorate informed and the government honest? Or, is this first clue just the tip of the iceberg, evidence of a larger systematic problem?
Since the earliest development of writing from pictographs, people have used visual communication to influence and motivate others. Pharaohs and kings were depicted as posing triumphant in battle with the conquered at their feet in the chains of slavery. Victors have always written history, but much of it was written as coverage of current events, with a more immediate purpose, that of confirming and continuing the battles to extend the victory to the home front.
Today we can rightly call such communication, "propaganda," which is variously described as deliberate, systematic efforts to manipulate community perceptions and direct behavior. The nuance was not always negative, and, depending on the purpose of the communication, was once considered to be a neutral activity, roughly equivalent to "advertising." Propaganda and advertising can both be seen to be positive or negative, depending on the perspective of the viewer and the eventual outcome. Even in several modern languages, the term is neutral or even positive, while in other cultures, including English, the term has acquired a strong negative connotation.
The modern term originated in the 18th century from the Latin feminine gerund of propagare, "to propagate," or by extension, "things that must be disseminated." It was famously in the title, Congregatio de Propaganda Fide, "Congregation for Propagating the Faith." This committee of cardinals was first appointed in 1622 by Pope Gregory XV. This is also the root word for the gardening technique of disseminating plants by planting cuttings. Propaganda mainly applied to religious issues until WWI, when it was extended to politics and international war time efforts.
The refitting of the term during the 20th century to a thoroughly negative meaning in western countries, arose from the fact that the USSR and NAZI governments admitted explicitly to using propaganda in all forms of public expression. Eventually, negative feelings toward the ideologies of Marx, Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler associated to the word "propaganda" itself. As a result, it is today taken to mean the intentional dissemination of often false or selective claims to support or justify political ideologies.
Thus, propaganda today means communication intended to influence an entire community's attitude. Rather than impartially extending information, propaganda presents information and moving images primarily to influence. It often presents facts selectively, thus lying by omission, or uses loaded messages to produce an emotional rather than rational reaction to what is presented.
A second clue to consider is that propaganda tends to appeal to emotions instead of intellect. It knows where the common "hot buttons" are located. The many techniques of propaganda, developed with scientific ingenuity, are shared with advertising and public relations. All of these study how to push emotional buttons.
In the early 20th century, propaganda mainly took the form of party slogans, which appealed to common goals and identities. Today, emotion wrenching techniques also appear in public information campaigns by governments, which encourage wearing seat belts, not smoking, not littering, and proper nutrition. Again, the emphasis in propaganda is more on political issues.
Although use of psychological techniques is legal in advertising, federal law prohibits "covert propaganda." The usual application is outlawing advertising that appears to be a news format, when it is actually selling something. The late night "infomercial" just skirts this law. The assumption is that journalism still has standards and ideals, making news objective, giving the reader an accurate background and analysis of the subject. The viewer could not tell Walter Cronkite's political views from his reporting. Can the same be said of modern journalists, where the bias jumps out from the omissions and emotional appeals?
Advertisements that seem to be documentary reporting attempt to take on the appearance of objective information, which is misleading. Federal law allows the infomercials to get around this by requiring that a fictional news item clearly state that it is in fact a paid advertisement. Perhaps the side-lined media should be required to make a similar disqualification.
What most sets propaganda apart from simple advertising is that the propagandist works to modify the community'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. Thus, we are led to the conclusion that many journalists are either incompetent dupes or dishonest propagandists.
Since I doubt that incompetents could have their long careers, I suggest you contact their news organizations let them know how you feel about their dishonesty:
CBS News
524 W. 57 St., New York, NY 10019
Phone: 212-975-4321
Fax: 212-975-1893
CBS Evening News: evening@cbsnews.com
The Early Show: earlyshow@cbs.com
60 Minutes II: 60m@cbsnews.com
48 Hours: 48hours@cbsnews.com
Face The Nation: ftn@cbsnews.com
MSNBC/NBC
30 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, NY 10112
Phone: (212) 664-4444
Fax: (212) 664-4426
Dateline NBC: dateline@nbcuni.com
Hardball with Chris Matthews: hardball@msnbc.com
MSNBC Reports with Joe Scarborough: joe@msnbc.com
NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams: nightly@nbc.com
NBC News Today: today@nbc.com
You might also want to contact their advertisers and let them know that we will not purchase their products until they stop funding people who are so obviously lacking in integrity.
It is time we all wake up.
Jeremiah
Article Comments
Bob Farrell-10/01/2009 at 7:23 AM
You missed out that paragon of news honesty and upholder of the Jeffersonian ideal of "informing the nation": Fox News. What's their address?
Bill P.-09/30/2009 at 8:01 PM
Everyday the propaganda on TV, radio, newspapers and our schools gets worse. I fear for my country.