7 ms·

What Is Propaganda? (1944)

53 points by jruohonen 3y ago

golemotron 3y ago
> While it is a serious mistake, as has been said, to overvalue propaganda, it is an equally serious mistake to assume, as some people do, that everything in the newspapers and on the radio, in the movies and magazines, is “propaganda’’—propaganda that is self-seeking, deceitful, or otherwise improperly motivated. This is absurd. ... The journalist of today has a responsibility to report facts as accurately, objectively, and disinterestedly as is humanly possible. The newspaperman who respects himself and his work—the average newspaperman—-accepts this responsibility. The honest, self-disciplined, well-trained reporter seeks to be a propagandist for nothing but the truth. How the mighty have fallen.
- midasuni 3y ago
  You seem to have made a mistake, as some people do, to assume that everything in the newspapers and on the radio, in the movies and magazines, is “propaganda
  - krapp 3y ago
    It is. Every news media story in every form and every format is presenting a narrative, possibly crafted by a government, possibly crafted by corporations, or even simply being the result of the biases and politics of the journalist themselves. If that weren't the case, the media would simply recite the cold facts. They don't because their goal is influence, not information. Ergo, propaganda. OK, maybe not sports and weather. Everything else, though.
    - bananabiscuit 3y ago
      It’s not even the just the individual stories. The act of selecting which stories to promote and which ones to publish without fanfare and which to not publish at all is also propaganda.
      - krapp 3y ago
        There doesn't even need to be a nefarious conspiracy involved, just the rational intersection of common interests and capitalist incentives are enough.
      - ejb999 3y ago
        had this debate with a family member, when I was pointing out the 'bias' in a particular newspaper - his contention that if the story was true, it couldn't be considered biased - he couldn't quite grasp that choosing (or not choosing) which stories to publish, and how often to report on something is defacto bias.
        bigger_inside 3y ago
        also, you can propagandize quite well with something that contains no lies. The current discourse conflates "propaganda" with "lie", but of course that's .. well, part of propaganda. The best ways to rile up a mass is to tell them verifiable things, but in selective ways, leaving out context, leaving out history, leaving out ambiguities; it would be hard to claim the information is "wrong" on its face, but it's still wrong simply because of what it leaves out.
    - golemotron 3y ago
      Propaganda is just advocacy that we don't like. Same as "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter."
- lyu07282 3y ago
  It's not exactly a secret that in a post-Trump world, journalists have decreed that they also have a responsibility to protect democracy. If only the Iraq invasion caused within them a similar introspective episode, but for some reason it didn't? Perhaps it would've been different if there were more dead nyt journalists among the 1+ million victims.
  - swayvil 3y ago
    Trump is just the 2-minutes-hate target of the day. A multipurpose distraction and negative waifu.
    - bigger_inside 3y ago
      "negative waifu" is genius.
  - imjonse 3y ago
    I think the reason Trump caused so much talk about fake news and propaganda is that until him these were only generated and controlled by very powerful organizations (autocratic governments or in free societies the governement, big companies and their media). That an upstart could also start convincingly spreading falsehoods and fear, and move masses was alarming. No longer were the NYT&co or Fox the sole arbiters of how public discourse is framed. Fake news was democratized. We all lose, whether we are being lied to subtly by the NYT and big companies or blatantly by populist upstarts.
throw0101b 3y ago
There is now another 'form' of propaganda that seems to be being used: > We characterize the contemporary Russian model for propaganda as “the firehose of falsehood” because of two of its distinctive features: high numbers of channels and messages and a shameless willingness to disseminate partial truths or outright fictions. In the words of one observer, “[N]ew Russian propaganda entertains, confuses and overwhelms the audience.”[2] > Contemporary Russian propaganda has at least two other distinctive features. It is also rapid, continuous, and repetitive, and it lacks commitment to consistency. > Interestingly, several of these features run directly counter to the conventional wisdom on effective influence and communication from government or defense sources, which traditionally emphasize the importance of truth, credibility, and the avoidance of contradiction.[3] Despite ignoring these traditional principles, Russia seems to have enjoyed some success under its contemporary propaganda model, either through more direct persuasion and influence or by engaging in obfuscation, confusion, and the disruption or diminution of truthful reporting and messaging. * https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PE198.html https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PE198.html This has been picked up by some other folks: * https://www.vice.com/en/article/epzxqj/steve-bannon-jan-6-trial-arguments https://www.vice.com/en/article/epzxqj/steve-bannon-jan-6-tr... * https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/1/16/20991816/impeachment-trial-trump-bannon-misinformation https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/1/16/20991816/i... For a history of propaganda, the book Munitions of the Mind by Philip M. Taylor may be of some interest (the third edition was published in 2003, so covers up to 9/11): * https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9780719067679/ https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9780719067679/
- Eddy_Viscosity2 3y ago
  > which traditionally emphasize the importance of truth, credibility, and the avoidance of contradiction I think the use of inconsistency and outright contradiction 'works' not so much in pushing a specific message but by making all messages seem equally suspect to people who don't have time to check every claim. The more contradictory messages out there, the more people just disbelieve everything and disconnect -- which may be the goal.
  - zikzak 3y ago
verisimi 3y ago
Any discussion of propaganda that has no mention of Bernays or 'Public Relations', that thinks its something the Russians do, but not the 'good guy' Western countries, is remiss. Edward Bernays opening wiki paragraph: > Edward Louis Bernays (/bɜːrˈneɪz/ bur-NAYZ, German: [bɛʁˈnaɪs]; November 22, 1891 − March 9, 1995) was an American theorist, considered a pioneer in the field of public relations and propaganda, and referred to in his obituary as "the father of public relations".[3] His best-known campaigns include a 1929 effort to promote female smoking by branding cigarettes as feminist "Torches of Freedom", and his work for the United Fruit Company in the 1950s, connected with the CIA-orchestrated overthrow of the democratically elected Guatemalan government in 1954. He worked for dozens of major American corporations, including Procter & Gamble and General Electric, and for government agencies, politicians, and nonprofit organizations.
- crabmusket 3y ago
  This reminds me of Ellul's Propaganda, which does mention Bernays. > "Mass production requires mass consumption, but there cannot be mass consumption without widespread identical views as to what the necessities of life are."
- klft 3y ago
  The Century of the Self is a BBC documentation about "... how those in power have used Freud's theories to try and control the dangerous crowd in an age of mass democracy." (1) (1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Century_of_the_Self https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Century_of_the_Self
  - throwaway743 3y ago
    That's a must watch. Adam Curtis' work is brilliant.
globalnode 3y ago
everything you see (and don't see) is propaganda
- ddq 3y ago
  And you are not immune to propaganda.
  - zikzak 3y ago
    I believe people who are working professionals and have busy lives are particularly susceptible since they often graze news and prefer things that confirm and entrench their worldview because it's ego affirming. They have the critical thinking skills but lack the desire to use them in some circumstances. There are other people who lack education who also lack critical thinking motivation and all variations of this matrix. I'm just saying it's a huge mistake to assume intelligent, educated people are somehow immune from propaganda.
  - winrid 3y ago
    This. If you disagree I suggest reading Ordinary Men. Only book that ever gave me nightmares.
- ordu 3y ago
  If you came to this conclusion, then you definitely did something wrong. Such a definition is useless in practice. You need a definition that allows you to cathegorize information and sources of information, to deal with them in different ways. What I can agree is any information shift your beliefs. I can agree that any update of beliefs is beneficial for some entity. I can probably agree that any source has an agenda and tries to shift your beliefs for someone's benefit. But if we conclude from that that everything is propaganda it would be a loser's thing to do. Facts are meant to shift your beliefs. Beliefs are meant to be shifted by facts. The trouble when your beliefs are manipulated so they lose coherence with a reality. While they reflect reality without major mistakes, they are good. So I'd say that propagandness of a source is a measure of my cognitive efforts needed to not let my beliefs to slip from a good enough picture of a reality while consuming information from that source. It is not rigorous enough definition, but it is a good starting point.
roenxi 3y ago
The "Limitations of Propaganda" section is, I think, a bit weak. I want to zero in on this particular point: > To give an illustration, the American attitude toward Germany was not bitterly hostile in the early months of World War I. But when the Lusitania was torpedoed in May 1915, with loss of 128 American lives, anger against the Central Powers mush roomed overnight. This is claimed to be an example of events overruling propaganda. That isn't the right way to think when critically evaluating propaganda: 1) The idea that these 128 lives are different from any other 128 lives in, say, Central Africa is precisely a result of propaganda. Arguably the beneficial kind. 2) The US is perfectly capable of absorbing ~100 odd deaths and then just moving on. The idea that they aren't is propaganda. 3) The US population has demonstrated relatively little ability to control the military's adventurism. It may have been different pre-WWI, but we should at least suspect someone important thought that they would profit from the US being involved and was trying to fire people up. The US, as in all democracies, have some wickedly effective propagandists who work ceaselessly to shape public opinion. We know for a fact that the media can't cover most events. Historians don't know about most events. Choosing the events that will be admissible in the public conversation is one of the key tools of propaganda.
- AnonCoward42 3y ago
  > The idea that these 128 lives are different from any other 128 lives in, say, Central Africa is precisely a result of propaganda. Arguably the beneficial kind. That is the kind of relativism that doesn't hold water. To make it very simple: I value my life higher than yours or mostly anyone else's life. Or with different words I care for my life more than I care for yours. No offence! You can expand that to my family vs some other family, then going on to "tribe" and to country/race, whatever. The further away you get the less I care and doing otherwise involves propaganda. That is also obvious since you need to focus your care. It is en vogue to pretend otherwise and to care for some people you know the least which involves the inversion of care. You care for people you don't know more than you care for people close(r) to you. In a certain environment this is actually easier, but it involves this kind of propaganda, since people are acting against their own good. > We know for a fact that the media can't cover most events. Historians don't know about most events. Choosing the events that will be admissible in the public conversation is one of the key tools of propaganda. This is what I mean with "care more/less". You can't cover all events and therefore you're concentrating on matters closer to you, but with media this comes with a twist of course since they are the carrier of propaganda (intentional or not and true for any).
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
lyu07282 3y ago
The problem is that propaganda today just means "propaganda of the enemy". Of course we can't admit that, only Russia/et al does propaganda. Fine, but that also then means that we can never meaningfully educate people to recognize propaganda. It ends up being just "trust us, not them" and it doesn't work.
- imjonse 3y ago
  Just like fake news is always 'the news the others read'.
- d0mine 3y ago
  It does work. People are tribal. Keep them in the dark and it is easier to rule them. «Сила правительства держится на невежестве народа, и оно знает это и потому всегда будет бороться против просвещения.» Лев Толстой (1896)
  - thriftwy 3y ago
    The problem with Tolstoi is that he seemed to take adversarial propaganda at the face value. The truth is, not only your government is doing the fishing.
    - Ingaz 3y ago
      Excuse me I don't understand where is "the problem with Tolstoi" in this sentence. He wrote about every government and every people on the Earth - "every government tries to keep people uneducated" It's not about tzarism in Russia and not about XIX century
- keiferski 3y ago
  It is actually useful, though, when one group labels another as propaganda: it's a big flashing sign that says, "we can't debunk them via open dialogue, so we will just prevent you from listening to them." If the supposed propaganda were absurd and false on its face, there would be no need to engage with it at all.
motohagiography 3y ago
The filter I use for determining propaganda is, "does this seem like an original thought or the product of original thinking?" In most cases, propagandists communicate using banal, recieved, thought terminating cliches, or rote criticisms. They aren't master manipulators, but the ideas spread because they are easy, satisfying, and empowering to some base impulses. They're like pop songs that get stuck in your head. In the case of the article, Assata Shakur's "nobody will give you the education you need to overthrow them" applies, where it's just enough info about propaganda techniques to manage them, but not enough to fight or make them yourself.
- giraffe_lady 3y ago
  This is also foolish though. Plenty of concepts are not remotely original but are still very useful if you haven't come across them before. No one is sitting down and recreating all of knowledge from first principles, even very smart people hear things for the first time. And for that matter, it's not like propagandists are dumb, any more than pop musicians are bad musicians. It's absolutely possible for one for formulate an original idea in the service of propaganda.
  - motohagiography 3y ago
    Propaganda is basically just viral shitty reasoning, where a small stack of memes replaces consideration with cliches. It's the lie delivered between two truths. The filter is based on whether a comment or belief is thoughtful or not. Sure, there are simple things that are mostly true, but thoughtless or rote repetition of them doesn't make them meaningful. Original ideas can be in service to propaganda, but preferring them imposes a cost that is higher than what most propaganda needs for scale. Your argument is misleading and neutralizing noise and not a counterpoint. Innoculating people to propaganda with humour and dead ideas is probably the most practical way to mitigate its more pernicious effects. Of course great musicians can be employed to make pop, but when the message is the same, it's like using IMAX to produce porn. See any music awards show.
swayvil 3y ago
Re : Limitations. You need a big overpowering emotion first. Therefore... Step 1 is fear. Scare everybody. Step 2 is the actual propaganda. A story about what to fear, who to fear, why you are feeling this fear, etc. Maybe you've seen this pattern before.
Fricken 3y ago
I regard propaganda as information that it disseminated with intent to radicalize, that is, to provoke an emotional reaction that circumvents reasoned or measured thought. "Tank man" is a great example. In nearly 35 years it hasn't lost it's lustre, and it regularly gets trotted out to drum up sentiment against China.

53 points by jruohonen 3y ago

> While it is a serious mistake, as has been said, to overvalue propaganda, it is an equally serious mistake to assume, as some people do, that everything in the newspapers and on the radio, in the movies and magazines, is “propaganda’’—propaganda that is self-seeking, deceitful, or otherwise improperly motivated. This is absurd. ... The journalist of today has a responsibility to report facts as accurately, objectively, and disinterestedly as is humanly possible. The newspaperman who respects himself and his work—the average newspaperman—-accepts this responsibility. The honest, self-disciplined, well-trained reporter seeks to be a propagandist for nothing but the truth. How the mighty have fallen.

midasuni 3y ago
You seem to have made a mistake, as some people do, to assume that everything in the newspapers and on the radio, in the movies and magazines, is “propaganda
- krapp 3y ago
  It is. Every news media story in every form and every format is presenting a narrative, possibly crafted by a government, possibly crafted by corporations, or even simply being the result of the biases and politics of the journalist themselves. If that weren't the case, the media would simply recite the cold facts. They don't because their goal is influence, not information. Ergo, propaganda. OK, maybe not sports and weather. Everything else, though.
  - bananabiscuit 3y ago
    It’s not even the just the individual stories. The act of selecting which stories to promote and which ones to publish without fanfare and which to not publish at all is also propaganda.
    - krapp 3y ago
      There doesn't even need to be a nefarious conspiracy involved, just the rational intersection of common interests and capitalist incentives are enough.
    - ejb999 3y ago
      had this debate with a family member, when I was pointing out the 'bias' in a particular newspaper - his contention that if the story was true, it couldn't be considered biased - he couldn't quite grasp that choosing (or not choosing) which stories to publish, and how often to report on something is defacto bias.
      - bigger_inside 3y ago
        also, you can propagandize quite well with something that contains no lies. The current discourse conflates "propaganda" with "lie", but of course that's .. well, part of propaganda. The best ways to rile up a mass is to tell them verifiable things, but in selective ways, leaving out context, leaving out history, leaving out ambiguities; it would be hard to claim the information is "wrong" on its face, but it's still wrong simply because of what it leaves out.
  - golemotron 3y ago
    Propaganda is just advocacy that we don't like. Same as "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter."
lyu07282 3y ago
It's not exactly a secret that in a post-Trump world, journalists have decreed that they also have a responsibility to protect democracy. If only the Iraq invasion caused within them a similar introspective episode, but for some reason it didn't? Perhaps it would've been different if there were more dead nyt journalists among the 1+ million victims.
- swayvil 3y ago
  Trump is just the 2-minutes-hate target of the day. A multipurpose distraction and negative waifu.
  - bigger_inside 3y ago
    "negative waifu" is genius.
- imjonse 3y ago
  I think the reason Trump caused so much talk about fake news and propaganda is that until him these were only generated and controlled by very powerful organizations (autocratic governments or in free societies the governement, big companies and their media). That an upstart could also start convincingly spreading falsehoods and fear, and move masses was alarming. No longer were the NYT&co or Fox the sole arbiters of how public discourse is framed. Fake news was democratized. We all lose, whether we are being lied to subtly by the NYT and big companies or blatantly by populist upstarts.

throw0101b 3y ago

There is now another 'form' of propaganda that seems to be being used: > We characterize the contemporary Russian model for propaganda as “the firehose of falsehood” because of two of its distinctive features: high numbers of channels and messages and a shameless willingness to disseminate partial truths or outright fictions. In the words of one observer, “[N]ew Russian propaganda entertains, confuses and overwhelms the audience.”[2] > Contemporary Russian propaganda has at least two other distinctive features. It is also rapid, continuous, and repetitive, and it lacks commitment to consistency. > Interestingly, several of these features run directly counter to the conventional wisdom on effective influence and communication from government or defense sources, which traditionally emphasize the importance of truth, credibility, and the avoidance of contradiction.[3] Despite ignoring these traditional principles, Russia seems to have enjoyed some success under its contemporary propaganda model, either through more direct persuasion and influence or by engaging in obfuscation, confusion, and the disruption or diminution of truthful reporting and messaging. * https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PE198.html https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PE198.html This has been picked up by some other folks: * https://www.vice.com/en/article/epzxqj/steve-bannon-jan-6-trial-arguments https://www.vice.com/en/article/epzxqj/steve-bannon-jan-6-tr... * https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/1/16/20991816/impeachment-trial-trump-bannon-misinformation https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/1/16/20991816/i... For a history of propaganda, the book Munitions of the Mind by Philip M. Taylor may be of some interest (the third edition was published in 2003, so covers up to 9/11): * https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9780719067679/ https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9780719067679/

Eddy_Viscosity2 3y ago
> which traditionally emphasize the importance of truth, credibility, and the avoidance of contradiction I think the use of inconsistency and outright contradiction 'works' not so much in pushing a specific message but by making all messages seem equally suspect to people who don't have time to check every claim. The more contradictory messages out there, the more people just disbelieve everything and disconnect -- which may be the goal.
- zikzak 3y ago

verisimi 3y ago

Any discussion of propaganda that has no mention of Bernays or 'Public Relations', that thinks its something the Russians do, but not the 'good guy' Western countries, is remiss. Edward Bernays opening wiki paragraph: > Edward Louis Bernays (/bɜːrˈneɪz/ bur-NAYZ, German: [bɛʁˈnaɪs]; November 22, 1891 − March 9, 1995) was an American theorist, considered a pioneer in the field of public relations and propaganda, and referred to in his obituary as "the father of public relations".[3] His best-known campaigns include a 1929 effort to promote female smoking by branding cigarettes as feminist "Torches of Freedom", and his work for the United Fruit Company in the 1950s, connected with the CIA-orchestrated overthrow of the democratically elected Guatemalan government in 1954. He worked for dozens of major American corporations, including Procter & Gamble and General Electric, and for government agencies, politicians, and nonprofit organizations.

crabmusket 3y ago
This reminds me of Ellul's Propaganda, which does mention Bernays. > "Mass production requires mass consumption, but there cannot be mass consumption without widespread identical views as to what the necessities of life are."
klft 3y ago
The Century of the Self is a BBC documentation about "... how those in power have used Freud's theories to try and control the dangerous crowd in an age of mass democracy." (1) (1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Century_of_the_Self https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Century_of_the_Self
- throwaway743 3y ago
  That's a must watch. Adam Curtis' work is brilliant.

globalnode 3y ago

everything you see (and don't see) is propaganda

ddq 3y ago
And you are not immune to propaganda.
- zikzak 3y ago
  I believe people who are working professionals and have busy lives are particularly susceptible since they often graze news and prefer things that confirm and entrench their worldview because it's ego affirming. They have the critical thinking skills but lack the desire to use them in some circumstances. There are other people who lack education who also lack critical thinking motivation and all variations of this matrix. I'm just saying it's a huge mistake to assume intelligent, educated people are somehow immune from propaganda.
- winrid 3y ago
  This. If you disagree I suggest reading Ordinary Men. Only book that ever gave me nightmares.
ordu 3y ago
If you came to this conclusion, then you definitely did something wrong. Such a definition is useless in practice. You need a definition that allows you to cathegorize information and sources of information, to deal with them in different ways. What I can agree is any information shift your beliefs. I can agree that any update of beliefs is beneficial for some entity. I can probably agree that any source has an agenda and tries to shift your beliefs for someone's benefit. But if we conclude from that that everything is propaganda it would be a loser's thing to do. Facts are meant to shift your beliefs. Beliefs are meant to be shifted by facts. The trouble when your beliefs are manipulated so they lose coherence with a reality. While they reflect reality without major mistakes, they are good. So I'd say that propagandness of a source is a measure of my cognitive efforts needed to not let my beliefs to slip from a good enough picture of a reality while consuming information from that source. It is not rigorous enough definition, but it is a good starting point.

roenxi 3y ago

The "Limitations of Propaganda" section is, I think, a bit weak. I want to zero in on this particular point: > To give an illustration, the American attitude toward Germany was not bitterly hostile in the early months of World War I. But when the Lusitania was torpedoed in May 1915, with loss of 128 American lives, anger against the Central Powers mush roomed overnight. This is claimed to be an example of events overruling propaganda. That isn't the right way to think when critically evaluating propaganda: 1) The idea that these 128 lives are different from any other 128 lives in, say, Central Africa is precisely a result of propaganda. Arguably the beneficial kind. 2) The US is perfectly capable of absorbing ~100 odd deaths and then just moving on. The idea that they aren't is propaganda. 3) The US population has demonstrated relatively little ability to control the military's adventurism. It may have been different pre-WWI, but we should at least suspect someone important thought that they would profit from the US being involved and was trying to fire people up. The US, as in all democracies, have some wickedly effective propagandists who work ceaselessly to shape public opinion. We know for a fact that the media can't cover most events. Historians don't know about most events. Choosing the events that will be admissible in the public conversation is one of the key tools of propaganda.

AnonCoward42 3y ago
> The idea that these 128 lives are different from any other 128 lives in, say, Central Africa is precisely a result of propaganda. Arguably the beneficial kind. That is the kind of relativism that doesn't hold water. To make it very simple: I value my life higher than yours or mostly anyone else's life. Or with different words I care for my life more than I care for yours. No offence! You can expand that to my family vs some other family, then going on to "tribe" and to country/race, whatever. The further away you get the less I care and doing otherwise involves propaganda. That is also obvious since you need to focus your care. It is en vogue to pretend otherwise and to care for some people you know the least which involves the inversion of care. You care for people you don't know more than you care for people close(r) to you. In a certain environment this is actually easier, but it involves this kind of propaganda, since people are acting against their own good. > We know for a fact that the media can't cover most events. Historians don't know about most events. Choosing the events that will be admissible in the public conversation is one of the key tools of propaganda. This is what I mean with "care more/less". You can't cover all events and therefore you're concentrating on matters closer to you, but with media this comes with a twist of course since they are the carrier of propaganda (intentional or not and true for any).

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

lyu07282 3y ago

The problem is that propaganda today just means "propaganda of the enemy". Of course we can't admit that, only Russia/et al does propaganda. Fine, but that also then means that we can never meaningfully educate people to recognize propaganda. It ends up being just "trust us, not them" and it doesn't work.

imjonse 3y ago
Just like fake news is always 'the news the others read'.
d0mine 3y ago
It does work. People are tribal. Keep them in the dark and it is easier to rule them. «Сила правительства держится на невежестве народа, и оно знает это и потому всегда будет бороться против просвещения.» Лев Толстой (1896)
- thriftwy 3y ago
  The problem with Tolstoi is that he seemed to take adversarial propaganda at the face value. The truth is, not only your government is doing the fishing.
  - Ingaz 3y ago
    Excuse me I don't understand where is "the problem with Tolstoi" in this sentence. He wrote about every government and every people on the Earth - "every government tries to keep people uneducated" It's not about tzarism in Russia and not about XIX century
keiferski 3y ago
It is actually useful, though, when one group labels another as propaganda: it's a big flashing sign that says, "we can't debunk them via open dialogue, so we will just prevent you from listening to them." If the supposed propaganda were absurd and false on its face, there would be no need to engage with it at all.

motohagiography 3y ago

The filter I use for determining propaganda is, "does this seem like an original thought or the product of original thinking?" In most cases, propagandists communicate using banal, recieved, thought terminating cliches, or rote criticisms. They aren't master manipulators, but the ideas spread because they are easy, satisfying, and empowering to some base impulses. They're like pop songs that get stuck in your head. In the case of the article, Assata Shakur's "nobody will give you the education you need to overthrow them" applies, where it's just enough info about propaganda techniques to manage them, but not enough to fight or make them yourself.

giraffe_lady 3y ago
This is also foolish though. Plenty of concepts are not remotely original but are still very useful if you haven't come across them before. No one is sitting down and recreating all of knowledge from first principles, even very smart people hear things for the first time. And for that matter, it's not like propagandists are dumb, any more than pop musicians are bad musicians. It's absolutely possible for one for formulate an original idea in the service of propaganda.
- motohagiography 3y ago
  Propaganda is basically just viral shitty reasoning, where a small stack of memes replaces consideration with cliches. It's the lie delivered between two truths. The filter is based on whether a comment or belief is thoughtful or not. Sure, there are simple things that are mostly true, but thoughtless or rote repetition of them doesn't make them meaningful. Original ideas can be in service to propaganda, but preferring them imposes a cost that is higher than what most propaganda needs for scale. Your argument is misleading and neutralizing noise and not a counterpoint. Innoculating people to propaganda with humour and dead ideas is probably the most practical way to mitigate its more pernicious effects. Of course great musicians can be employed to make pop, but when the message is the same, it's like using IMAX to produce porn. See any music awards show.

swayvil 3y ago

Re : Limitations. You need a big overpowering emotion first. Therefore... Step 1 is fear. Scare everybody. Step 2 is the actual propaganda. A story about what to fear, who to fear, why you are feeling this fear, etc. Maybe you've seen this pattern before.

Fricken 3y ago

I regard propaganda as information that it disseminated with intent to radicalize, that is, to provoke an emotional reaction that circumvents reasoned or measured thought. "Tank man" is a great example. In nearly 35 years it hasn't lost it's lustre, and it regularly gets trotted out to drum up sentiment against China.