3 ms·

So what's the inconsistency? The english text of letter to americans is full of religious shortcommings of US (He's basically complaining in oh so many words th

by megous 3y ago

So what's the inconsistency? The english text of letter to americans is full of religious shortcommings of US (He's basically complaining in oh so many words that the US is not governed under religious islamic law)

s1artibartfast 3y ago
There is no problem if things are consistent. Im saying it is a problem if the "presentation" is adapted to have inconsistent or contradictory messages based on the target audience. Surely you would agree that is an indication of propaganda, opposed to a true statement of belief. Once you agree that, then the question is if different Al-Qaeda statements are consistent across different audiences. The US letter answers(Q1) "Why are we fighting and opposing you?" Bin Laden gives about 30 reasons, none of which have to do with the religion of the US. Q2) "what do we want from you?" is a mixed bag of religious and political demands. I primarily addressing your question: >what's propaganda about adapting your presentation to the target audience? Just in general? My answer was it becomes a problem IF you are contradictory.
- megous 3y ago
  No movement or religion is internally consistent in its full set of ideas. Especially religions. You'd have to have a movement that is really single mindedly focused on one thing and very fundamentalist, to be able to limit the inconsistencies, to have some consistent baseline of ideas and goals. Whether something is propaganda or not has more to do with the methods and goals, and scale of the communication effort. Like a sustained effort to influence masses of people to do something or change their thinking via a onesided communication, a communication that does not even acknowledge that some opposing ideas exist and actively suppresses them. If it does acknowledge them, it presents them as carricature in order to reject them. It plays into pre-existing biases and weaponizes them, etc. Yes, inconsistency may or may not indicate propaganda, depending on how big it is, and if there are attempts to hide it, or not acknowledge and discuss it if someone raises the questions. For example, recently I added a comment under this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0163ne8AQO4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0163ne8AQO4 simply stating the fact that this is the old covenant from more than 30 years ago, and there are newer communications that update/contradict it, and linked to the new updated thing https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/hamas-2017-document-full https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/hamas-2017-document-full It was an only comment with actual sourced argument and was deleted almost immediately. So this 50 million USD campaign to spread the "truth" is definitely propaganda. Mass marketed, manipulative, and censuring rational discussion and information that may take away from it's goal of influecing the masses to justify continuing the current war, and avoiding ceasefire/peace. (and the campaign is named "for peace", at that, lol, very Orwellian) One, fairly obscure letter does not propaganda make. It's more like a manifesto, or whatnot. But yes, if al-qaeda had a sustained campaign specially targetted at western audience, to make it look different from what it's like to locals, to achieve some goals that would benefit the group, then sure, I'd call that propaganda.

by megous 3y ago

s1artibartfast 3y ago

There is no problem if things are consistent. Im saying it is a problem if the "presentation" is adapted to have inconsistent or contradictory messages based on the target audience. Surely you would agree that is an indication of propaganda, opposed to a true statement of belief. Once you agree that, then the question is if different Al-Qaeda statements are consistent across different audiences. The US letter answers(Q1) "Why are we fighting and opposing you?" Bin Laden gives about 30 reasons, none of which have to do with the religion of the US. Q2) "what do we want from you?" is a mixed bag of religious and political demands. I primarily addressing your question: >what's propaganda about adapting your presentation to the target audience? Just in general? My answer was it becomes a problem IF you are contradictory.

megous 3y ago
No movement or religion is internally consistent in its full set of ideas. Especially religions. You'd have to have a movement that is really single mindedly focused on one thing and very fundamentalist, to be able to limit the inconsistencies, to have some consistent baseline of ideas and goals. Whether something is propaganda or not has more to do with the methods and goals, and scale of the communication effort. Like a sustained effort to influence masses of people to do something or change their thinking via a onesided communication, a communication that does not even acknowledge that some opposing ideas exist and actively suppresses them. If it does acknowledge them, it presents them as carricature in order to reject them. It plays into pre-existing biases and weaponizes them, etc. Yes, inconsistency may or may not indicate propaganda, depending on how big it is, and if there are attempts to hide it, or not acknowledge and discuss it if someone raises the questions. For example, recently I added a comment under this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0163ne8AQO4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0163ne8AQO4 simply stating the fact that this is the old covenant from more than 30 years ago, and there are newer communications that update/contradict it, and linked to the new updated thing https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/hamas-2017-document-full https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/hamas-2017-document-full It was an only comment with actual sourced argument and was deleted almost immediately. So this 50 million USD campaign to spread the "truth" is definitely propaganda. Mass marketed, manipulative, and censuring rational discussion and information that may take away from it's goal of influecing the masses to justify continuing the current war, and avoiding ceasefire/peace. (and the campaign is named "for peace", at that, lol, very Orwellian) One, fairly obscure letter does not propaganda make. It's more like a manifesto, or whatnot. But yes, if al-qaeda had a sustained campaign specially targetted at western audience, to make it look different from what it's like to locals, to achieve some goals that would benefit the group, then sure, I'd call that propaganda.