This Is Propaganda This Is Propaganda

Propaganda

The Intent

1) Propaganda is the use of arguments to convince someone of something
a) Whether it is to vote for them (campaign slogans), buy their product (advertisements), or convince us that their point of view is right (Public Service Announcements).

2) Propaganda is a way of manipulating people.

3) Regardless of the Propaganda’s intentions—and they can be good—Propaganda is ALWAYS bad:
a) It is designed to do your thinking for you.
b) It is designed to discourage you from digging deeper.

4) Propaganda clouds reality and gets in the way of clear and honest thinking.

5) Blind acceptance of Propaganda is the objective of those perpetuating it.

Ten Commandments of Propaganda

Divide and Conquer
- More small groups are easier to pit against each other.

Tell the people what they want
- Pander to the masses.

The bigger the lie, the more people will believe it
- Make statements grandiose and loud.

ALWAYS appeal to the lowest common denominator
- It’s O.K. to “dumb it down”.

Generalize as much as possible
- Paint in broad strokes.

Use "expert" testimonial
- Have someone known or relatable “pitch” it.

Refer often to the "authority" of your office
- Remind public of knowledge and power.

Stack the cards with "information"
- Use as much supportive evidence as possible.

A confused people are easily led
- More informed means more skeptical.

Get the "plain folks" onto the "bandwagon"
- Appeal to the common man & he will follow.


Propaganda Techniques

• The following is a list of Propaganda Techniques that are commonly used in advertising, politics, etc.
• Techniques can be used in combination, or individually. Here are the most common methods:

Association: uses positive feelings for something and applies them to something else.
- Use of patriotic symbols around July 4 to sell grills.

Testimonial: people endorsing certain idea or belief
- Tiger Woods & Nike

Fancy Words: use of extravagant language
- Sanitary engineer = garbage collector.

Word Magic: emotional words
- Car ads that use words like “sleek”, “powerful”, “aggressive”, etc

Misery: portraying a sympathetic scene
- Showing starving children to encourage people to donate money

Simplicity & Repetition: using basic language and common symbols
- McDonald’s “I’m lovin’ it!”

Plain Folks: use of ordinary people to portray “common man”
- Every Wrangler Jeans commercial EVER made

Bandwagon: encourages immediate support
- “don’t be left out”, “for 2 days only”

Name Calling: attacks someone’s reputation, actions or record
- See most any “negative” campaign commercial

Strawman: phony issue, exaggerates argument
- Pro-military means you support men dying in war

Hasty Generalization: jumping to conclusions
- “women can’t drive”

Oversimplification: too simple to account for a complex reality
- “I don’t do well in school because I’m too stupid.”

Black or White: only two choices; no in-betweens
- “You’re either with us or against us.”

Snow Job: bury people under a mound of meaningless words
- “Nine out of ten dentist would recommend this toothpaste if they were stuck on a desert island w/ a pet chimpanzee, and three blocks of cheese.”

False Opposites: misuse of opposites
- Twisting meaning of data to fit the conclusion you want

Out of Context: ignore unfavorable content and use only a part of information that supports claim
- “One of the worst movies ever, despite the performance of...”

Contradictory Assumptions: two things that both cannot be true
- Cutting taxes, increasing defense spending and not cutting programs

Unproven Assumption: stated as if fact, but cannot support it
- “I will never need to know history. Why should I have to study it?”

Circular Reasoning: assumption based on another assumption
- Need to work to get a car, but need a car to get to work

Irrelevant Issue: a shift to secondary issue that is less important or controversial
- Politicians whose answers to questions have nothing to do w/ the question that was asked (just watch a political debate!).

Direct Order: a command to do something
- “Just Do It.”

Scapegoating: blaming someone or something to make oneself look good
- “The Democratic Congress is to blame”, “The Republican Administration’s policies created this mess.”

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.” - Joseph Goebbels

Sourc e



Mod Edit: trimmed title to eliminate page skew


Fixed title to add spaces.
[edit on 8/27/2009 by SkepticOverlord]

reply to post by LiveForever8


I wish I could give you a trillion flags. But seriously you need to fix your title. Its skewing the main page.

I'm going to copy your post and save it to my hard drive. Thank you for putting this out there.

Well done. Kudos to you.

This makes a great Survival Guide to Political Rhetoric.

S&F.

[EDIT: Added > 1 line to comply with ToS]

[edit on 27-8-2009 by fraterormus]

great post the quite at the very end should have a book dedicated to it

Thanks for helping us all out with this one.

Hmm....when you really look at it, I think there might be some propaganda on ATS.

Spot on, my good man!

The 'off' button on the TV never looked so enticing.

Time to spread the word. BIG TIME. Hopefully knock some sense into those who can't or won't see what's in front of their faces. But not in an agressive way, just, 'try looking at it from this angle'..

Works wonders.

I salute you, S&F

For a more complete list, turn on fox news.

They're masters at it.

i agree, it could have a better title to this thread but awseom topic and great quote to end it with..

This is a really good post. I'm going to save your topic post onto Microsoft word for future reference. It seems pretty useful. I'm sick of propaganda... and the propaganda world we live in.

Here is an idea.
Now that you figured out for us what is propaganda and how it works maybe instead of just bashing it entirely we could start using it in our favor?

TPTB use propaganda to maintain people asleep.
We could start using propaganda to awaken people.

If lots of us ATSers partake on this mission I'm sure we'll do an excellent job.

reply to post by LiveForever8


Very nice.

I especially like the ten commandments ...

Let's see if they apply to ... oh let's say ... Red Baiting.

Red-baiting is the act of accusing someone, or some group, of being communist, socialist or, in a broader sense, of being significantly more leftist at their core than they may appear at the outset. The term is used mainly with the intention of discrediting the individual's or organization's political views as dishonest and/or haphazard. The implication in red-baiting is usually that the target represents an ill-intentioned external force which has no proper place in a given political party, coalition, or union

1 through 10 - Check

Yep, the list checks out.

reply to post by LiveForever8


Funny. ?? Seems you've pulled the whole Opening Post from here.

1) Propaganda is the use of arguments to convince

[PPT] The Art of Propaganda ... A PowerPoint presentation.

Star, and Flag to the OP for probably one of the best concise, and most important threads I've seen in a long time.

Excellent job, and thanks!

reply to post by Annie Mossity


Thanks for finding that

Iv'e been spending the last 40 minutes looking for it so i could add it in.

I saved the powerpoint some time ago because i thought it was really interesting and stumbled across it today, minus the original source.

Hence why i didn't state it was my own words, just merely shared it with you guys and gals.

Anyways thanks again

reply to post by Annie Mossity


well spotted

reply to post by LiveForever8


put it in "ex" tags



[edit on 27-8-2009 by warrenb]

reply to post by LiveForever8


Mmm, nice backtracking there ...

A simple google search of "Ten Commandments of Propaganda" brings it right up.

But I like what you did, very propaganda like learning from your own OP.

reply to post by LiveForever8


typing "Propaganda is the use of arguments to convince someone of something" brings up that PDF as result number 1 in google?!? A for the OP, D- for the google skills.

Originally posted by Kaytagg
For a more complete list, turn on fox news.

They're masters at it.

I think you confused propaganda with ratings. That is what they are masters of.

Fellow ATSers, please don't turn this into what its fast becoming

I had saved it under the title Powerpoint Propaganda and therefore thats what i believed it to be called.
So that's what i went from when looking. Low and behold, its not number one Google search with that title.

Also, it was in a folder with my university work, and i thought it was from there at first. We regularly study topics like this. So thats the conclusion i came to, but kept looking online anyways.

Check my other posts, i always source my information if its from elsewhere.

Im no thief

But please just focus on what i believe to be a really well put together 'guide' to propaganda. Quick and easy to understand.

Regardless of who created it

Thanks.

Sometimes propoganda is needed to protect sheep against their own stupidity. Any propoganda rather shows the illiteracy and stupidity of society than power of the government.
Only the day when the assets of government( including money) will be of no value to any of us, we will truly win.

[edit on 08.15.09 by Advancedboy]