Genius Hour: Analyzing Psychological Techniques in Propaganda

   L - Introduction
From communist ads using posters to commercials on TV, clever propaganda is everywhere. It may want to enslave you, it may want to get you to buy a useless product. In order to understand HOW to avoid negative propaganda, it is best to first learn WHY the propaganda is effective. So for my Genius Hour, I will be discussing propaganda and it's influence and how to avoid it.
   A - Questions
My questions are:
What is propaganda?
What are some examples of modern day propaganda?
What are some examples of historical propaganda?
What do modern propaganda and historical propaganda have in common?
What are some techniques of propaganda?
How do I analyze techniques?
How will I present my knowledge of the techniques?
What is scapegoating?
How many techniques are there?
Why do people want to manipulate people?
    L,U -Forms Of Propaganda
    I myself have discovered that propaganda follows under at least one type of form. I have self identified them as:
Political/Religious propaganda - Propaganda attempting to persuade the viewer to fall under or against some form of political/religious opinion.
Commercial Propaganda - A type of propaganda that persuades the viewer to purchase a product or service, be it useful or useless, to make money.
Functional propaganda - Functional propaganda is made to persuade the viewer into taking action, whether subtle or huge. Usually paired with political/religious propaganda, but there are some instances of solely functional propaganda.
      I have named identified these myself, and if new types of propaganda appear that don't fit into one of these categories, I will add a new one.
       The reason people want to manipulate other's minds is for these three reasons. They want a correct opinion, they want money, or they want service.
    L,U - Techniques
       The Ad Nauseam Technique is an often used technique that continuously puts an idea in someone's head. The psychology is if the person sees or hears this idea (Often a simple slogan) enough times, they may start to perceive it as the truth.
        The Ad Hominem technique is the act of targeting the opposer of the propaganda instead of the political/religious/commercial/ views, as candidates attack each other during elections.
        The appeal to authority technique consists of statements that appeal to the authority, encouraging people that the opinion is right.
        The appeal to fear technique is a popular easy to identify technique. Filling an audience with fear, anxiety and 'what-ifs' will typically cause them to take the safer route.
         The appeal to prejudice is used to target uneducated audiences with emotional support.

         The popular often commercial used bandwagon technique persuades the viewer by implying that this is the route that everyone else is taking, so you have to too, or that this is the guaranteed route to victory because of all of the support.
          The beautiful people technique is a very easy to spot technique due to it's frequency and emotion. It is when famous, happy or generally good looking people endorse the propaganda, so the viewer will feel they will become that if they agree with that propaganda.
          The big lie is technique that endorses propaganda in a way that is not exactly truthful. It uses certain ideas that are truthful, but merges that with lies to generalize the public's opinion.
          Black and white fallacy is a technique that provides only two sides to the argument, often identified in propaganda that stress 'you're either with us or against us.'
          Selective truth is a very deceiving technique. It mixes up truth and the truth the audience wants to believe in a way that they don't feel they are being given propaganda, but being given the truth that you want to hear.
          The classical conditioning technique is complicated to implement. It manipulates the physical reaction to the human always being around something and the reaction when that something is in their absence.
           The cognitive dissonance technique is a technique which focuses in on the want of consistence. For example, using and actor everyone likes to endorse a candidate means you either don't like the actor or you like the candidate.
            The simple yet effective plain folks technique is when that the propaganda goes hand in hand with the common sense of the common person, meant to make the propaganda feel realistic and effective towards the common person's life. For example, a way to endorse a political figure would be to have him running errands and suffer the daily struggle of the plain folk, so the audience feels 'related'.
             A cult of personality is formed when an individual uses the media to create a heroic image and the propaganda relates to that image. It is complicated and usually only people with already high political status can attempt this, like dictators.
             Demonizing the enemy is insulting and making the competitor to the the propaganda's purpose immoral and useless, through both false accusations and truth.
             Dictat is the technique used in Uncle Sam's 'I want you'. It hopes to make the decision simplified by telling the audience exactly what decision to take, eliminating all other possibilities.
             Disinformation is the illegal technique of the creation or deletion of public records in the act of using forgery to support claims of events and organizations.
             The 'Door in the face' technique is an often used technique in bargaining. It is making an offer higher and decreasing to the price the person offering wanted originally to make it look like a better deal, and giving the illusion the person offering decreased the deal they originally thought was fair.
              The usually paired euphemism technique is being politically correct by taking a word or expression that is unpleasant and sugarcoating it to make it seem much better and less grueling and terrible.
              Euphoria is a technique that generates happiness by associating the propaganda with a happy event, like a holiday or luxury item event. An example of this technique is shown when military parades are put in place to paint the military establishment in a brighter colour.
               Hyperbole (or exaggeration) is making a fact (or in some cases a lie) much more extreme then it actually is. It is very popular and hard to spot without proper knowledge on the subject.
               The fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) technique is an attempt to change the beliefs of the viewer with dubious/untrue statements.
               Flag-waving is saying and making supporters of the propaganda will be more patriotic, usually to a country but sometimes towards and idea, group or religion. People will feel they are serving this country, idea, group or religion if they follow with this propaganda.
               Foot in the door technique is a complicated technique used by salesmen. When someone does a small favour for another person (say they give you a small gift or pin a flower on your shirt) the human brain automatically registers that this person has done something for you, and you then feel and obligation towards this person. So when they ask to return they favour (say, buy and expensive product or service) the customer feels they have to return the favour - taking advantage of the human reaction to a nice gesture.
               Framing is getting the audience to perceive a social event was done a certain way with association of true words and phrases.
               Gaslighting is hard to perform, but very effective. It is when you make an audience question their sanity, memory and opinions with doubt.
               Gish gallop is used in debates where the victim is constantly given very tough questions rapid fire to confuse and make the victim look bad. The audience will then hopefully perceive the victim in a different way negatively.
               Glittering generalities is appealing psychologically friendly words and phrases that don't have any proven or real fact and analysis paired with them.
               The guilt by association technique is persuading audiences to dislike and go against something by saying it relates and is supported by a hated, controversial and/or infamous group or person. An example of this is when white supremacist groups made announcements about being happy about President Trump, hence media taking advantage and creating anti-Trump propaganda.
                Half-truth is a deceiving technique in which the information given is only partial truth, be it partially true, true but not part of the entire truth, or the intentional, complicated and deceiving improper punctuation/double meaning. It is often used when the propaganda wants to avoid legal trouble but not exactly tell the truth at the same time.
                The intentional vagueness technique is the act of being vague and unclear on purpose so the audience can make their own interpretations positively. Propaganda creators have to be careful when using advanced intentional vagueness that really focuses on the hopeful direction of the opinion, because it is possible the audience could take it the wrong way and grow a negative opinion.
                 If an audience does not agree with an opinion because it is beyond the necessary reasonable components to be accepted, often times the opinion will be taken to the edge of the audience's latitude of acceptance, and slowly worked up so the audience agrees and doesn't notice the changes until their opinion has been changed. Very difficult to apply to fixed mindsets.
                 Love bombing is a hard to detect technique. It is when you are persuaded into something by comfort and the feeling like you are in family that accepts, greets and loves you by bombarding you with positive roles and actions, with the hope you will accept it as your one family. It is used by many different large communities such as the Catholic church and has the potential to be life changing.
                 The milieu control technique is trying to control a social environment and ideas through pressure exerted socially.
                 Minimization is a technique that is the opposite of hyperbole/exaggeration. It is making a fact or lie not such a big deal and scaling it down to appear less important or extreme.
                 Propagandists use the name calling technique is calling the opposing bad names in the hope of getting the audience to think of them negatively. It is simple yet effective technique.               

                 Operant conditioning is a technique that involves learning through imitation. As explained in the Vsauce2 video "Scapegoating" (another propaganda technique), humans have developed and thrived through imitation. It is the basis of Ad nauseam, slogans, beautiful people and other repetitive techniques.

                  Oversimplification is simplifying large political, social and religious concepts, used by examples such as 'If the world were a village'
                  The quotes out of context technique is the act of specifically editing quotes to make the speaker appear a certain way, or get the audience to trust the propaganda because they trust the person quoting's words.
                  Red herring is a technique that involves bringing invalid and irrelevant arguments and claiming they are valid and important. It is usually compelling to the audience.
                  Repetition/slogans is repeating a slogan or a jingle over and over to force a phrase, image into someone's head, usually resulting in the idea getting to the victim's head.
                  Scapegoating is a technique thoroughly explained in Vsauce2's video "Scapegoating". The basis is human's thriving off imitation often times must put the blame on an individual in order to become reunited. It is often through sacrifice the scapegoat is treated.
                  The straw man technique is the act of attacking the opponent's similar position instead of actually going for the original position.
                  The third party technique is when a organization, group or individual reports in an act of favour about the position, and makes it appear as if it was an individual act and not influenced or bribed by the position.
                   Transfer is taking something previously good or bad and relating and applying it to a new position to transfer the previous negative/positive qualities onto it. An example is the Nazi swastika was previously the symbol for good health and prosperity.
                   Virtue words, the last on the list, is attaching positive words to the propaganda to make it seem more positive. Peace, truth, joy, hope, happiness, security are just some examples of virtue words propagandists use to cheer up their propaganda.
                   Other propaganda techniques are too vague or similar to other techniques, so I didn't bother to write them down.
      U,N - Evolution Of Propaganda
    The original use for propaganda was entirely functional or political/religious. Without complete support from the large audience, it is very difficult to take position and effectively apply it. In other words, if nobody wants it, it probably won't happen. But nowadays, without war and conflict and the desperate attempt to be right, it is a lot more money related. Here are two different pieces of propaganda, and let's try to analyze them. What is similar? What is different?




   
      Lets analyze.
      First, the forms. The one on the right is more functional or even political/religious, as it is trying to convince you to enlist by intentional vagueness and some appeal to fear considering this disappointing future. Very clever by using the subtle quote to convince men by targeting their pride and fear. The other difference is the detail and the fact they used a poster instead of a commercial. Their is also some common folk tucked away in here and I almost didn't spot it, but I realized that back in the days of the WWI, this would be a very typical family situation. Notice the boy playing with actual toys that some families might have and some boys might actually play with, and the girl reading. And finally, I noticed some labeling/stereotyping because what each gender is doing differently.
      The one on the left is a clear example of commercial with bandwagon and a small amount of hidden common folk because some boys and moms might relate to this situation. The bandwagon is huge - cool kids with lots of friends with cool music playing, and vulnerable insecure kids and maybe even secure kids who want to be even cooler will go ask their parents to shop at Old Navy. And a minute long commercial is another great way, because it is a perfect way to wave their logo and name and prices all over the place.
       The main difference though, is the technology, not the methods! Propaganda has only evolved in WHAT we use, not HOW we use it. Sure, things like subliminal messages have only been recently created, but the human race generally has been using the same techniques across it's lifetime to manipulate people's brains.
       Scapegoating
     After watching the Vsauce2 video (Link in resources) I was intrigued by the scapegoating technique, a propaganda technique that is also how humans have stayed together as a civilization up until today. It involves putting the blame on somebody to unite a group together. Check out the Vsauce2 video, and we talk about it. Scapegoating is sacrificing someone or something in an act to unite an audience against this narrow target, described in the video as the way humans evolve, the way we learn through imitation. And often times leaders and supervisors use this technique to prevent their subjects from falling off course - uniting them to fight against the common cause, and finding a similarity together. And if you can unite a group of people together against something, it is possible to convince them to like a position too - this is where propaganda comes into play. Take the Cold War for example - America took advantage of the population's hatred against communism and got them to take part in capitalism, while convincing them it was completely against communism (In retrospect, it was). Changing someone's opinions and goals using a technique dating back to the beginning of time - targeting the desires and models of humankind and mashing them up in a mix of all the desires required for the population against to take part in your position.
    Resources
https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-best-examples-of-modern-day-propaganda-in-the-US
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_techniques
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNJq6BlVyhM
http://www.mindfithypnosis.com/what-are-subliminal-messages/

Saints Project: St. Patrick

My Saint is St. Patrick, the famous yet often misunderstood patron Saint of Ireland. Saint Patrick was born in England, though because of his bravery and presence in Ireland, he is often thought to have been born there. He may not have driven the snakes out of Ireland, but he is still just as amazing as you might have once thought.

Patrick originally was more interested in a career than religion. But at the age of sixteen, he was captured by Irish pirates and taken to Ireland. After six years of work in Ireland, he turned to God to help him escape and return to Britain.

When Saint Patrick escaped Ireland and returned to Britain, he became a Priest. St. Patrick eventually decided to return to Ireland to be a missionary, and at 42, he became a bishop, and went to western Ireland to teach the Druid chief about Christ. It was said he used a shamrock to teach them that there is one God, but three divine people - the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit.

On the Druid’s spring festival, the same day of Easter Vigil celebration, Saint Patrick and his companions lit a fire on the pagan’s hill where they pray to represent Jesus Christ, the Light of the World. The Druids tried to extinguish the fire and kill Patrick, but to the amazement to the Druids, they were both kept from harm. Saint Patrick went on to make Ireland catholic and succeeded, and inspired everyone in Ireland to convert to Christianity. He is honoured on March 17, the supposed day he died.

Saint Patrick was the patron Saint in Ireland, and was responsible for bringing christianity to the pagan Ireland. People all over the world thank St. Patrick for bringing the power of God to Ireland, and without him, Ireland might still be pagan. The Irish people honour him for his amazing deeds, and his inspirational work in turning an entire nation Catholic in the name of the Lord for no reason other than he relates with the Irish people and he wants people to understand and love God.

St. Patrick related to Ireland and it's iconic bravery so well, and was responsible for making some symbols of Irish identity, like the shamrock. St. Patrick’s day is also a very popular holiday in which not only do we celebrate St. Patrick, but Ireland as well. People eat and drink and practice Irish tradition in the name of a simple man who helped shape the entire country. So whenever you think of Saint Patrick day, not only should you think of Saint Patrick, but Ireland as a fantastic Catholic country as well.

St. Patrick was such a brave and iconic Saint. He was the first person to preach the gospel in west Ireland, and worked to destroy paganism in Ireland. We can learn that bravery is one of the many tools God gifts us with, and if we can muster the power to wield it, we can be just as great as Saint Patrick. Even if we don’t make an entire country switch religions, we can use this bravery to stand up to problems ranging from bullying to climate change. That is why Saint Patrick is so inspirational, and is one of the most honoured Saints.

Resources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Patrick

Saint Patrick by Wikipedia Editors

Card 33, St. Patrick

Loyola University Press Copyright 1994

Race To The Finish

   I read the article 'Race to The Finish' which discussed the Barkley Marathons, the "toughest race on Earth" according to the Currents4Kids article.
   I really enjoyed this article. It packed tons of cool and interesting information and a story into one neatly organized and easy to understand article. It effectively combined all the necessities for the article and key points to really make it worth the read. An example would be their cool subtitles. One of the subtitles was called "When the going gets tough..." and the next one was "The tough get going", which is a popular saying creatively implemented into the article.
   I think that the Barkley Marathons challenge is a really interesting concept. Having the best marathon runners fighting against the clock instead of each other is a really creative and entertaining idea. As for the challenge itself, I would really pity those who have the guts to do this, even if they are trained and know what they are doing.
   I have a question though. How would they monitor the racers at all times to make sure they didn't have outside help or use a phone? Unless you have expensive cameras or people around the entirety of the Barkley Marathons, you can't be sure that the competitors aren't cheating and getting help from people not inside the Marathons that could be providing them with GPS equipment or even collecting the checkpoint books for them.
   I feel really bad for  that made it six seconds too late. I mean, SIX SECONDS out of a SIXTY HOUR marathon! Especially the most grueling and difficult marathon in Canada, possibly the world. How would you feel if you were six seconds away from being the sixteenth person in the world to accomplish something, and you fail? I wish him all my luck for next year if he participates again!
   In conclusion, the Barkley Marathons is an awesome and cool idea, but evil and difficult at the same time. That's a great combination for a competitive and intense challenge that tests even the world's best. As for me, I rather sit in my heated home and play video games, but whatever floats their boat is fine with me.