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.
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/
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