Propaganda

{{significantly problematic}}[[File:'Destroy this mad brute' WWI propaganda poster (US version).jpg|thumb|right|165px|Anti-[[German]] [[World War I]] enlistment propaganda]]
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{{cquote|There is no nonsense so errant that it cannot be made the creed of the vast majority by adequate governmental action.|||[[Bertrand Russell]]<ref>[http://panarchy.org/russell/rubbish.1943.html ''Passages from An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish''] by Bertrand Russell (1943).</ref>}}
{{cquote|The point of modern propaganda isn't only to misinform or push an agenda. It is to exhaust your [[critical thinking]], to annihilate [[truth]].|||Gary Kasparov<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20200307061215/https:/twitter.com/Kasparov63/status/808750564284702720 The point of modern propaganda isn't only to misinform or push an agenda. It is to exhaust your critical thinking, to annihilate truth.] by Gary Kasparov (11:08 AM - 13 Dec 2016) ''Twitter'' (archived from Marcy 7, 2020).</ref>}}
{{cquote|If you aren't careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.|||[[Malcolm X]]<ref>''Malcolm X Speaks: Selected Speeches and Statements.'' (1965). {{isbn|9780802132130}}. p. 93.</ref>}}
'''Propaganda''' is the use of [[media]] and other information sources in order to affect or control the perceptions and behavior of a population. It is best known for its frequent insidious attempt to sell ideas or policies through politically-rich [[marketing]] so that people accept or support ideas to which they would otherwise be resistant or [[skeptical]]. However, {{sl|Types of propaganda|not all propaganda is designed to manipulate}} and it can sometimes be open and transparent, encouraging common and popular goals. In the early 20<sup>th</sup> century, propaganda as a term was synonymous with government marketing and did not have an inherent negative connotation. Its origins date even further back to religious marketing by the [[Catholic Church]].

Propaganda is designed to influence emotion, hence the factual accuracy of the content is of little or no relevance. Propaganda is more versatile than [[advertising]] because it is not always about encouraging [[consumerism]], name-recognition, and brand loyalty. Rather, it can be used to create and associate negative emotions with opponents. Individual pieces of advertising and propaganda share techniques including [[Argumentum ad nauseam|repetition]], [[Appeal to celebrity|reliance on famous spokespeople]], musical and lighting cues, and disguising content as innocuous information.

Religious and political movements of all types have used propaganda widely. For example, in [[World War II]], the Allies, [[Soviet Union|Soviets]], and [[Nazi]]s — all very different in their [[ideologies]] — all used propaganda to a great degree during the course of the conflict and after.<ref>[http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/posters2.htm German Propaganda Archive] ''Calvin University''.</ref><ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20070104065314/http://www.internationalposter.com/ru-text.cfm  Revolution by Design: The Soviet Poster] ''International Poster Gallery'' (archived from January 4, 2007).</ref><ref>[http://americanhistory.si.edu/victory/victory5.htm  Produce for Victory: Posters on the Home Front, 1941–1945] ''National Museum of American History''.</ref>

The term goes back to the [[Thirty Years War]] (1622) and originally meant the spread or propagation of the Catholic [[faith]] (against filthy [[Protestant]] [[heresy]]), but wasn't applied to [[secular]] matters until the 1790s and didn't pick up its negative connotations until the mid-point of the 19<sup>th</sup> century.<ref>''Strategic Public Relations: Audience Focused Practice'' by Barbara Diggs-Brown (2011) Cengage Learning. ISBN 053463706X.</ref>{{rp|48-49}} Even then, it wouldn't have been seen as a threat to [[democratic]] ways of life until the 1930s,<ref>[http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Institute_for_Propaganda_Analysis Institute for Propaganda Analysis] ''Source Watch''.</ref> and during World War II became pejorative in common usage… [[ironically]] thanks to the ''{{wpl|Why We Fight}}'' propaganda films shown to soldiers and then the public.

Like many words, it has fallen victim to the [[euphemism treadmill]] – meaning, sometimes [[Confirmation bias|we only call that which we disagree with propaganda]]. The rest is considered PR ([[public relations]]), marketing, or awareness spreading.

==Types of propaganda==
Propaganda comes in three major flavors: white, grey, and black. White propaganda openly discloses its source and intent. Grey propaganda has an ambiguous or non-disclosed source or intent. Black propaganda purports to be published by the enemy or some organization besides its actual origins.

Propaganda often works by both presence (filling the space) and absence (of what existed before).<ref name=benghiat>''Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present'' by Ruth Ben-Ghiat (2021) W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 0393868419.</ref>{{rp|108}}

==Propaganda techniques==
{{collist|2|
*[[Big Lie]] — The more outrageous the lie, the better.
*Mixing lies and misrepresentation to make any falsehoods sound even better. 
*[[Experts for hire]] — Pay them enough, and they will say anything.
*[[Front group]] — Often going by the [[euphemism]] "[[think tank]]" these days.
*[[FUD]] — "Manufacturing doubt."
*Firehosing — Just [[Argumentum ad nauseam|lie ''ad infinitum'']] and don't even attempt to bother with the truth or keep things straight. The goal is to undermine truth and turn it into just another political view. 
*[[Limited hangout]] — Revealing only a small portion of facts relevant to a scandal or position in order to defuse criticism.
*[[Historical revisionism]] — rewrite history
*[[History#Written by the victor; History as propaganda|Slanted History]] — a [[bias]]ed retelling of actual events to support a position.
*[[Ratfucking]] — Many of the "dirty tricks" pioneered by the [[Richard Nixon|Tricky Dick administration]].
*[[Stovepiping]] — [[Cherry-picking]] unvetted information.
*[[Whataboutism]] — ''And you are [[lynching]] [[African American|Negroes]]''
}}

Since 2014, [[Russia]] has pioneered a technique based on the mixing-of-lies-and-misrepresentation in the form of targeted demotivational propaganda. Historian Timothy Snyder describes the technique as creating political ads that at first appear to be truthful and appealing characteristics for a particular demographic, but end with a very unappealing lie that is likely to be unappealing to the demographic. Different demographics are targeted with different ads. The technique was first known to have appeared with the 2014 Russian invasion of [[Ukraine]], and was repeated in the [[2016 U.S. presidential election]] election against [[Hillary Clinton]] and the [[2024 U.S. presidential election]] against [[Kamala Harris]]. Snyder describes the structure behind the technique as: oligarchical money ([[Vladimir Putin]] and [[Elon Musk]]) + psychographic information about individuals + [[social media]] delivery system + demotivational message.<ref>[https://snyder.substack.com/p/the-phantom-campaign The Phantom Campaign] by Timothy Snyder (Nov 17, 2024) ''Thinking about…'' (Substack).</ref><ref>[https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/11/15/republican-ads-false-flag/ Inside the Republican false-flag effort to turn off Kamala Harris voters: A multipronged dark money effort by advisers to Elon Musk targeted liberals, Jews, Muslims and Black voters with ads that were not quite what they seemed.] by Michael Scherer & Josh Dawsey (November 15, 2024 at 5:00 a.m. EST) ''The Washington Post''.</ref><ref>''The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America'' by Timothy Snyder (2018) Tim Duggan Books. ISBN 0525574468.</ref> In the US, such dark money was enabled the highly-controversial [[Supreme Court]] 2010 decision in ''[[Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission]]'' that allowed unlimited corporate funds to influence elections.

==Agitprop==
[[File:Plakat_mayakowski_gross.jpg|thumb|165px|Agitprop]]
Agitprop is a particular kind of propaganda designed to arouse intense, even violent, emotions within people who are exposed to it.  It is a portmanteau of the Russian words for "agitation" and "propaganda," and the term originated in the Soviet Union, whose information bureau was originally called the Department for Agitation and Propaganda.

==Examples==
* ''[[Malleus Maleficarum]]'' (hammer of evil-doers), a work first published in 1487 in Germany, that "exposed" the alleged monstrous evil-doing of sorcerers and facilitated the brutal treatment of [[European witch-hunts|real and imagined witches and warlocks in early-modern Europe]] and the Americas. 
* ''A Discovery and plain Declaration of the Sundry Subtill practices of the Holy Inquisition Of Spain'' (1567) under the [[pseudonym]] Montanns — collection of real (mostly pre-1500) and imagined excesses of the [[Spanish Inquisition]].
* The infamous 1903 ''[[The Protocols of the Elders of Zion]]'' — repackaged as the banking conspiracy to take over the world.
* {{wpl|Tanaka Memorial}} (1927) — this fit so well with [[Japan]]'s actual actions from 1931 to 1937 that in some areas (such as [[China]]) it is ''still'' presented as an actual document. No evidence that it ever really existed has been found.
* ''Dasein ohne Leben'' a.k.a. ''Existence without Life'' (1939) &mdash; one of the many films used to confuse voluntary [[euthanasia]] with state-sanctioned mass murder. Destroyed in early 1945, it was reconstructed for the [[BBC]] documentary ''Selling Murder: the Killing Films of the Third Reich''.<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ia3w6Vv9SpU Selling Murder: The killing films of the Third Reich] (Sep 7, 2016) ''YouTube''.</ref>
* ''Der Ewige Jude'' a.k.a., ''The Eternal Jew'' (1940) &mdash; The biggest, most foul-smelling turd in the sewer that is Nazi [[antisemitism]].
* Frank Capra's ''Why We Fight'' series (1942-1945) is filled with distortions, half-truths, omissions, and outright lies. In ''The Battle of Russia'' (1943), the joint treaty with Russia that allowed the conquest of [[Poland]] is not even mentioned. Nor is the oppression the Russian people suffered under [[Stalin]] mentioned. A similar film (but not part of ''Why We Fight'' despite being directed by Capra), ''Know your Enemy — Japan'' (1945),<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvcE9D3mn0Q Know your Enemy — Japan] by US National Archives (Jul 29, 2016) ''YouTube''.</ref> can't seem to make up its mind if the Emperor was directly responsible or if he was little more than a figurehead. This issue is unresolved to this day.
*[[Mao]]’s little red book (''Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung''), produced by the People’s Liberation Army during the tenure of {{wpl|Lin Biao||,}}<ref>[https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2014/05/how-west-embraced-chairman-mao-s-little-red-book How the west embraced Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book: At the peak of its popularity, Mao's bible was the most printed book in the world. It attained the status of a sacred, holy text during the Cultural Revolution, and retains its place among western devotees.] by John Gray (23 May 2014; updated 02 Jun 2014 9:57am) ''The New Statesman''.</ref> it was originally meant for internal circulation within the armed forces, but during the [[Cultural Revolution]] and its associated [[Maoism|cult of Mao]], it became a household item (because not owning it might not be a good idea, cf. ''[[Mein Kampf]]'') and thus is now one of history's most printed books.<ref>[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-34932800 Who, What, Why: What is the Little Red Book?] (26 November 2015) ''BBC News''.</ref>

==Art==
{{main|Art}}
The arts are often employed as a medium for presenting propaganda. Art can be used as propaganda to great effect, so much so that even the [[right-wing]] dipshit [[Jordan Peterson]] collects [[communist]] propoganda.<ref>[https://frieze.com/article/whos-real-ideologue-jordan-petersons-communist-art-collection Who’s the Real Ideologue? On Jordan Peterson’s Communist Art Collection: Why does the ‘men’s rights’ guru to the alt-right surround himself with Soviet-era memorabilia, which he doesn’t even class as art?] by Rachel Wetzler (16 AUG 18) ''Frieze''.</ref> In the 1960s and 1970s, Chinese art students created much of the classical Maoist propaganda that is famous across the world, although in recent years, said style has given way to badly Photoshopped posters of tanks, planes, and soldiers, etc. 

This isn't unique to communist nations. During the Japanese [[colonialist]] period, many woodblock prints were also produced; they echo the artistic quality seen from other ''ukiyo-e'' prints (named Senso-e, 戰爭絵).<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20210923180201/https://www.artjapanese.com/lot-00380.php Goto Yoshikage: The Phoenix Castle] ''ArtJapanese.com'' (archived from September 23, 2021).</ref> If one looks past the political message and simply values the art, then it's mainly harmless… unless the person is a lamb to the slaughter.

==See also==
{{collist|2|
*[[Advertising]]
*[[Edward Bernays]]
*[[Brainwashing]]
*[[Frank Luntz]]
*[[Nationalism in history textbooks]]
*''[[Nineteen Eighty-Four]]''
*[[Public relations]]
*[[SourceWatch]]
}}

==External links==
*[http://www.propagandacritic.com/ Propaganda Critic]
*[http://www.psywar.org/leaflets.php Psy War], an archive of wartime propaganda
*della Quercia, Jacopo.  [http://www.cracked.com/article_18489_6-mind-blowing-achievements-in-propaganda.html "6 Mind-Blowing Achievements in Propaganda"], ''Cracked'' Magazine website, 21 April 2010.
*[http://books.google.com/books?id=o8tXNRjSW60C&printsec=frontcover&dq=propaganda&hl=en&ei=Lf-1TvmkFsjX0QHVh7mKDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CDcQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q&f=false ''Propaganda and Persuasion''] by Garth S. Jowett and Victoria O'Donnell

==References==
{{reflist|2|80%}}

[[Category:Advertising]]
[[Category:Authoritarianism]]
[[Category:Fake news]]
[[Category:Media]]
[[Category:Political terms]]
[[Category:Propaganda| ]]
[[Category:Totalitarianism]]

Categories: Advertising, Authoritarianism, Fake news, Media, Political terms, Propaganda, Totalitarianism