Propaganda techniques in the media, recognizing and deciphering it.
By: Kaylyn Geiger
Propaganda, it is all around us and has been for a very long time. We see it in our day to day lives. It’s something most of us will fall victim to from time to time, whether we realize it or not. That’s the point, it’s tricky, it appeals to our emotions rather than our rational thought. According to Merriam-Webster.com the definition of propaganda is as follows: “information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular cause or point of view.” Much of it is a pure manipulation into forming beliefs or attitudes towards something with no knowledge of the true facts. This may be a reflection of our society, do we …show more content…
For instance, calling someone or a specific group of people such as middle easterners terrorists. It is used when a government wants public approval for an armed assault on another nation. Terrorism represents bad intentions or pure evil famously used by George W. Bush as his justification for the Iraq war (Stanley, J, 2016).
The next one, Glittering Generalities is used to form the opposite opinion as name calling (Willaby, R, 2008). With Glittering Generalities, the propagandist uses vague “virtue words” with strong positive connotations. These words appeal to our emotions and are used to show the goodwill in their ideals but offer no real explanation. Some example words are freedom, integrity, love or respect.
The last one I will go over is The Band Wagon, like the term “jumping on the band wagon” suggests, it means following the crowd or conforming to what everyone else is doing (Willaby, R, 2008). This technique generally appeals to a specific crowd for instance an alcohol distributer is advertising a brand of vodka its ad would include a group of young attractive people having fun in a nightclub. This would be appealing to a younger audience convincing them the “cool” crowd drinks this specific liquor and they have the best time drinking it. It may also show the opposite side of the situation where no one else is having as good of a time as they are without that specific
By: Kaylyn Geiger
Propaganda, it is all around us and has been for a very long time. We see it in our day to day lives. It’s something most of us will fall victim to from time to time, whether we realize it or not. That’s the point, it’s tricky, it appeals to our emotions rather than our rational thought. According to Merriam-Webster.com the definition of propaganda is as follows: “information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular cause or point of view.” Much of it is a pure manipulation into forming beliefs or attitudes towards something with no knowledge of the true facts. This may be a reflection of our society, do we …show more content…
For instance, calling someone or a specific group of people such as middle easterners terrorists. It is used when a government wants public approval for an armed assault on another nation. Terrorism represents bad intentions or pure evil famously used by George W. Bush as his justification for the Iraq war (Stanley, J, 2016).
The next one, Glittering Generalities is used to form the opposite opinion as name calling (Willaby, R, 2008). With Glittering Generalities, the propagandist uses vague “virtue words” with strong positive connotations. These words appeal to our emotions and are used to show the goodwill in their ideals but offer no real explanation. Some example words are freedom, integrity, love or respect.
The last one I will go over is The Band Wagon, like the term “jumping on the band wagon” suggests, it means following the crowd or conforming to what everyone else is doing (Willaby, R, 2008). This technique generally appeals to a specific crowd for instance an alcohol distributer is advertising a brand of vodka its ad would include a group of young attractive people having fun in a nightclub. This would be appealing to a younger audience convincing them the “cool” crowd drinks this specific liquor and they have the best time drinking it. It may also show the opposite side of the situation where no one else is having as good of a time as they are without that specific