Propaganda

How Commercials or Advertising are Propagandistic and Affect the Way We Think and Act The word “propaganda” gets thrown about quite a lot. For example, a politician may discredit an opposing politician’s campaign videos (a form of advertising) by calling it propaganda. That’s not entirely false technically, as propaganda is defined by Oxford Dictionaries as: “chiefly derogatory information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view.” Now think of this: politician John A. Smith runs an advertisement during a popular event where he knows he will get plenty of people watching the video. During the video, he talks of his achievements and what he will try to do when he …show more content…
In a book titled “Psychology and Propaganda”, written by Leonard W. Doob and Edward S. Robinson, the two authors talk about the ways a propagandist (or someone whose career it is to create propaganda) can influence or suggest an idea or proposition to those who are receiving the propaganda. In this, they describe that there are two ways that the propagandist can do this: directly, and indirectly. Directly is described as the propagandist “directly” saying what he wants to say. Examples of this include posters from World War 2 telling the viewer to buy war bonds, or other direct statements. Indirectly, on the other hand, might include examples such as “Loose Lips Might Sink Ships”, a famous World War 2 propaganda poster. After detailing this, the two author state that it is wise for the propagandist to push these ideas indirectly, because “directly would cause antagonism (Doob and Robinson 90)”. Doob and Robinson go further to say that the direct methods should be used after indirect methods have been used to soften the psychological state of the viewer. All of this seems to be somewhat malevolent given propaganda’s insinuation with false or evil concepts (Nazi propaganda is among the first that comes to mind), and in truth it probably is. This deceitfulness and dishonesty in using unconscious or indirect method to suggest and sway a person’s state of mind seems eerily similar to the methods mentioned …show more content…
They both use deceptive methods of unconscious thoughts and other psychological devices and effects to enforce their goal. A lot of the time, that goal is different. As mentioned before in the paper, propaganda is political, while advertising is commercial. They both sell different products: one has to do with politics, the law, and morals. The other sells products of commercialism, and other material