The propaganda indicates the strategy of Communication, whose uses a capacity (or a party) political or soldier to determine the Perception by the public of events, people (political propaganda, military propaganda). It is with the civil power or martial what the Publicité is with the private sector with this difference that it does not aim producing only one act of limited range (to buy product X) but that it seeks to convince of a whole of ideas and values, at mobilizing, sometimes to convert.

In a more general way, propaganda is art to propagate with large scales of the Information S, false or not, but always partial. The techniques of modern propaganda exploit the knowledge accumulated in Psychologie and Communication. It concentrates on the handling emotions, with the detriment of faculties of Raisonnement and judgment.

History of the propaganda term

In Latin (medieval), propaganda is the verbal adjective of the verb “to propagate” indicating the things to propagate (to be brought closer for example to the delenda of the expression Carthago delenda is , literally Carthage is in front of being destroyed or it is necessary to destroy Carthage).

In 1622, little time after the beginning of the War Thirty Year old, the pope Gregoire XV founded the Congregatio de Propaganda Fide (“Congregation for the propagation of the faith”), a committee of cardinal charged to observe the propagation of the Christianisme by the missionary S sent in the countries not-Christians. In the beginning the term did not evoke the propagation of a Information deformed. Before and in particular when personalization is strong, one uses the term “glory”.

The modern political direction dates from the First World War, it is generally pejorative, but not always (for example, it is the official term for the programs and profession of faith in the pre-election operations).

Types of propaganda

Some regard publicity as a type of propaganda.

However, propaganda is usually political (nationalist, fascistic, Nazi, Stalinist, Militariste, Altermondialiste, etc). She is multiform (use of different the Médias) and can be insidious. In the common language, propaganda is equivalent to the misinformation put at the service of a political cause of private interests.

The propagandists seek to deteriorate the Public opinion in favor of their own interests. This imposition of a new prospect aims to modify the actions and the hopes of the target. Propaganda supplements the devices of Censure. This one operates with a same aim, but in a negative way, by the interested selection of information favorable to the desired Interprétation. Propaganda proceeds by excess of Information S, whereas the censure plays of a lack deliberated on information. They are the two faces of the same strategy of mental domination, especially used in the contexts of Guerre. These two types of handling are interdependent: the Censure creates a need that propaganda hastens to fill, while propaganda passes better in the absence of elements. What distinguishes propaganda from the other forms of recommendation is the will of the propagandist to change the Compréhension people by Diversion or confusion instead of convincing and to explain.

The chiefs of a group can know that information is partial, even erroneous, while maintaining the members of the group and the relays of the Information in ignorance.

Propaganda is a powerful weapon at the time of a war. In this case, its goal is usually to dehumanize the enemy and to cause hatred against a certain group, by deteriorating the Représentation that forms the handled opinion about it. The processes of propaganda go from the omission to the untrue charge.

Propaganda evolved/moved much with the birth of the Psychological warfare. One also speaks about " propaganda religieuse" to indicate religious proselytism.

Examples of political propaganda:

  • English propaganda against the Germany during the First World War, to see the Lusitania.
  • actions of Propaganda Nazi like the Day of Potsdam (March 21st 1933), which preceded two days the vote by the Reichstag of the Loi of the full powerss (March 23rd 1933), beginning of the dictatorship of Hitler.
  • the Nazi Germany against the Republic of Poland to start the Second world war, to see the attacks of the broadcasting transmitter of Gleiwitz.

In other words, propaganda also refers to the Information distorts supposed to reassure the people who believe in it already. Indeed, so of the individuals believe in false information, they will constantly be invaded by doubts. Since these doubts are unpleasant (see Dissonance cognitive), they wish to make them disappear, and are thus particularly receptive with the messages manipulators. For this reason, propaganda is addressed in priority to those which are already well laid out to assimilate it.

Propaganda can be classified according to the source:

  • the white propaganda comes from a openly identified source.
  • the black propaganda comes from a source supposedly friendly, but actually hostile.
  • the gray propaganda comes from a source supposedly neutral, but actually hostile.

See also: black Propaganda, Marketing, Publicity

History of propaganda

Propaganda is an human activity, which leaves few traces deliberately. The Latin texts like those of Tite-Live or Jules César, are masterpieces of Roman propaganda.

Napoleon was the first to use of modern propaganda to conquer the capacity then to consolidate it. As of its countryside of Italy, whereas he was only the Bonaparte general, it the USA of the influence of the Bulletins of the Army of Italy . For example, it was made represent at the time of the Bataille of the Bridge of Arcole holding a flag with the hand (topic reproduces to thousands of specimens), whereas actually, it had made a fall in a marsh. It once extended then this system of propaganda it had conquered the capacity, with the " Bulletins of the Large army ". Tables of Large and David, posters of the time, and the Mémorial of Grey waxbill also took part in the development of the Golden Legend of Bonaparte.

Techniques of propaganda were codified and applied the first time in a scientific way by the journalist Walter Lippmann and the psychologist Edward Bernays (nephew of Sigmund Freud) at the beginning of the 20th century. During the First World War, Lippman and Bernays were engaged by the president of the United States Woodrow Wilson to make traditionally rock an American opinion isolationist towards the Interventionnisme. For that, it made with the calls to the Committees for the information of the public ( Comitee for Public Information ) directed by the journalist George Creel, " privatisant" thus the propaganda of war.

The propaganda campaign of Creel, Lippman and Bernays carried out for six months was so intense that hysteria generated anti-allemande impressed the American industry, which discovered the immense resources suddenly that one could deploy to influence the public opinion of a whole country. Bernays invented the terms of spirit of group and engineering of the assent , of the important concepts in propaganda applied.

Lord Ponsonby, an English, socialist and pacifist aristocrat, thus summarized the methods used during the conflict (including by its own country):

It is necessary to make believe

  1. that our camp does not want the war
  2. which the adversary of it is responsible
  3. that it is morally condemnable
  4. that the war has noble
  5. goals that the enemy makes deliberated atrocities (not us)
  6. that it undergoes much more losses than us
  7. than God is with us
  8. than the world of art and of the culture our combat
  9. approves that the enemy uses illicit weapons (not us)
  10. that those who doubt the first nine points are either of the traitors, or of the victims of the unfavourable lies (because the enemy, contrary to we which inform, made of propaganda).

The historian Anne Morelli showed that this grid could still apply to the conflicts of the end of the 20th century. Some underline also their adequacies with very current conflicts (see low).

The Public relations, whose the State S and the Entreprise S use, are inspired directly by work by Lippman and Bernays. In first half of the 20th century, Bernays and Lippman directed themselves a flourishing company of public relations.

The Nazi S largely employed technical of propaganda for the takeover of Hitler (Journée of Potsdam which preceded by little the Loi of the full powerss). The future dictator was supported in this direction by Joseph Goebbels.

The Second world war was the theater of a constant propaganda, used like weapon of war, by the Nazi S, but also by the Alliés. Mussolini before them had included/understood its importance as of the Années 1920; thus it had creates the Minculpop (ministry for the Popular culture) which functioned like tool of propaganda starting from 1925.

Soviet propaganda

The the USSR, especially under Stalin (1924-1953), Totalitarian mode , used all the means of propaganda available at the time:

  • posters and the photomontage praising industrialization, the planning and the collectivization of the grounds. Publicities and posters of recruitment in the Red Army .
  • Statistical of productions of cereals faked during the famine of the years 1930.
  • “spontaneous” Demonstrations and large parades like those of 1935 with Moscow, the parade of the “pioneers” in 1930, processions on the Red Place with Moscow on May 1st and on November 7th…
  • final improvements of the photographs (eliminations of Leon Trotski, Khalatov, Kamenev…), as well as falsifications of facts in the encyclopedias, publications or school handbooks. The history was frequently rewritten, the modified events of the past so that the actions of the Soviet authorities are always depicted positively.
  • Endoctrination of youth in the schools and the organizations (Octobriens (young people from 8 to 10 years), Pioneers (from 10 to 14-15 years), the Komsomol S (from 14 to 25 years)).
  • Use of the press, the radio and television.
  • panegyrical poems of Rashimov in the press (red Gazette of Leningrad, Pravda…)
  • the cinema, by influencing films of the large scenario writer Sergueï Eisenstein: October, which reports the events of October 1917, whose scenario was modified on order of Stalin.
  • the official painting of the Soviet realism with Plastov, Romas, Toidze, Guerassimov, Boris Vladimirski.
  • veneration of the Stakhanovisme.
  • Engraving S of posters of the inter-war period of the Thirties with artists such V.Deni, A. Deineka, G. Kluktis, NR. Vatolina or after war with Kukryniksy.

The cold war

The the United States and the Soviet Union have both intensively used propaganda during the Cold war. The two camps employed the Médias of mass (cinema, television and radio) to influence their own citizens and the nations of the Third world.

The US government thus launched the radio station Voice off America (voice of America). This one practices what the Americans call of the " diplomacy publique" , a communication intended for the populations and intended to give a favorable image of the USA and their system (an idea which was redécouverte after the September 11th ). Radios supported partly by the CIA, diffused “gray” propaganda in the news and the programmes of entertainment in Eastern Europe and Soviet Union. The official radio of the government of the Soviet Union, as for it, diffused “white” propaganda. The two camps also diffused “black” propaganda at the hours of crisis.

One of the writers who best described the mechanism of propaganda was George Orwell. Although not living in Soviet Union, the characters evolve/move in totalitarian modes where the language is constantly corrupted by political handling. These novels were employed explicitly for propaganda. the CIA, for example, secretly ordered a Cartoon film adapting the Farm of the animals in the Années 1950. It was to go against the will of George Orwell which clearly denounced propaganda in its book 1984 .

Propaganda at the time of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq

In the invasion of Afghanistan by the United States in 2001, the psychological tactics of operations were used to demoralize the Talibans and to gain sympathies of the Afghan population. At least 6 planes commando EC-130E were used to block the local transmissions by radio and to transmit messages of propaganda of replacement. Layers were also released in the whole of Afghanistan, offering rewards for Usama Bin Laden and other individuals, depicting the Americans like friends of Afghanistan and underlining various negative aspects of the Taliban. Another watch an image of Mohammed Omar through a sight of rifle with the words “We look at you”.

During the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Iraqi Minister for information Mohammed Saeed Al-Sahaf on several occasions protested that the Iraqi forces would gain each battle decisively. Even during the inversion of the Iraqi government in Baghdad, it maintained that the United States would be demolished soon, in contradiction with the international mediums. Because of this, it quickly became a figure turned into ridiculous.

In November 2005, various media, including Chicago Platform and Los Angeles Times reported that the Armed forces of the United States had handled news reported in Iraqi media in an effort to throw a favorable light on its actions while demoralizing the insurrection. Lieutenant coll Barry Johnson, a military spokesman in Iraq, declared that the program was " a part important in the mission of bringing back false reports to the insurgés" , whereas a spokesperson of the secretary to defense Donald H. Rumsfeld said that the allegations of handling were alarming if they appeared true. The Department of Defense since confirmed the existence of the program. More recently, NewYork Times published an article concerning the way in which the Pentagon started to employ contractors with little experiment in journalism or the public relations to write articles in the Iraqi press. These articles are usually written by soldiers of the USA without attribution or are allotted to a non-existent organization called " the international center of the information." The establishment of stories of propaganda in the newspapers had already been made by the allies and the central powers during the First World War and by the Axe and the allies during the second.

Propaganda and democracy

According to critical intellectuals, the techniques of propaganda always have course in the democracies, under the name of political communication . In a dictatorship, the conservation of the capacity is ensured by coercive means; in a democracy, the means of conquest or conservation of the capacity are founded on persuasion. The Official art, if it is " décrété" openly under totalitarian modes, appears subtly in democracy. The media capacity precedes the military capacity then.

According to a paradox formulated by Hume, in a Democracy, the army is much less powerful than in a dictatorship. To avoid any popular dispute, the elected leaders would require thus still more for an effective propaganda that a dictatorial capacity. Indeed, an excessive police repression would lead to a defeat at the polls.

Edward S. Hermann and Noam Chomsky proposed a Modèle of propaganda , which they empirically tested with the the United States. Their method consisted, on a great number of various press articles of origin but bearing on comparable subjects, to quantify the influence of four factors being able to modify information: the press group, advertisers, information providers (government agencies) and the dominant ideology.

The principal aspects of propaganda in a democracy would be the following:

  • media influence (radio, television, press, publicity, Internet, telephone).
  • voluntary confusion : justification of the sale of a product by ethical principles, or conversely, promotion of an humanitarian operation while using of the techniques of communication of the private companies.
  • semantic valorization : “universalization” for example.
  • handling of the public opinion using statistical or of skewed surveys .
  • falsification of the image : video final improvements, false images.
  • self-censorship of the draftings.
  • partial information : treatment of the war in Iraq by Fox News for example.

In the democratic countries, propaganda remains diffuse and varied, whereas the totalitarian modes deploy a centralized propaganda. This is why it would undoubtedly be righter of speaking about " techniques of propagande".

Techniques of propaganda

The propagandists employ arguments which, although sometimes convincing, are not necessarily right. A certain number of methods, inspired in particular of the social Psychology, are employed to create persuasive, but false messages. Several of these techniques of handling rhetoric concern the Sophisme.

One needed much time to analyze the channels by which the messages of propaganda make their effect. If this work is important, it is clear that the strategies of information circulation become strategies of propaganda only as from the moment when they diffuse indeed messages of propaganda. The identification of these messages of propaganda is thus a prérequis necessary. We propose below some traditional techniques, whose majority rest on a good use of the emotivity of the audience.

the fear : a public which is afraid is in situation of passive receptivity, and admits the idea more easily than one wants to inculcate to him. For example, Joseph Goebbels exploited the sentence of Theodore Kaufman, “Germany must perish!” , to affirm that the purpose of the Allies are the extermination of the German people.

Call to the authority : the call to the authority consists in quoting important characters to support an idea, an argument, or a policy.

Testimony : testimonys are mentions, in or out of the context, particularly quoted to support or reject a policy, an action, a program, or a given personality. Reputation (or the role: expert, respected public figure, etc) of the individual are also exploited. Testimonys mark seal of the respectability the message of propaganda.

Effect moutonnier : this call tries to persuade the audience to adopt an idea by insinuating that an irresistible movement of mass is already elsewhere committed for this idea. As everyone prefers being in the camp of the winners that in the minority which will be crushed, this technique makes it possible to prepare the audience to follow the propagandist.

Redefinition , revisionism : consist in redefining words or falsifying the history in way partisane.

To obtain the disapproval : this technique consists in suggesting that an idea or an action is adopted by an unfavourable group, so that the audience disapproves this idea or this action without really studying it. Thus, if a group which supports a policy is carried out to believe that the people undesirable, subversive, or méprisables also support it, the members of the group are more inclined to change opinion.

dazzling General information and virtuous words : the general information can cause an intense emotion in the audience. For example, to call upon the love of the fatherland, the desire of peace, freedom, glory, justice, the honor, the purity, etc, allows to kill the critical spirit of the audience. Even if these words and these expressions are concepts whose definitions vary according to the individuals, them connotation is always favorable. So that, by association, the concepts and the programs of the propagandist will be perceived like quite as imposing, good, desirable and virtuous.

intentional Inaccuracy : it is a question of bringing back facts by deforming them or of quoting statistics without indicating the sources of them. The intention is to give to the speech contents scientific appearance, without making it possible to analyze its validity or its applicability. These inaccuracies can slip into the legal system, in the form of a soft Droit, pushing with the Communication in order to obtain information, while influencing the Public opinion.

Transfer: this technique is used to project positive or negative qualities of a person, an entity, an object or a value (an individual, a group, an organization, a nation, a patriotism, etc) on a third, in order to make more this second entity (or less) acceptable. This technique is used, for example, to transfer the blame from one camp to the other, at the time of a conflict. It evokes an emotive answer which stimulates the target so that it is identified with the recognized authority.

exaggerated Simplification : they are general information employed to provide simple answers to problems social, political, economic, or complex soldiers.

Quidam : to gain the confidence of his audience, the propagandist employs the level of language and the manners (clothing, gestures) of an ordinary person . By projection, the audience is at once more inclined to accept the positions of the propagandist, since this one resembles to him.

To stereotype or to label : this technique uses the prejudices and the stereotypes of the audience to push it to reject the object of the propaganda campaign.

Scapegoat : by throwing the anathema on an individual or a group of individuals, marked wrongly to be responsible for a problem real (or supposed), the propagandist can avoid speaking about responsible truths, and the problem itself does not have to look further into.

Slogan S : a slogan is a short expression, easy to memorize and thus to recognize, which makes it possible to leave a trace in all the spirits.

semantic Slip : technique consisting in replacing an expression by another in order to discharging it from very contained emotional and to empty it of its direction (euphemism). The semantic slip can contrary reinforcing the expressive force for better moving the audience. Examples: " strike aérienne" in the place of " bombardement" , " damage collatéraux" in the place of " victims civiles" , " libéralisme" in the place of " capitalisme" , " law of the jungle" in the place of " libéralisme" , " solidarité" in the place d'" impôt" , " pedagogy préventive" in the place of " repression policière" , " humane intervention préventive" in the place d'" military intervention " , " Fast Food" in the place of " food infecte".

These methods were analyzed between two wars by a group of American scientists gathered around the Institute for the analysis of propaganda ( Institute for Propaganda Analysis ) in order to learn how with the public to detect the techniques of propaganda in time of war or times of peace and to preserve some. One of the members of Ipa, Clyde Miller synthesized while speaking about four levers:

1. Lever of adhesion ( virtue device ) to make accept a person, an idea or a party like “good” by associating it with “good” words or symbols

2. Lever of rejection ( poison device ): the operation reverses with symbols of the evil or hated values.

3. Lever of authority ( testimonial device ): to recover the prestige of a man or an institution or to exaggerate the exemplary value of a case to make approve or reject.

4. Lever of conformity ( together device ) which calls upon the weight of the mass of the partisans or the membership of a higher entity, Nation, Église to obtain adhesion.

This theoretical diagram is not extreme refinement, but it describes a daily practice rather well.

There too one will compare with interest with a grid of the Fifties exposed by J.M. Domenach. For him, propaganda supposes:

1) the simplification and the choice of a single enemy

2) the enlargement and the disfiguration of the facts (what does not mean the systematic lie: less propaganda is likely to be contradicted and shown faking, plus it is effective)

3) the orchestration in the repetition of the main themes,

4) the “transfusion” which is the use of the preexistent myths and collective affects mobilized with the service of the cause

5) The principle of unanimity and contagion: the pressure conformist of the group on the individual

Approach of the social psychologists

A reflection on propaganda is not absent from work of social Psychologie. Authors like Pratkanis and Aronson, with their Old work off propaganda of 1992, synthesize tens of years of experimental research on the influences and persuasion. More recently, Jean-Leon Beauvois, in the liberal illusions in 2005, notes at the same time that the word “propaganda” became during second half of the 20th century a word with strongly negative connotation and that in parallel the democracies cannot do without persuasive actions (or debates) under penalty of sinking in a form of quiet totalitarianism. The capacity, or the various capacities, seeks according to him a form of propaganda which is democratically acceptable and which causes well, like propaganda traditional, black, white or gray, to propagate ideas, values and beliefs in a population. The concept of “glaucous propaganda” that he proposes gives an account of this double requirement: it is about an activity of propagation being carried out by means of unconscious influences as those which describe psychological sciences (cognitive psychology in particular). This propaganda realizes in favor of certain opinions and values of the effects known and studied in the experimental situations: effect of starting ( priming ), of simple exposure, évaluatif conditioning, modelling ( modeling ). For example, the fact of regularly presenting public services which go well like “companies” and their director like “truths” heads of undertaking, learns how by modelling with the population more to consider them with the attributes of the public services. A characteristic of this form of propaganda is that it can be carried out in a not deliberated way. Always according to Beauvois, it is particularly active in the liberal democracies where the media are the property of some great industry groups and financial. He insists on the fact that this type of propaganda is the characteristic of a nonpluralist media system in which journalists can however continue to affirm and post their deontology.

See too

Internal bonds

Source

  • O'Donnell, Victoria, Propaganda and persuasion

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