Understanding Propaganda: Identifying Bias, Stereotyping, and Manipulative Techniques

2. TCAP GOALS: • Identify instances of bias and stereotyping in print and nonprint contexts. • Recognize and identify the techniques of propaganda (i.e., bandwagon, loaded words, and testimonials).

3. Propaganda: Information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote a political cause or point of view (Concise Oxford English Dictionary)

4. Propaganda refers to a type of message aimed at influencing opinions and/or the behavior of people. Propaganda may provide only partial information or be deliberately misleading information. Propaganda techniques are often found on television and radio, as well as magazines and newspapers.

5. "At its root, propaganda plays on emotions, often defying reason and facts in order to reach into the psyche of the audience. Propaganda is a mind game — the skillful propagandist plays with your deepest emotions, exploiting your greatest fears and prejudices."

6. Spin became a common addition to our language in the 1980s. Its exact origin is uncertain, but it is often used to describe putting a 'positive spin' on events or situations. If we control the spin, or direction, of an object, we are showing sides of it we want to show while not shedding light on the rest. Therefore, spin can emphasize or exaggerate the most positive aspect of something. For example, cigarette companies sell products known to be harmful, which can make them look bad. However, if they also provide funding for charitable events, or build community playgrounds, this can make them look good. Such examples of corporate social responsibility is corporate spin to promote the company to the public through the media.

7. SOME TYPES OF PROPAGANDA…

8. • Glittering generalities: A glittering generality seeks to make us approve and accept without examining the evidence; Glittering generalities include phrases such as “We believe in”, “fight for”, and “live by virtue”. They also include words about which we have deep-set ideas, such as civilization, Christianity, good, proper, right, democracy, patriotism, motherhood, fatherhood, science, medicine, health, and love.

9. • Testimonials: Famous people or figures who appear trustworthy speak to the audience

10. • Bandwagon: The basic theme of the band wagon appeal is that "everyone else is doing it, and so should you." Example: Everyone in Happy City is behind Jim Duffie for Mayor. Shouldn't you be part of this winning team?

11. • Plain-folks: By using the plain-folks technique, speakers attempt to convince their audience that they, and their ideas, are "of the people.” This is a recommendation from a plain, ordinary, non famous person who tells the reader or viewer that the product worked for him or her. Therefore, it will would for you.

12. • Scientific approach: Using scientific jargon (i.e. numbers, statistics, data, etc.) to convince your audience

13. • Transfer: Transfer employs the use of symbols, quotes or the images of famous people to convey a message not necessarily associated with them. In the use of transfer, the candidate/speaker attempts to persuade us through the indirect use of something we respect, such as a patriotic or religious image, to promote his/her ideas. Religious and patriotic images may be the most commonly used in this propaganda technique but they are not alone. Sometimes even science becomes the means to transfer the message. • The environmentalist group PEOPLE PROMOTING PLANTS, in its attempt to prevent a highway from destroying the natural habitat of thousands of plant species, produces a television ad with a "scientist" in a white lab coat explaining the dramatic consequences of altering the food chain by destroying this habitat.

14. • Card stacking: Only presenting one side of the issue/situation

15. • Name-calling: The name-calling technique links a person, or idea, to a negative symbol. The propagandist who uses this technique hopes that the audience will reject the person or the idea on the basis of the negative symbol, instead of looking at the available evidence.

16. • Euphemisms: The propagandist attempts to pacify the audience in order to make an unpleasant reality more palatable. This is accomplished by substituting an inoffensive term (such as “pre-owned") for one considered offensively explicit (“second-hand or used"). Since war is particularly unpleasant, military discourse is full of euphemisms. In the 1940's, America changed the name of the War Department to the Department of Defense.

17. • Snob appeal: Giving the impression that people of wealth and prestige support an idea

18. • Emotional appeal (i.e. fear): Appealing to the emotions of your audience. For example, when a propagandist warns members of her audience that disaster will result if they do not follow a particular course of action, she is using fear appeal.

20. List the types of propaganda/spin used in this ad.

21. The text reads: Introducing the new Chevy Tracker LT with a V6 engine. With all that power, a steel ladder-type frame and available four-wheel drive. There’s plenty of confidence to go around. It thinks big. Tracker…Like a Rock

23. President Obama's Stimulus Plan Speech on February 9, 2009

24. THE FEW, THE PROUD, THE MARINES MILITARY ADVERTISING

28. He went to Jared.

33. "The Jew: The inciter of war, the prolonger of war."

37. DEPARTMENT OF WAR BECAME THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE IN THE 1940S • THE FINAL SOLUTION • CORPORATE DOWNSIZING • GROUND ZERO

38. You are about to experience truth -- someone's version of it. Several years ago a now-infamous incident occurred in the world of professional basketball. The participants included a basketball player, a referee, a cadre of players and coaches, and ten thousand or so fans. You are about to read two different versions of the same incident. You will likely see some differences between them, although the differences lay not so much in matters of "fact" as in the strategic use of words. As you read them, consider the effect that each version is likely to have on audiences who did not actually witness the event(s), and, who experienced only a single written version. 

39. Version #1 • Chicago Bulls forward Dennis Rodman faces yet another suspension by the NBA for his dangerous tirade in Saturday night's game at Chicago. Rodman was ejected with 1:31 left in the first quarter after receiving his second technical foul. Rodman then proceeded to head-butt referee Ted Bernhardt, catching him just above the left eye. In typical fashion, Rodman then ripped off his shirt and stormed around the court, pausing briefly to knock over a water cooler in front of a group of stunned young boys before finally leaving.

40. Version #2 • Chicago Bulls forward Dennis Rodman faces a suspension by the NBA for his wild and theatrical behavior in Saturday night's game at New Jersey. Rodman was given his notice of leave with 1:31 left in the first quarter of Saturday's game after receiving his second technical foul. Rodman appeared to have bumped an official during a heated discussion over the foul. Consistent with past heroics, and to the delight of the Chicago faithful, Rodman then removed his shirt as he paraded around the court before finally exiting stage left into his team's locker room.

41. We must therefore always ask, “What has been left out of this article?” “What would I think if different facts had been highlighted here?” “What if this article had been written by those who hold a point of view opposite to the one embedded in the story as told?”

42. ACTIVITY TWO: CREATE AN AD FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF A BIASED GROUP, A GROUP THAT DOESN’T STAY NUETRAL BUT SHOWS FAVORITISM • Middle School of America Newsflash: • As of next month, all snack machines are being removed from school premises. • Assignment: Create a full-page ad (about the above announcement) for the school newspaper from the point of view of one of the groups below. Plan your rough draft on notebook paper and put your final copy on the blank, last page at the end of this packet. Your ad must include the following: two of the propaganda/spin techniques from page one / label these (25 points), a colored illustration (25 points), • • Group 1: School staff (principals or teachers) who are tired of the snack machines getting knocked over and vandalized • • Group 2: Student health advocacy group called “Making Better Choices” • • Group 3: Student athletes, who raid the snack machines daily when starving after practice • • Group 4: 8th graders who can’t leave campus for lunch and despise the cafeteria food • • Group 5: Cheerleaders who have been advocating for low calorie and fat-free snacks to be put in the vending machines • • Group 6: The Booster Club, who has relied on the proceeds from the vending machine to fund athletics (i.e. new uniforms, improved football field, etc.)