Propaganda Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

In previous centuries, the verb to propagate meant to transmit faith to people who otherwise were seen as “lost” forever; thus, for Catholics—as established in the Catholic Congregatio de Propaganda fides in 1622—propaganda was seen as a service given to pagans and tribes who believed in magic and other superstitions. In the twentieth century, in a modern, political sense, propaganda was understood as transmitting convincing messages (i.e., not always true, but not necessarily false) or communicating one single ideology in order to persuade audiences—individuals or groups, political leaders, or the media—and, finally, to influence public opinion. Therefore, propaganda does not necessarily alter reality into a message, but rather organizes facts, images, formulas, testimonies, and reasonings according to a certain ideology or worldview.

In 1948, in the aftermath of World War II (1939–1945), the United Nations Conference on Freedom of Information defined bad propaganda as information “either designed or likely to provoke or encourage any threat to the peace, breach of peace, or act of aggression” (Alleyne, 96). Propaganda did not only exist in religious or political speeches, or in the media; for example, in France in the 1930s there was an association de propagande pour le vin, a kind of trade union that promoted the consumption of French wines in restaurants. And at the time of the 1917 Russian Revolution, the agit-prop, which mixed the words agitation and propaganda, helped the proletariat to express in spontaneous and provocative ways the new political slogans of the day.

Even though propaganda was already used in many countries during World War I (1914–1918), Nazism was seen as the era of propaganda at its worst, though also its most efficient. Even during the prewar years (1933–1939), the Third Reich had a ministry dedicated solely to propaganda, led by Reich minister Joseph Goebbels and, among many collaborators, Reich press chief Otto Dietrich. From 1933, the Third Reich’s school system and media, including the whole German film industry, were controlled by the Nazi regime, which produced (among many others) the famous documentary Triumph of the Will (1935), directed by popular German actress Leni Riefenstahl (1902–2003). From a technical point of view, her use of camera angles, editing, and collective symbols was innovative in many ways; it contributed to turn Adolf Hitler into a popular hero and suggested that Nazi ideology was deeply rooted in the Germanic traditions, folklore, and people, and therefore was part of a logical, historical continuity. However, dozens of feature films (e.g.,Veit Harlan’s Jüd Suss, in 1942) and many German popular magazines also promoted anti-Semitism and hate propaganda.

While in Paris in 1939, Sergeï Chakotin released an enormous book titled Le Viol des Foules parla Propagande Politique (translated the following year into an abridged version, The Rape of the Masses: The Psychology of Totalitarian Political Propaganda). Perhaps the most famous book on propaganda, Chakotin’s anti-Nazi study analyzed the Hitlerian messages from the mid-1930s, using a behaviorist approach owing much to Ivan Pavlov. Just after its release, the book was banned in France even before the German occupation in 1939, because the French authorities did not want to offend the German government. However, Chakotin did not oppose the use of propaganda per se; he even concluded his classic book by advocating for a “good propaganda” that was against all totalitarian regimes but “at the service of the ideal of socialism.”

Between 1939 and 1945, wartime propaganda was just about everywhere, including the United States, which produced a variety of movies, documentaries, newsreels, and posters to counter enemy propaganda. Filmmaker John Ford directed The Battle of Midway (1942), about the Japanese attacks on the U.S. military, and Frank Capra produced The Negro Soldier (1942) in order to give a positive image of African Americans who served in the U.S. Army. European émigrés like Fritz Lang (Ministry of Fear, 1944) and Alfred Hitchcock (Saboteur, 1942) directed anti-Nazi films in Hollywood. Countless posters were created in countries that did not directly suffer from war, with messages asking people to remain discreet about their relatives who were serving in the army abroad, reminding the average citizen that “foreign ears could be listening to them.”

While living in the United States during World War II, German theoreticians Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno studied the Nazi propaganda and media bias in their classic text Dialectic of Enlightenment, which remains the most influential study emerging from the group of scholars known as the Frankfurt school. In an addendum to their book, the sociologists criticized not only propaganda but advertising as well; they were even suspicious of propaganda for freedom. Since the end of World War II, many historians and media experts have studied Nazi propaganda; exhibitions in museums and memorials have analyzed and deconstructed its strategies and acknowledged its influence.

The cold war was another era for academic research on propaganda techniques. Harold D. Lasswell was among the first theoreticians to study propaganda and mass communication. His 1948 formula for considering the origins of any given message, the audience that is targeted, and the ways in which the message is sent—“Who says what, to whom, through which channel, and with which effects?”—is well known. Other sociologists doing research on propaganda were Paul F. Lazarsfeld and Robert King Merton.

In his classic 1962 book Propagandes, French theoretician and historian of propaganda Jacques Ellul explained that propaganda could only be studied and understood in a specific cultural and historical context. This is why most examples of propaganda coming from other countries, different cultures, or previous decades often seem naive or pointless for today’s observers.

Questioning The Feasibility Of “Good” Propaganda

After the end of World War II, the term propaganda became pejorative and was used as an accusation. For example, in 2007 Canadian scholar Tim Patterson, at Carleton University in Ottawa, accused Davis Guggenheim and Al Gore’s 2006 documentary An Inconvenient Truth of being propaganda rather than an informative or educational film. The filmmakers championed only one side of the global warming debate, he claimed, and disqualified their opponents by calling them “so-called skeptics.” In recent decades, as John Michale documents in his book Communication and Change (2004), communication strategies made in Western countries took other names, like publicity, advertising, public information, public relations campaigns, or advocacy. In itself, hate propaganda is actually forbidden by law in countries such as Canada.

In democratic countries, election campaigns use communication strategies that sometimes seem similar to the old propaganda techniques in order to persuade populations, especially undecided voters. As editors Frank Esser and Barbara Pfetsch illustrate in Comparing Political Communication (2004), the use of symbols and positive images for candidates, but also negative images given to opponents—plus assessments of candidates made by credible celebrities—are critical and often efficient.

Propaganda Today

Today, and especially since 1948, institutions and governments no longer use the ter m propaganda when communicating with citizens or targeting specific groups. The label political propaganda is used instead to target or condemn an opponent’s strategy. For example, in the 1980s the Reagan administration accused Canada of implementing political propaganda when three Canadian documentaries were presented in Washington, D.C. These short films on environmental issues included If You Love This Planet (1980), an antinuclear conference directed by Terri Nash; Acid Rain Requiem or Recovery (1982), by Seaton Findlay; and Acid from Heaven (1982), by George Mully. However, in September 1983 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that this “propaganda” label was unconstitutional.

One question remains regarding instances when a minister or an agency wants to send a “positive” message to help the population or to change bad habits. For example, what if policymakers need to express a vital message that says “don’t drink and drive” to teenagers? In those cases, strategists aiming for social change on sensitive issues declare they plan awareness campaigns or awareness-building campaigns—interestingly, in French-speaking countries officials and politicians call these campagnes de sensibilisation.

Another question concerns whether institutions should use propaganda for a “good cause.” In his book Global Lies? Propaganda, the UN, and the World Order (2003), Mark Alleyne argues that the Department of Public Information of the United Nations constantly used propaganda even after the United Nations Conference on Freedom of Information in 1948.This tied to various subsequent campaigns related to so-called good causes like human rights, AIDS awareness, and the international campaign to free Nelson Mandela.

In recent decades, research has gone beyond propaganda and counterpropaganda. For example, in Manufacturing Consent (1988), Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky argue that the United States is a country where propaganda has been replaced by prop-agenda, which implies that many political topics are always avoided in the public sphere and in the mainstream media.

Another subtle form of propaganda is disinformation; even if this term seems newer or lesser known, this strategy has existed since the works of Chinese author Sun Tzu, who lived sixth century BCE. Disinformation implies the fabrication of a deliberately false message, sometimes with manipulated photographs, in order to propagate false news or misleading information.

In questioning what can save citizens in democracies from being bombarded virtually every day by propaganda-like messages or similar one-sided perspectives, the fact is that living in pluralistic systems allows various opinions to coexist, be challenged, and debated. In theory, propaganda operates in the name of one sole ideology; hence, propaganda is an essential means by which totalitarian regimes legitimize their actions and maintain their existence. Such regimes can use the specter of a common enemy or an eternal opponent to the nation as a constant means to demonize other civilizations or nations and therefore validate their own system. For example, in the twenty-first century, anti-Americanism remains the ideological foundation for propaganda in nondemocratic countries. And, sadly, as French political philosopher Pierre-André Taguieff points out in his book La Nouvelle Propagande Anti-Juive (2010), new forms of anti-Semitism and anti-Jewish propaganda have appeared in recent years.

Bibliography:

Alleyne, Mark D. Global Lies? Propaganda, the UN, and the World Order. Basingstoke, U.K.: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.
Chakotin, Sergeï. The Rape of the Masses: The Psychology of Totalitarian Political Propaganda. Translated by E.W. Dickes. New York: Fortean Society, 1940.
Ellul, Jacques Ellul. Propagandes. Paris: Économica, 1990.
Esser, Frank, and Barbara Pfetsch, eds. Comparing Political Communication: Theories, Cases, and Challenges. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
Herman, Edward S., and Noam Chomsky. Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. New York, Pantheon Books, 1988.
Horkheimer, Max, and Theodor Adorno. Dialectic of Enlightenment. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002.
Lazarsfeld, Paul F., and Robert King Merton. “Studies in Radio and Film Propaganda.” In Social Theory and Social Structure, edited by Robert K. Merton, 265–285. Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1949.
Luckert, Steven, Susan Bachrach, and Edward Phillips. State of Deception: The Power of Nazi Propaganda. Washington, D.C.: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2009.
Michale, John P. Communication and Change: Strategies of Social and Political Advocates. Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2004.
Taguieff, Pierre-André. La Nouvelle Propagande Anti-Juive. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2010.

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