Propaganda

Propaganda is "any form of communication in support of national objectives designed to influence the opinions, emotions, attitudes, or behavior of any group in order to benefit the sponsor, either directly or indirectly". Governments have always tried to control people. Those in authority want control of the people’s hearts, minds and allegiances, and block or censor dissident voices. Probably every conflict is fought on at least two grounds: the battlefield and the minds of the people via propaganda. The “good guys” and the “bad guys” can often both be guilty of misleading their people with distortions, exaggerations, subjectivity, inaccuracy and even fabrications, in order to receive support and a sense of legitimacy. The good guise and the bad guise. Black and white. A fight for supremacy, for government. The king is dead, long live the king. We can learn how their game is played for how to deal with (counteract) these propaganda wars .

The term “propaganda” first came into common use in Europe as a result of Pope Gregory XV creating the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith. This was a commission of cardinals charged with spreading the faith and regulating church affairs in heathen lands. A College of Propaganda was set up to train priests for the missions. The word came into common use again when World War I began.

No matter the word used, the battle for our minds is as old as human history. The Greeks had games, theater, assembly, law courts, and festivals for propagandising ideas and beliefs. The conflict between kings and Parliament in England was a struggle in which propaganda was involved. Propaganda was one of the weapons used in the movement for American independence, and in the French Revolution.

In western nations, most people believe propaganda happens in other nations. Meanwhile the military-industrial-machine is rife with propaganda, and it is not always easy to detect, or when detected, to find the source of it, and exactly why it is done. Not impossible tho.

The Institute for Propaganda Analysis (IPA)

In 1936 Boston merchant Edward Filene helped establish the short-lived Institute for Propaganda Analysis which sought to educate Americans to recognize propaganda techniques. Although it did not last long, they did produce a list of seven propaganda methods that have become something of a standard.

• Bandwagon: Pump up the value of 'joining the party'.
• Card-stacking: Build a highly-biased case for your position.
• Glittering Generalities: Use power words to evoke emotions.
• Name-calling: Denigrating opponents.
• Plain Folks: Making the leader seem ordinary increases trust and credibility.
• Testimonial: The testimony of an independent person is seen as more trustworthy.
• Transfer: Associate the leader with trusted others.

Rewriting history

Most (if not all) of the techniques used in rewriting history (revisionism) are for deception or denial and vary from using forged documents (the fog) as genuine sources (or inventing reasons to distrust genuine documents), to exploiting opinions by taking them out of their historical context.

Disinformation

Unlike traditional propaganda techniques designed to engage emotional support, disinformation is designed to manipulate the audience at the rational level by either discrediting conflicting information or supporting false conclusions.

Sleeper effect

The impact of a persuasive message will generally tend to decrease over time. A sleeper effect takes place in a situation when effects of a persuasive message are stronger when more time passes.

Countermoves

Learn how propaganda and fallacies work to detect it. Some is just fluffy with no harmful intent, and some is extremely harmful. Then if and when you feel like it (see the underminers mindset) counteract harmful propaganda with propaganda without becoming the petty tyrant you fight. Note that authorities can not easily deal with not being taken serious.

Sleeper effect

When making a decision based on specific evidence,deliberately recall the source and hence credibility of the data.

Related

• Covert operations
• Psychological warfare

News and watchdogs

• FAIR http://fair.org/
• PR Watch http://www.prwatch.org/
• SpinWatch http://www.spinwatch.org/

Books

Fallacies

• How to Detect Propaganda (pdf) - Adapted from: The Institute for Propaganda Analysis, 1937 http://www.mindivogel.com/uploads/1/1/3/9/11394148/how_to_detect_propaganda.pdf
• Love is a Fallacy (pdf) - story by by Max Shulman p.10 https://www.dartmouth.edu/~aporia/spring08.pdf
• Propaganda and debating techniques http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-propaganda.html

Sleeper Effect

• The Influence of Speaker Credibility on Information Recall (pdf) - Michael E. Corrie http://www.uwlax.edu/urc/JUR-online/PDF/2003/corrie.pdf
• Detecting and Explaining the Sleeper Effect (pdf) - Darlene B. Hannah & Brian Sternthal http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.455.3259&rep=rep1&type=pdf
• The Sleeper Effect in Persuasion: A Meta-Analytic Review (pdf) - Tarcan Kumkale and Dolores Albarracın http://home.ku.edu.tr/~tkumkale/sleeper.pdf