Propaganda Essay, Research Paper

PropagandaHave you ever seen a TV commercial portraying a disastrous automobile accident,and then you reminds you to wear your seatbealts?!?! Believe it or not, that’s using atechnique in propaganda called the fear appeal. Propaganda is more widespread than people picture. Propaganda is being used foreverything from the baby food you feed your child to the TV commercial you laughed atyesterday night. There are many techniques that a propagandist can use to seduce you. Some of thebest known styles in propaganda are Plain Folk, Fear, Name Calling, and GlitteringGenerality,In this year’s elections, propaganda has played an important role in who waselected. This year’s presidential candidates were all millionaires, but they have gone togreat lengths to present themselves as ordinary citizens. Bill Clinton eats at Mc Donald’sand read a variety of spy novels. Bob Dole presents himself as the “all American boy”from the Heartland. In this two examples the plain folk device is at work. When either presidential candidates agitates the public’s fear of immigration, taxes,or crime and voting for him will reduce the threat he is using the Fear Appeal. By playingon the public’s deep-seated fears, practitioners of this technique hopes to redirect themerits of a proposal and towards steps that can be taken to reduce the fear. Propaganda has had a tremendously powerful role in the history of the world and inour own development. It has stirred both men and women to unprecedented feats andruined reputations.What comes to mind when you think of a racist person? I imagine an angry white

male with a Ku Kux Klan costume. I rarely think of the other racists, theAfrican-Americans, the Latino-Americans, the Asian-Americans and the rest of whombelieve they are the superior race. Why do people as myself picture this image when wethink of a racist person? I’ll tell you so, it’s because we have been “trained” to make thepresumption racist equals white male in kkk costume. That’s the Name Calling device atwork! It links a person to a negative idea or symbol.Glittering Generality is in short Name Calling in reverse, while the Name Callingdevice ties a person to a negative idea, the Glittering Generality technique makes usapprove and except something without careful examination. Since war is especially distasteful, the military is of course full of euphemisms. Inthe 1940’s the US changed the name of the War Department to the Department of Defense. During the Reagon Administration, the MX-Missile, a nuclear weapon, was re-named “ThePeacekeeper”.In conclusion, as Alfred Lee once said, ” Propaganda is opinion expressed for thepurpose of influencing actions of individuals or groups… Propaganda thus differsfundamentally from scientific analysis. The propagandist tries to “put something across,”good or bad. The scientist does not try to put anything across; he devotes his life to thediscovery of new facts and principles. The propagandist seldom wants careful scrutiny andcriticism; his object is to bring about a specific action. The scientist, on the other hand, isalways prepared for and wants the most careful scrutiny and criticism of his facts andideas. Science flourishes on criticism. Dangerous propaganda crumbles before it.”