PROPAGANDA:Types in another manner, Propaganda in revolutions

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Introduction to Mass Communication MCM 101

LESSON 29

PROPAGANDA

Message conveyed in order to support and spread a particular opinion or point of view, engaging

the emotions of the audience. In another manner it could be said as the planned dissemination of news,

information, special arguments, and appeals designed to influence the beliefs, thoughts, and actions of a

specific group."

The term propaganda carries many definitions. Harold Lasswell, a pioneer of propaganda studies, defines it

as "the management of collective attitudes by the manipulation of significant symbols." Like other social

scientists, he emphasizes its psychological elements: propaganda was a subconscious manipulation of

psychological symbols to accomplish secret objectives. Subsequent analysts stressed that propaganda was a

planned and deliberate act of opinion management.

History

The term comes from Congregatio de Propaganda Fide (Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith), a

missionary organization established by the Pope in 1622. Propagandists emphasize the elements of

information that support their position and de-emphasize or exclude those that do not. Misleading

statements and even lies may be used to create the desired effect in the public audience. Lobbying,

advertising, and missionary activity are all forms of propaganda, but the term is most commonly used in the

political arena.

Prior to the 20th century, pictures and the written media were the principal instruments of propaganda;

radio, television, motion pictures, and the internet later joined their ranks.

Interestingly, authoritarian and totalitarian regimes use propaganda to win and keep the support of the

populace. In wartime, propaganda directed by a country at its own civilian population and military forces

can boost morale; propaganda aimed at the enemy is an element of psychological warfare.

Types of Propaganda

Modern practitioners of propaganda utilize various schemes to classify different types of propaganda

activities. One such categorization classifies propaganda as:

White Propaganda

Grey Propaganda

Black Propaganda

White propaganda is correctly attributed to the sponsor and the source is truthfully identified. (The

government, Voice of America, for example, broadcasts white propaganda.)

Grey propaganda, on the other hand, is un-attributed to the sponsor and conceals the real source of the

propaganda. The objective of grey propaganda is to advance viewpoints that are in the interest of the

originator but that would be more acceptable to target audiences than official statements. The reasoning is

that propaganda materials from an identified propaganda agency might convince few, but the same ideas

presented by seemingly neutral outlets would be more persuasive.

Un-attributed publications, such as articles in newspapers written by a disguised source, are part of grey

propaganda. Other tactics involve wide dissemination of ideas put forth by others--by foreign

governments, by national and international media outlets, or by private groups, individuals, and institutions.

Grey propaganda also includes material assistance provided to groups that put forth views deemed useful to

the propagandist. This type is very common in news world. E.g. some people have expressed disliking on

or, people have appreciated government move to ban opposition rallies on the roads etc.

Black propaganda also masks the sponsor's participation. But while grey propaganda is un-attributed, black

propaganda is falsely attributed. Black propaganda is subversive and provocative; it is usually designed to

appear to have originated from a hostile source, in order to cause that source embarrassment, to damage its

Introduction to Mass Communication MCM 101

prestige, to undermine its credibility, or to get it to take actions that it might not otherwise. Black

propaganda is usually prepared by secret agents or an intelligence service because it would be damaging to

the originating government if it were discovered. It routinely employs underground newspapers, forged

documents, planted gossip or rumors, jokes, slogans, and visual symbols. For instance, a newspaper

publishes a letter by a prominent politician to another asking for certain action. The letter may serve

purpose of some interested group. The fact is that there has been no such letter ever existed. But damage

has been done especially if it is done during election days.

Types in another manner

Another categorization distinguishes between "fast" and "slow" propaganda operations, based on

the type of media employed and the immediacy of the effect desired. Fast media are designed to exert a

short-term impact on public opinion, while the use of slow media cultivates public opinion over the long

period. Fast media typically include radio, newspapers, speeches, television, moving pictures, and e-mail and

internet. These forms of communication are able to exert an almost instantaneous effect on selected

audiences.

Books, cultural exhibitions, and educational exchanges and activities, on the other hand are slow media that

seek to inculcate ideas and attitudes over time.

Revolution, War, and Propaganda to 1917

Propaganda has a long history. War propaganda is as ancient as war itself. Anthropologists have

unearthed evidence that primitive peoples used pictures and symbols to impress others with their hunting

and fighting capabilities. The Assyrian, Greek, and Roman empires employed storytelling, poems, religious

symbols, monuments, speeches, documents, and other means of communication to mobilize their armed

forces or demoralize those of their enemies. As early as the fifth century B.C., the Chinese military

philosopher Sun Tzu advocated various techniques to maintain fighting morale and to destroy the enemy's

will to fight. The nineteenth-century German military strategist Carl von Clausewitz identified psychological

forces as decisive elements of modern war.

Thus, propaganda is not, as it is sometimes believed, a twentieth-century phenomenon born of the

electronic communications revolution. Although the concept is often associated with dictatorship, political

propaganda has been an essential ingredient of the democratic process, as politicians and political parties

have employed a range of communication techniques to win public support for their ideas and policies.

Advertising & public relations used as propaganda

Similarly, countless private groups--from early antislavery societies to modern political action

committees--have turned to propaganda techniques to push their agendas. Advertising and public relations,

fields that came into fruition during the early twentieth century, have made commercial propaganda a

permanent feature of the cultural landscape.

Propaganda in revolutions

Propaganda and agitation were essential components of the American Revolution. Prior to the

outbreak of hostilities, propaganda played a pivotal role in creating the intellectual and psychological climate

of the revolution itself.

Philip Davidson, in his history of the propaganda of the American Revolution, documented a remarkably

sophisticated grasp of propaganda techniques among the leading organizers of the Revolution. The

evidence of a conscious, systematic effort by colonial leaders to gain public support for their ideas is

unmistakable. George Washington advocated the release of information "in a manner calculated to attract

the attention and impress the minds of the people." Thomas Paine was the Revolution's most famous (and

radical) propagandist. He wrote numerous pamphlets articulating with rhetorical to flourish the ideological

justification for the Revolution.

Several revolutionaries employed the tactics that would later be known as grey propaganda. They wrote

articles, letters, and pamphlets under pseudonyms to disguise their identities and to create the impression

Introduction to Mass Communication MCM 101

that opposition to British policies was much greater than it was. Samuel Adams, for example, wrote under

twenty-five different pseudonyms in numerous publications. Benjamin Franklin articulated a shrewd

understanding of the techniques of propaganda, including the use of grey and black materials. He remarked,

"The facility with which the same truths may be repeatedly enforced by placing them daily in different lights

in newspapers...gives a great chance of establishing them. And we now find that it is not only right to strike

while the iron is hot but that it may be very practicable to heat it by continually striking."

In 1777 he distributed a phony letter, purportedly written by a German commander of Hessian mercenaries, indicating that the

British government advised him to let wounded soldiers die. The letter caused a sensation in France and also induced numerous

desertions by the Hessian mercenaries. Franklin also forged an entire issue of the Boston Independent, which contained a

fabricated account of British scalp hunting. The story touched off a public uproar in Britain and was used by opposition

politicians to attack the conduct of the war. The historian Oliver Thomson described these efforts as "one of the most thorough

campaigns of diplomatic isolation by propaganda ever mounted."

World Wars - 19141945

Notwithstanding this early experience with propaganda, it was primarily the age of total war that

inducted Governments in to the business of propaganda. During World War I, national governments

employed propaganda on an unprecedented scale. The arrival of the modern mass media together with the

requirements of total war made propaganda an indispensable element of wartime mobilization. All of the

major belligerents turned to propaganda to woo neutrals, demoralize enemies, boost the morale of their

troops, and mobilize the support of civilians.

One of the most vital of all World War I propaganda battles was the struggle between Germany and Britain

for the sympathy of the American people. The German government organized a program of propaganda in

the United States that was so heavy-handed it did more to alienate American public opinion than to win it.

The British government, on the other hand, conducted most of its propaganda in the United States covertly,

through a secret propaganda bureau directed by the Foreign Office. The British adopted a low-key

approach that selectively released news and information to win American sympathies. The publication of

the Zimmerman telegram in 1917 (in which Germany sought to enlist Mexico in a war with the United

States) was undoubtedly the most important propaganda achievement of the British, and it helped to bring

the Americans into the war on the Allied side.

A week after declaring war, President Woodrow Wilson established the first official propaganda agency of

the U.S. government to manage public opinion at home and abroad--the Committee on Public

Information. Headed by the muckraking journalist George Creel, the committee was responsible for

censorship, propaganda, and general information about the war effort. The Creel committee focused on

mobilizing support on the home front, but it also conducted an extensive campaign of propaganda abroad,

overseeing operations in more than thirty overseas countries.

The committee bombarded foreign media outlets with news, official statements, and features on the war

effort and on American life, using leaflets, motion pictures, photographs, cartoons, posters, and signboards

to promote its messages. The committee established reading rooms abroad, brought foreign journalists to

the United States, crafted special appeals for teachers and labor groups, and sponsored lectures and

seminars.

Democratic governments & Propaganda

A series of investigations in the 1920s exposed the nature and scope of Britain's propaganda

campaign in the United States, including revelations that the British had fabricated numerous stories about

German atrocities. Many Americans came to blame British propaganda for bringing the United States into a

wasteful and ruinous war, and the practice of propaganda became associated with deceit and trickery. It was

thus in the aftermath of World War I that propaganda acquired its negative connotations--a development

that stemmed from the employment of propaganda by a democracy, not, as is generally supposed, from that

of a dictatorship.

Introduction to Mass Communication MCM 101

These propaganda campaigns affected the United States in other ways as well. The belief that Americans

had been tricked into participating in the First World War delayed U.S. intervention in the second.

Moreover, news of Nazi atrocities connected to the Holocaust were greeted incredulously by the American

public in part because of the exaggerated and fabricated atrocity propaganda released by the British two

decades earlier.

The development of radio revolutionized the practice of propaganda by making it possible to reach

audiences of unprecedented size instantaneously. A short-wave propaganda battle began in the mid-1920s as

the Soviet Union, Germany, Japan, and Britain developed international broadcasting capabilities.

In the early part of 1941, as war appeared imminent, Roosevelt created several additional agencies to

disseminate propaganda at home and abroad. In 1942 these various information programs were combined

into the Office of War Information (OWI) under the direction of the well-known journalist and broadcaster

Elmer Davis. Roosevelt also established the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the forerunner of the

Central Intelligence Agency, and authorized it to engage in black and gray propaganda abroad, mostly in

connection with military operations.

Psychological warfare a new name for propaganda

In December 1942, General Dwight D. Eisenhower created a separate psychological warfare

branch of the army to participate in the Allied invasion of North Africa. In 1944 he created an even larger

organization, the Psychological Warfare Division of the Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force,

to prepare propaganda for the D-Day invasion. Psychological warfare was especially important in the Pacific

theater, where U.S. propaganda sought to convince Japanese soldiers--who had been taught by their army

that to surrender meant relinquishing their place as members of Japanese society--to cease resistance.

Cold War

In 1950, Truman called for an intensified program of propaganda known as the Campaign of

Truth. In a speech delivered to the American Society of Newspaper Editors, Truman articulated the

perennial domestic justification for official U.S. propaganda: in order to combat enemy lies, the U.S. needed

to promote the truth. Under the Campaign of Truth cartoons depicting bloodthirsty communists,

vituperative anticommunist polemics, and sensational commentary was made at a massive scale.

In April 1951, Truman created the Psychological Strategy Board to coordinate the American psychological

warfare effort. The board acted as a coordinating body for all nonmilitary Cold War activities, including

covert operations. It supervised programs for aggressive clandestine warfare and propaganda measures

against the Soviet bloc and it developed "psychological strategy" plans for dozens of countries in Western

Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. By the time Truman left office, the U.S. government had established a

far-reaching apparatus for influencing public opinion in both friendly and hostile countries.

The CIA also conducted clandestine propaganda operations in allied and neutral areas. The agency

subsidized noncommunist labor unions, journalists, political parties, politicians, and student groups. In

Western Europe the CIA conducted a secret program of cultural and ideological propaganda through the

Congress for Cultural Freedom, a purportedly private, but CIA-funded, organization that supported the

work of anticommunist liberals. Through the Congress for Cultural Freedom, the agency published more

than twenty prestigious magazines, held art exhibitions, operated a news and feature service, organized high-

profile international conferences, published numerous books, and sponsored public performances by

musicians and artists.

During the Korean War, sensationalized charges that the United States had been waging bacteriological warfare, accounts of

Soviet brainwashing techniques, and communist-inspired "peace" campaigns, focused American attention on psychological

warfare as a mysterious Cold War weapon. During the 1952 presidential campaign, Eisenhower repeatedly called for an

expansive and coordinated psychological warfare effort on a national scale. In San Francisco he delivered a major speech on the

subject, arguing that every significant act of government should reflect psychological warfare calculations. He emphasized that the

Cold War was a struggle of ideas and argued that the United States must develop every psychological weapon available to win

the hearts and minds of the world's peoples

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Introduction to Mass Communication MCM 101

Propaganda, Diplomacy, and International Public Opinion

The Cold War inaugurated a paradigm shift in the practice of diplomacy that reflected changes in

the nature of diplomatic activity worldwide. Through propaganda, policy initiatives, and covert action,

agents of the governments acted directly to influence the ideas, values, beliefs, opinions, actions, politics,

and culture of other countries. Foreign affairs personnel not only observed and reported, they also

participated in events or tried to influence the way that they happened. The old maxim that one government

does not interfere in the internal affairs of another had been swept aside.

The pattern of international relations was further transformed by the electronic communications revolution

and the emergence of popular opinion as a significant force in foreign affairs. Foreign policy could no

longer be pursued as it had during the nineteenth century, when diplomacy was the exclusive area of

diplomats. Developments in mass communication and the increased attentiveness to domestic audiences

abroad to foreign affairs meant that the target of diplomacy had now widened to include popular opinion as

much, if not more so, than traditional diplomatic activities.

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