Propaganda Unit

Question 1

name calling technique

Answer 1

• links a person, or idea, to a negative symbol
• ex: using label of “terrorist”, “libtard”, “traitor”

Question 2

bandwagon technique

Answer 2

• the propagandist wants the audience to follow the crowd in masses, and directs his appeal to groups held together by common ties
• “everyone else is doing it, you should too”
• ex: Christian recruiters

Question 3

glittering generalities technique

Answer 3

• links a person, or idea, to a positive symbol—the words sound great, but they mean different things to different people
• encourages people to automatically accept an idea and avoid looking for actual evidence
• ex: using words such as liberty, dream, and family

Question 4

card stacking technique

Answer 4

• the presentation of only the details, statistics, and other information that impacts public opinion positively

Question 5

plain folks technique

Answer 5

• designed to get ordinary citizens to identify with a political candidate or other figure that they otherwise may have nothing in common with
• ex: Donald Trump eating fast food

Question 6

fear propaganda

Answer 6

• when a propagandist warns members of her audience that disaster will result if they do not follow a particular course of action
• propaganda based on fear is designed to scare people into choosing sides
• worse-case-scenarios are presented as horrible things to come
• ex: drinking,/ smoking and driving propaganda

Question 7

transfer technique

Answer 7

• a propagandist attempts to align themselves with a beloved symbol in an effort to transfer the status of the symbol to the cause they represent
• more subliminal messaging, which occurs when images or words are presented too quickly or abstractly for people to consciously recognize and process them
• ex: playing music when a political candidate walks out

Question 8

Political propaganda

Answer 8

• commonly used to recruit and retain voters via a seemingly endless stream of television commercials

Question 9

War propaganda

Answer 9

serves to
- Push opinions about wars—such as Hitler using films and radios to spread goals about the Nazis
- Demonize certain groups of people—Hitler’s characterization of Germans
- Encourage military enlistment—such as America’s “I Want You” posters depicting Uncle Sam
- Motivate people on the home front—such as Rosie the Riveter

Question 10

euphemism technique

Answer 10

• the propagandist seeks to pacify the audience by making an unpleasant reality more palatable by using bland and inoffensive words
• ex: America’s name changing of the War Department to the Department of Defense in the 1940s

Question 11

Testimonial technique

Answer 11

• consists in having some respected or hated person say that a given idea or program or product or person is good or bad

Question 12

Unwarranted extrapolation technique

Answer 12

• the tendency to make huge predictions about the future on the basis of a few small facts
• when a communicator attempts to convince you that a particular action will lead to disaster or utopia
• the driver who found three gas stations per mile along a stretch of the Montreal highway in Vermont, and concluded that there must be plenty of gas all the way to the North Pole

Question 13

“God terms”

Answer 13

• these terms seem to be the ultimate generator of force flowing down through many links of ancillary terms
• they validate any person, methodology, technology, or institution with which they are associated
• ex: progress, facts, American, efficiency

Question 14

“Devil terms”

Answer 14

• The counterpart to the “God term” is the “devil term”
• Ex: Un-American, rebel, prejudice

Question 15

PR

Answer 15

• Business now calls in the public relations counsel to advise it, to interpret its purpose to the public, and to suggest those modifications which may make it conform to the public demand
• The correct approach to a problem may be indirect, which PR figures out– propaganda is not always indirect

Question 16

Bernays’ view on propaganda

Answer 16

• cheerleader of propaganda; tells people what to think and makes people feel better when they buy things
• propaganda is the mechanism by which ideas are disseminated on a large scale, in the broad sense of an organized effort to spread a particular belief or doctrine
• This theory relies on “an individual’s mind sway[ing] unconsciously to be a member of a herd”; once we become in a “herd” we become more controllable with different desires
• the “group mind” has mental characteristics distinct from those of the individual; “group mind” is motivated by impulses and emotions which cannot be explained by individualistic psychology

Question 17

Ellul’s view on propaganda

Answer 17

• Deems propaganda as inevitable and ingrained in the masses; it is “a direct attack against man”
  from the beginning of an individual’s socialization process
• Education as “pre-propaganda”
• Propaganda appeals to the “Undecided”
• Modern propaganda relies on a modern man’s reliance on facts that is something good
• Way of life which one can’t break out of; like the Matrix
• Mass culture perpetuates uniformity and conformity

Question 18

Cunningham’s view on propaganda

Answer 18

• Skeptic; propaganda cuts off communication
• Neutrality thesis deems media as not inherently bad, but it is filled with negative motifs which propaganda push
• Conducts on research on how propaganda affects a person’s choices, behavior, and agency as opposed to propaganda’s morality
• Propaganda has a lack of commitment to factually or psychologically superior ideas

Question 19

advertising propaganda

Answer 19

• creates a status quo of a norm (or a going against of this norm which can be marketed (technique called “incorporation”)
• is both agitative (buying product) and integrative (seeing product while scrolling)

Question 20

media literacy questions (6)

Answer 20

• purpose: what is the purpose?
• context: what context is the propaganda made– does it want you to buy something?
• source: who’s the source and who’s the propaganda benefiting?
• audience: who’s t he audience and is critical thinking discouraged?
• means used: what strategies are employed, what medium is the propaganda on?
• effects: does audience meet the message? are there other objects of the propaganda?

Question 21

white propaganda

Answer 21

comes from a source that is identified correctly and the information in the message tends to be accurate, though the information is presented in a certain manner

Question 22

grey propaganda

Answer 22

somewhere in the middle, ask yourself:
- Do we know who it’s coming from?
- Do we know the purpose?
- Is it ethical?

Question 23

black propaganda

Answer 23

• credited to a false source and spreads lies, fabrications, and deceptions—black propaganda is “the big lie”
• ex: Nazi propaganda

Question 24

Integration propaganda

Answer 24

aims to make people adjust themselves to desired patterns

Question 25

Agitation propaganda

Answer 25

leads men from mere resentment to rebellion