What is Propaganda?

Politics and AestheticsWeek 6 Lecture 1

• Understand the classic and evolving definitions of propaganda

• Decipher fallacies in arguments, looking at how some questions can bear very confusing and irrelevant answers

• Understand techniques of political communication in national and international politics

To Propagate

• To make many plants from one original plant, the gardener snips off a plants shoots and puts them in the ground nearby. They grow into new plants. This is propagation.

• Hence, to propagate ideas, we use propaganda.• Propaganda is often used as a pejorative term:

at is simplest level, though, it means to spread ideas.

How Do We Define Propaganda? Part I

• Wait, isn’t rhetoric about propagating ideas?• Isn’t everything potentially about propagating ideas? (And

thus, all media?)• How do we define propaganda as different?• A partial rhetoric (Bryant, 1953)• An unethical rhetoric.• Rhetoric is about reason and argument – hence all the

rhetorical fallacies we noted in the last lecture fall outside rhetoric.

• Propaganda is something more than just persuasion, but something less than coercion or force.

Bryant’s “Spectrum of Influence”

Rhetoric Propaganda

Who is the audience? A person worthy of equal respect

A target or recipient of information

What kind of choice is being argued for?

A significant, informed choice A Limited Choice because audience will not be fully informed

What is the desired response? Thinking, reasoning Reactionary, taking action quickly.

What are the appropriate means?

Reason is primary: supported with logical and emotional appeals

Emotional appeal is primary

How does the communicator see himself/herself?

A co-participant, part of a dialogue

More important and above others.

Adapted from Bennett and O’Rourke, a “Prolegomenon to the Future study of Rhetoric and Propaganda” in Jowett and O’Donnel, Eds, “Readings in Propaganda and Persuasion.” Sage, London. 2006.

Definitions of Propaganda – Jacques Ellul

• “The aim of modern propaganda is no longer to modify ideas but to provoke action. It is no longer to change adherence to a doctrine, but to make the individual cling irrationally to a process of action…it is no longer to transform an opinion, but to arouse an active and mythical belief.” (Jacques Ellul)

Jacques Ellul

• “The propagandist does not normally address the individual’s intelligence, for the process of intellectual persuasion is long and uncertain…” (16)

• Rather, the propagandist appeals to…emotion.

Jacques Ellul

• Ellul distinguishes between political propaganda and sociological propaganda.

• Political Propaganda is what we will talk about today: much of it is quite obvious. Campaign ads. War propaganda, etc. But in coming weeks, and a little bit today, we will talk about

• Sociological Propaganda: “the means by which any society seeks to integrate…individuals and unify its members.” eg: religion, advertising itself, some would include ‘news’, public service announcements..

Is this propaganda?

• Social Propaganda? Educational film from 1958 in the United States about Popularity from Coronet Films, would be shown in school: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eqpe7Y_6rmQ

Propaganda in Politics - Methods

• White Propaganda: From a known source. The audience is aware of the political “angle” of the media.

• Black Propaganda: From an unidentified or mis-identified source. Could be one side posing as another. The audience is deliberately confused as to the political “angle”.

Examples of Propaganda in International Politics

• Black Propaganda (source is meant to be unclear):– Soviet government paid an academic to write a paper suggesting

HIV/AIDS had been developed in a secret plot by the American government.

• Grey Propaganda: (agenda is somewhat transparent) – A news service that appears independent but is government run

and partially political in content.• White propaganda: (source is clear as is message) hosting

the Olympics– [Opening Ceremony Beijing 2008:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUy9OgRRXnw ] Transparent, people know where its coming from.

Techniques• Focusing on some things and not

others.– Ex. During first war in Iraq, the US

wanted Iraqis to believe that they would invade through Kuwait.

– “Public affairs officers carefully drew the media’s attention to Marine exercises in the area.”

– Forces actually came in from the West across the desert as had been planned.

– Pentagon official: “We told no lies…The reporters wanted to believe what they saw and simply did not ask the right questions. More fool them.”

Macdonald, 11.

• Staging a photograph or a film.– Civil War photographs– 1898 – Battle of Manila Bay

shown in movie theater news reels filmed in a bathtub.

– Pancho Villa, Mexican revolutionary, “sold film rights to his battles…scheduled executions for the camera…restaged battles after the fighting had ended…”

• Staging a Film or Photograph

• 1944 – “The Fuehrer Gives the Jews a City” created for neutral states to show that relocated Jews were living happily (which was obviously not the case).

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sD90XrGe6E&feature=related

• Altering a photograph or film.– Iranian Missiles (2008)

Source: http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/10/in-an-iranian-image-a-missile-too-many/

• Altering a photograph or film:– 2004, Bush Campaign Ad

http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/photo_database/chronological/P90/

• Altering a photograph or film:– Gorbacev’s birthmark

On the left, the leader’s natural birthmark. Didn’t always appear on his official portraits, right.

• Photomontage

John Kerry supposedly next to anti-War activist Jane Fonda at a rally.

John Kerry, alone at a podium

• Photomontage– University alters photo to make it more “diverse”

• Photomontage – journalist alters photo for a better shot– -jour

This photograph was published in the LA Times. The photographer was ultimately fired.

Propaganda in War

• In a war incited in the media, should people fight back with the media?

• Case Study: Rwanda in 1994• Rwandan genocide incited over the radio.• Extremist seized an FM radio station, the RTLM (Free

Radio-Television of the Thousand Hills)– Incited violence against Tutsis, and also urged Hutus to

flee their homes.– This meant thousands of people panicked, living in

refugee camps.

• Radio was key in spreading the word – why didn’t anyone “counterattack” with radio?– UNAMIR’s head in the region, Canadian Major General

R.A. Dallaire, wrote: • “These broadcasts were …responsible for spreading panic…and

should have been jammed. The United Nations should have aired counter broadcasts to give the population a clear account of what was actually happening…yet…no country came forward to offer jamming or broadcasting assets.

• It later turned out the broadcasts were coming from one Radio transmitter in the back of someone’s Toyota – it could’ve easily been destroyed, but wasn’t.

Propaganda and Aesthetics

How Do We Define Propaganda, Part II

• How do we account for propaganda that is also art?

• Sharon Tuttle Ross’ “Epistemic Merit Model”• She defines propaganda as– “an epistemically defective message used with

the intention to persuade a socially significant group of people on behalf of a political institution, organization, or cause” (Tuttle 2003, 10)

1. An Epistemically Defective Message ARGUMENT is illogical, commits a rhetorical error of some kind.

2. Used with the intention to persuade INTENT is to convince someone of something

3. A socially significant group of people AUDIENCE is an important group of some kind. (I can’t create propaganda for an audience of just my Mother.)

4. On behalf of a political institution, organization, or cause.

PRODUCER is politically oriented.

Adapted from Sharon Tuttle Ross.

• Tuttle: “Messages presented through works of art…are not in the form of an argument but rather made through the use of icons, symbols, and metaphors.” (Tuttle 12)

• It’s critical to realize that art can be a source of knowledge and a source of misinformation at the same time.

Art and Propaganda Have a Long History Together

The Line Between Propaganda and Art?A US Newsreel, some Soviet Caroons, and The Triumph of the Will

US Propaganda Newsreels

• Political Propaganda US Propaganda Newsreel (1962) The Berlin Wall http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9mWgqYBZos

Soviet Propaganda Cartoons

• Black and White (1934) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7qiVMgom8g&p=37B751CC04FB3666

• Ave Maria (1960s) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lMhOtp62xc&p=37B751CC04FB3666

• Mister Twister (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4gUI9VUi4k )

• Which is your favorite and why?

Triumph of the Will

• Film by Leni Riefenstahl• Chronicles the 1934 Nazi

Party Congress in Nuremberg• Released in 1935• Film won many awards at the

time.

• Director Riefenstahl later said in an interview:– “My first reaction was to say that I did not know anything

about the way such a thing worked or the organization of the Party, so that I would obviously photograph all the wrong things and please nobody - even supposing that I could make a documentary, which I had never yet done. Hitler said that this was exactly why he wanted me to do it: because anyone who knew all about the relative importance of the various people and groups and so on might make a film that would be pedantically accurate, but this was not what he wanted. He wanted a film showing the Congress through a non-expert eye, selecting just what was most artistically satisfying - in terms of spectacle, I suppose you might say. He wanted a film which would move, appeal to, impress an audience which was not necessarily interested in politics.”

• Film focuses on Hitler as leader.• People of Germany are an “undifferentiated mass

enthusiastically supporting the state.”• Through various symbols in the film Hitler becomes Germany.

• Uniting the people.• Film never addresses Hitler’s attitude toward

Jews nor the lebensraum push for territory in the East.

• Opening sequence (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcFuHGHfYwE )to around minute 10.– Shots of the city: what do you notice about it?– What kind of people are shown

• 14:30- Morning in Tent City (about 5 Minutes)• 65:00 Tribute to War Dead• 1:30:01 – END Final Squence

• Do You Believe Ms. Reifenstahl?– "If you see this film again today you ascertain that it doesn't

contain a single reconstructed scene. Everything in it is true. And it contains no tendentious commentary at all. It is history. A pure historical film... it is film-vérité. It reflects the truth that was then in 1934, history. It is therefore a documentary. Not a propaganda film. Oh! I know very well what propaganda is. That consists of recreating events in order to illustrate a thesis, or, in the face of certain events, to let one thing go in order to accentuate another. I found myself, me, at the heart of an event which was the reality of a certain time and a certain place. My film is composed of what stemmed from that.”