Truemors
August 3, 2008 2:14
Now Public Contributor E. Lizardo
OPINION:
In a sense, everything we read, write, or say qualifies as propganda. After all, writers and speakers just try to get their point across to their readers or listeners. The same might be said to hold true for perhaps other forms of media communication, for if such communication is not about presenting a viewpoint then it is nothing at all.
Here's what an on-line encylopedia has to say about it
Propoganda
Systematic spreading (propagation) of information or disinformation (misleading information), usually to promote a religious or political doctrine with the intention of instilling particular attitudes or responses. As a system of spreading information it was considered a legitimate instrument of government, but became notorious through the deliberate distortion of facts or the publication of falsehoods by totalitarian regimes, notably Nazi Germany.
Source: encyclopedia.farlex.com
One example of propoganda in real life might be the way an image of a skull was used to add a dimension of fear to a quotation from Joseph Goebbels, the German minister of propaganda, at the time of the invasion of Russia during World War II. Here is a typical example of the kinds of things he wrote.
Another might be a World War II poster showing a steadfast image of Winston Churchill, backed by the armed forces, supporting his view that the nation would ‘go forward’. Here is a typical example of Churchill's.
Professor Marshal McLuhan became quite famous in the 1960's and 1970's for what he had to say about communications and media, and we may find a short bio for him in Wikipedia
Herbert Marshall McLuhan, C.C. (July 21, 1911 – December 31, 1980) was a Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar — a professor of English literature, a literary critic, a rhetorician, and a communications theorist. McLuhan's work is viewed as one of the cornerstones of the study of media theory. McLuhan is known for coining the expressions "the medium is the message" and the "global village."
Source: en.wikipedia.org
What McLuhan had to say about the way people are affected by the printed word, the things that we all read, a general topic known as print culture is particularly interesting
... McLuhan's [thesis] (later elaborated upon in The Medium is the Massage) is that new technologies (like alphabets, printing presses, and even speech itself) exert a gravitational effect on cognition, which in turn affects social organization: print technology changes our perceptual habits ("visual homogenizing of experience"), which in turn affects social interactions ("fosters a mentality that gradually resists all but a... specialist outlook"). According to McLuhan, the advent of print technology contributed to and made possible most of the salient trends in the Modern period in the Western world: individualism, democracy, Protestantism, capitalism and nationalism. For McLuhan, these trends all reverberate with print technology's principle of "segmentation of actions and functions and principle of visual quantification."
Source: en.wikipedia.org
To put it all into layman's terms, McLuhan's laboratory research findings showed very clearly that what people see in printed form we tend to believe. Doesn't matter if it's actually true or false! The single most important factor is the printed form of the information. He theorized why this might be so by suggesting our brains are wired to automatically assign more importance to visual data than other sensory inputs. A totally unconscious process.
Publish it, allow people to read it, and viola'- one has created, if not outright believers, then at least a trend in public opinion. It's measurable!
Was McLuhan right? Does it really work that way? Are we that easily influenced by the things we read?
We might find some answers if we pay close attention, even as we read today's news!
Comments (0)