Allen Weber’s Take On The World

What is propaganda and is it really manipulation?

Is it some deep dark “dark art”? Is it “Evil”?

Is Propaganda Harmful

As far as I can see (Having read Edward L Bernays, and others thinking along those — Bernays’ lines) propaganda is neither good or bad. It is not some deep dark art. It is a bit of manipulation however — just like when a child is trying to persuade his or her mother to buy the child a candy at the checkout counter of a supermarket, or to buy them a toy.

Or… for example when a company advertises it’s product. Or a sales person attempts to sell something to a prospect.

What Makes Propaganda Effective?

All propaganda is doing, in my opinion, is speaking to the prospect (target) in a language with the key words and phrases the prospect is familiar with. Nothing more nothing less.

Propaganda will use the prospect’s (target’s) belief system and way of looking at the world (stereotypes the target sees and believes), in order to make the message clearer to the prospect (target) and persuade the prospect (target) to come over to the propagandists side.

After understanding the target’s prejudices, beliefs, way of stereotyping the target’s world, the propagandist tries to influence the target before the target has had a chance to really make up his or her mind. This is done by appealing to the already existing belief’s the target has, and expanding on them.

So why will this work? Why will people not see through this?

That’s for another post.

What do you think about propaganda and propagandists?

If you like this post then please subscribe to the full RSS feed. You can also subscribe by Email.

Bookmark and Share This Post

                  

Copy this HTML to your website to create a link to this post:

Powered by Bookmarkify™