Day 5: Propaganda, Persuasion, and Poetics

Links from Theresa Dawson's lecture:
Propaganda Powerpoint Presentation

Manufacturing Consent – entire film available

Levi’s Go Forth Ad

Notes on lecture and discussion:

Academic disagreement on defining propaganda

1973 Jacques Ellul Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes

• Focused on propaganda as a sociological phenomenon: 
• "Propaganda is a set of methods employed by an organized group that wants to bring about the active or passive participation its actions of a mass of individuals, psychologically unified through psychological manipulations and incorporated into an organization."

Taithe and Thornton 2001 - propaganda political rhetoric and identity. See it as a form of political language

Jowett and O'Donnell 2011 "propaganda and persuasion" (fifth edition)

• "deliberate systematic attempt to shape perceptions.... To achieve a response..." 
• The Jowett/O'Donnell purpose model of propaganda (chart) 
• German WWII wartime propaganda: shows a child, innocence, a fruitful future. Makes fun of American ideals, shows the hypocrisy
• USA WWII wartime propaganda: keep the American ideal alive, "FAMILY," "BUY VICTORY BONDS" - shows a woman and her child being touched by two black hands with claws. One has the Japanese symbol on it, the other has the Nazi symbol on it.
• Use of propagandist methods to tell us about propaganda

Fahrenheit 9/11
What techniques are being used to persuade us?

• Shows the Bush administration looking like idiots, makes us already dislike them. Shows Iraqi citizens living their lives, doing mundane things as "victims."
• Juxtaposes words with other imagery and takes the words out of context
• Wars used to be very public - this imagery is chosen and edited it might be going for an opinion, but it's so easy to manipulate the audience

Noam Chomsky 1988: Manufacturing Consent

• Described a propagandist model of media driven by corporate interests
• "The twentieth century has been characterized by three developments: growth of democracy, growth of corporate power, and growth of corporate propaganda"

Chomsky's propaganda model, the five filters:

• size, ownership, and profit orientation
• the advertising license to do business
• sourcing mass media news
• flak and the enforcers
• anti communism/ the war on terror

Manufacturing Consent

• The corporatization of everything
• Media picks and chooses and they all share with each other
• Idea of choice -  for example, we tune into Fox News or we turn to MSNBC because we want to hear that style of news. We choose what we want to hear.

Model of the Process of Propaganda
Social-Historical Context - complicated example because of all of the media that we have

Levi's Go Forth

• Complex role of labor 
• How does being creative compensate?
• Idea that jeans can be the "mediator." "Be what you want."

Theatre of War

• First time the public theatre had ever allowed someone to film their rehearsals
• Implores viewer to understand the awful dilemma of Meryl Streep's character