Propaganda Techniques

Adapted from Wikipedia

Ad hominem ( “to the person”) A Lan phrase which has come to mean aacking your opponent, as opposed to aacking their arguments.

Ex. "Your fashion opinion isn't valid; you can't even afford new shoes."

Ad nauseam (“to the point of nausea”) or Repeon This argument approach uses reless repeon of an idea. An idea, especially a simple slogan, that is repeated enough mes, may begin to be taken as the truth. This approach works best when media sources are limited and controlled by the propagator. Ex. Appeal to authority

Appeals to authority; cite prominent figures to support a posion, idea, argument, or course of acon.

Ex. “Even the President has smoked pot!” Appeal to fear

Appeals to fear seek to build support by inslling anxiees and panic in the general populaon.

Ex. Joseph Goebbels exploited Theodore N. Kaufman's Germany Must Perish! to claim that the Allies sought the exterminaon of the German people. Appeal to prejudice

• Using loaded or emove terms to aach value or moral goodness to believing the proposion. • Ex: "Any hard-working taxpayer would have to agree that those who do not work, and who do not support the community do not deserve the community's support through social assistance." Bandwagon

Bandwagon and "inevitable-victory" appeals aempt to persuade the target audience to join in and take the course of acon that "everyone else is taking”. Black-and-White fallacy

• Presenng only two choices, with the product or idea being propagated as the beer choice. • Ex. "You are either with us, or you are with the enemy" Beauful people

• The type of propaganda that deals with famous people or depicts aracve, happy people. This makes other people think that if they buy a product or follow a certain ideology, they too will be happy or successful. • This is more used in adversing for products, instead of polical reasons Big Lie • The repeated arculaon of a complex of events that jusfy subsequent acon. The descripons of these events have elements of truth, and the "big lie" generalizaons merge and eventually supplant the public's accurate percepon of the underlying events. Ex. Aer World War I the German “Stab in the back” explanaon of the cause of their defeat became a jusficaon for Nazi re-militarizaon and revanchist aggression. Cliché

An expression, idea, or element of an arsc work which has been overused to the point of losing its original meaning or effect, especially when at some earlier me it was considered meaningful or novel. Ex. “We were thick as thieves” “Winning is everything” “When push came to shove…” Common man

• The "'plain folks'" or "common man" approach aempts to convince the audience that the propagandist's posions reflect the common sense of the people. It is designed to win the confidence of the audience by communicang in the common manner and style of the target audience. • Ex: “Given that the country has lile money during this recession, we should stop paying unemployment benefits to those who do not work, because that is like maxing out all your credit cards during a ght period, when you should be ghtening your belt." Demonizing the enemy

• Making individuals from the opposing naon, from a different ethnic group, or those who support the opposing viewpoint appear to be subhuman. Direct order

This technique hopes to simplify the decision making process by using images and words to tell the audience exactly what acons to take, eliminang any other possible choices. Authority figures can be used to give the order, overlapping it with the Appeal to authority technique, but not necessarily.

• Ex.The Uncle Sam "I want you" image is an example of this technique. Euphoria

• The use of an event that generates euphoria or happiness, or using an appealing event to boost morale. • Ex. Euphoria can be created by declaring a holiday, making luxury items available, or mounng a military parade with marching bands and patrioc messages. Disinformaon

The creaon or deleon of informaon from public records, in the purpose of making a false record of an event or the acons of a person or organizaon, including outright forgery of photographs, moon pictures, broadcasts, and sound recordings as well as printed documents. Flag-waving

An aempt to jusfy an acon on the grounds that doing so will make one more patrioc, or in some way benefit a group, country, or idea. The feeling of patriosm which this technique aempts to inspire may not necessarily diminish or enrely omit one's capability for raonal examinaon of the maer in queson. Gliering generalies

Gliering generalies are emoonally appealing words applied to a product or idea, but which present no concrete argument or analysis.

Ex: the campaign slogan "Ford has a beer idea!" Guilt by associaon or Labeling / Stereotyping • By creang a 'label' or 'category' or 'facon' of a populaon, it is much easier to make an example of these larger bodies, because they can upli or defame the Mark without actually incurring legal-defamaon. • Ex: "Liberal" is a negave label intended to diminish the perceived credibility of a parcular Mark. By taking a displeasing argument presented by a Mark, the propagandist can quote that person, and then aack 'liberals' in an aempt to both (1) create a polical bale-ax of unaccountable aggression and (2) diminish the quality of the Mark Half-truth

• A half-truth is a decepve statement which may come in several forms and includes some element of truth. The statement might be partly true, the statement may be totally true but only part of the whole truth, or it may ulize some decepve element, such as improper punctuaon, or double meaning, especially if the intent is to deceive, evade blame or misrepresent the truth. • Ex: "You should not trust Peter with your children. I once saw him smack a child with his open hand." In this example the statement could be true, but Peter may have slapped the child on the back because he was choking. Intenonal vagueness

• Generalies are deliberately vague so that the audience may supply its own interpretaons. The intenon is to move the audience by use of undefined phrases, without analyzing their validity or aempng to determine their reasonableness or applicaon. The intent is to cause people to draw their own interpretaons rather than simply being presented with an explicit idea. In trying to "figure out" the propaganda, the audience forgoes judgment of the ideas presented. Their validity, reasonableness and applicaon may sll be considered. Obtain disapproval or Reduco ad Hitlerum • trying to refute an opponent's view by comparing it to a view that would be held by Adolf Hitler or the Nazi Party. • Ex. “Having police at demonstraons is just like Nazism.” Oversimplificaon

• Favorable generalies are used to provide simple answers to complex social, polical, economic, or military problems. • Ex. “School shoongs are clearly caused by playing violent video games.” Quotes out of Context

• Selecve eding of quotes which can change meanings. Polical documentaries designed to discredit an opponent or an opposing polical viewpoint oen make use of this technique. • Ex: "I'm not concerned about the very poor." (Mi Romney interview with Soledad O'Brien on CNN, Feb. 1, 2012)

Name-calling

• Propagandists use the name-calling technique to incite fears and arouse prejudices in their hearers in the intent that the bad names will cause hearers to construct a negave opinion about a group or set of beliefs or ideas that the propagandist would wish hearers to denounce. • “Barack Obama is a socialist.” Red herring

• Presenng data or issues that, while compelling, are irrelevant to the argument at hand, and then claiming that it validates the argument. Tesmonial

Tesmonials are quotaons, in or out of context, especially cited to support or reject a given policy, acon, program, or personality. The reputaon or the role (expert, respected public figure, etc.) of the individual giving the statement is exploited. Transfer or Associaon

• this is a technique of projecng posive or negave qualies (praise or blame) of a person, enty, object, or value (an individual, group, organizaon, naon, patriosm, etc.) to another to make the second more acceptable or to discredit it.