History of Propaganda

By: Anna Dean Historically 1 2

Directing Behavior

• Reminded British people to remain calm during WWII • Told Americans to mind their mouths in wartime • Taught American children to DUCK AND COVER!!! 3 during Cold War 4 5 6

Advocating an Ideology

• The worker showing his strength (Left) • Socialism built the Vostok Rocket (Center) • A republic for both country and urban workers (Right) 7 8

Celebrating A Country’s Armed Forces

• Hail to our Victorious Soviet Army! • Showing support for the U.S. Army Air Corps 10

9 11

Glorifying a Leader

• Mao – China • Che – Cuba • Lenin – Russia/Soviet Union • Hirohito - Japan Use of Children

14 13

15 17 Use of Children

16 Why Does Propaganda Work?

It is based on Sociological and Psychological Concepts… Bandwagon Effect

¤ “people often do and believe things because many other people do and believe the same things”

¤ “is well-documented in behavior psychology”

¤ “people tend to follow the crowd without examining the merits of a particular thing”

*Source: (Bandwagon Effect) Agenda Setting

¤ “refers to the idea that there is a strong correlation between the emphasis that mass media places on certain issues and the importance attributed to these issues by mass audiences”

¤ The concept of agenda setting is “based on memory-based models of information processing”

*Source: (Scheufele and Tewksbury 11) Priming

¤ “refers to changes in the standards that people use to make political evaluations”

¤ “occurs when news content suggests to news audiences that they ought to use specific issues as benchmarks”

¤ The concept of priming is “based on memory- based models of information processing”

*Source: (Scheufele and Tewksbury 11) Framing

¤ “It is based on the assumption that how an issue is characterized in news reports can have an influence on how it is understood by audiences”

¤ The concept of framing is based on cognitive schema-based models of information processing ¤ Schemas help us understand complex notions relatively easily

*Source: (Scheufele and Tewksbury 11-12) Stereotypes

¤ “a fixed, over generalized belief about a particular group or class of people”

¤ helps us simplify our social world

¤ may lead to “us-versus-them” mentality

Source: (Stereotypes) 18 Putting it into Practice

The Who and the How Edward Bernays

19 • “Father of Public Relations”

• Did propaganda work for U.S. during World War I

• Realized that “if this could be used for war, it can be used for peace.”

• Sought to influence and shape public opinion

• Succeeded largely thanks to his understanding of psychology • He was Sigmund Freud’s nephew!

*Source: (Edward Bernays) 20

1. Tip off media in advance

2. Feed media catch phrase

3. Media reports the story and…

BOOM – Public Opinion Shaped

“Torches of Freedom” Eggs and Bacon?

21 See how here! 22 23 24 25

Nazi Propaganda

• Must label events and people with distinctive phrases or slogans • Must facilitate the displacement of aggression by specifying targets for hatred

*Source: (Joseph Goebbels) Recap: What works?

¤ Give perception of widespread consensus ¤ Bandwagon effect

¤ Arouse strong emotions ¤ Sympathy – the use of children ¤ Hate – demonizing “the other” ¤ Pride – evoking patriotism or religious convictions Keep an eye out for all the propaganda techniques we discussed in this presentation!