I am interested in Propaganda, can you give me some examples?

Question

I am learning about Propaganda and I am fascinated by it. I'm about to read some books on the subject, but I'm curious if people out there can provide me with some good examples of Propaganda in our world today along with an explanation of why the item is Propaganda. I'd appreciate examples from both sides of the political asile if possible! Thanks!

No, I am not interested in producing propaganda! I am interested in studying it so that I can notice it when I am exposed to it and not be affected by it!

Answer 1

Here are some modern examples that you can find around you all day.

Propganda comes in many forms and may even contain large amounts of truth or even be completely factually true. What makes it propoganda is that the slant the truth is given to accomplish a means which if examined by all relivent facts would not be the wisest choice. Instead by focusing on facts, building falsehoods out of truths with selective recognition of facts and charismatic presentation, the propoganda is able to induce less than best or sometimes even irrational actions in groups of people.

Example 1. Demonization.
Most humans find physically harming another human being as less than desirable and even repulsive. Killing another human being is an act that has been prohibited in almost every culture in the world but through propoganda the selective killing of targeted groups becomes not only acceptable but also desirable. Thus propoganda enables the murderous side of humanity.

Some modern examples include the teaching of Islamics that Jews are not human. That they are the spawn of Pigs. Swine are chosen in specific because Swine are unclean animals to Muslims. They are the lowest of the low. If you actually believe that a group is more closely related to pigs than humans it makes prejudice and killing members of that group very easy to accomplish. You can see the same rationalization in place in White supremist groups who feel Blacks are more closely related to apes than humans.

What happens is that over an extended period of time a group is given attributes fairly or falsely that antagonize the mores of the main culture. For example in US society racism is considered a very bad thing. So by labeling a group as racist you incite hostility towards any member of that group. Whether or not that individual actually subscribes to the hated attribute ceases to matter. Most liberals today consider Right wingers as racists and most Right wingers consider most liberals as Commies. Thus the antagonism is instantly born. Something so horrid that the other group cannot tolerate it is applied in a great blanket to the other group.

By repeatedly adding insults which progressively dehumanize the enemy a state of suspension of humanity is achieved. A great example is the Vegan reaction to Mad cow disease. Many Vegans celibrated the deaths of other humans who they considered evil for eating meat. Vegan activists if they have not already are likely to intentionally spread Mad cow disease in the future. The reason is they have come to hate another group so much they no longer view those people as human. The Nazis in WW II did the same by demonizing Jews over many years. A group that was already on the fringe of "humanity" as European culture saw them. So executing millions of Jews seemed natural to a person who'd bought into the propoganda. Nor did US soldiers who fought the Natives think they were killing people. Years of propoganda against the Indians made them into monsters in the eyes of the soldiers who often felt like they were doing a service to humanity by executing the Natives.

Many of the worst killers in history were supported by what were otherwise caring people. The German people were not a cruel people no matter how much Western Propoganda attempts to make them into cold killers. They were in general a very kind culture but they allowed themselves to believe other humans were sub-human.

Example 2.
SUV's are evil to the environment. This is part of the general attack on automobiles being used to force people into mass transit. The reason is simple. People are easier to track and control when they use mass transit. The environmental benifits of using mass transit are nil unless we change how we generate power. If we change how we generate power then the need for mass transit goes away.

Second arguement is that SUV's are dangerous when in collisions with smaller vehicles. The primary reason for this is they are bigger. The secondary issue is they sit up higher off the road so the bumper doesn't meet the other car's bumper and instead meets unprotected car. The third leg of this arguement is the tendency of SUV's to roll over.

In reality it is the smaller cars which are unsafe. By making SUV's less safe drivers of smaller cars feel safe which is cheaper for the big car manufactuers. It allows them to use auto rather than truck chasis's which are cheaper and not as safe. Logically the push would be to make small cars safer rather than modify SUVs. This would protect occupents of smaller cars from many dangers including SUV collisions.

A second aspect that fails to meet with reality about these arguements is that SUVs are only one of many vehicles on the road that sit up higher than small car bumpers. Pickups, any light truck, comercial vans, are a few examples. Then you have extrems like 18 wheelers and dump trucks. So the effect of lowering SUVs actually makes SUV occupents less safe, has little safety value for small car passengers but does save auto manufactuers loads of money. It also gives voters a false sense that they were able to change what they saw as a danger to themselves. So politicians are able to decry how they met this manufactured danger and conquered it, while pocketing the bribes of the auto industry for making cheaper less safe cars sound like an improvement to the masses.

Example 3. That the WTC attacks were carried out by George Bush.

Amazingly large numbers of people believe this particuler piece of propoganda. Some have gone to great lengths of research to attempt to prove it but all attempts to make it the fault of just one part of the US Gov fail miserably. Simple fact is if Bush had anything to do with it the Democrats were just as culpable and just as much part of the scheme. When you delve into the issue tripe like Loose Change falls apart quickly. What doesn't is when you get the earnest investigators into 9-11. They have found some anomolies that are harder to explain. Some because of tunnel vision. They are so intent on proving a political agenda that they take a factoid out of it's environment and build a whole world of rationalization around that factoid. Others are true anomolies. Christians often point to 9-11 being the work of the devil because of the famous face that appears in the smoke from the twin towers and other anomolies along the same line. The 9-11 conspracy theorists use the same logic ignoring the preponderance of evidence to focus on small anomolies. The best example is the claim that the towers came down because of explosive charges rather than collapsing under the weight of the building. Puffs of air are used as the evidence. What isn't considered is how those explosives actually got there. There was no where to just hide them. It is possible that people already in the building brought them with them, then after the planes hit the building, during the confusion planted the explosives and attempted to get out of the building before they went off. It is more probably that a UFO landed in the middle of the wreckage than this however. With the scramble of people rushing through the stairways and offices, the chaos going on, planting charges in both buildings at just the right places without being noticed would have been an increadible fate. to have brought the building down the charges could not have been pre-laid and hidden. Not with the efficiency the building came down. It was not possible for outsides to climb up to those levels, plant the charges and get down. We being Americans are very adverse to suicide. You could not find enough fanatics to commit suicide in that way. So realistically that anomaly is best explained by engineering than by explosives. Wind from an open elevator shaft for example since by all images the building above had already started collapsing before the so called "puffs" from explosives were seen. More so why blow up a building when it was already collapsing?

This is a great example, that once you buy into you seek evidence to support your conclusions from even some really weak sources. One example is that in an interview the owner of the WTC said something that was somehow construed as an admission to blowing up the building. A cursorary examination of the facts would make any rational person question such an assumption. For starters the quote used against the guy was supposedly said to the chief of the NYC fire dept. This would imply that the NYC Fire dept was not only in on the plot but also did the demolitions. It also implies that NYC Fire dept personal willingly carried said explosive up and detonated them committing mass suicide to kill fellow Americans. That alone was so preposterous and insane that all speculation should have ended right there. Yet you still see that quote waved all over the place by 9-11 conspiracy theorists who never take the next logical step on any of the evidence.

This produces the next step of proper use of propoganda. Effective propoganda takes the place of thought in it's victims. They become incapable of independent analysis and often become quite uncomfortable if challenged to do so.

Example 4 Taxation which plays right into the second step of propoganda induction.

In a free market economy the wealthy benifit by investing in their own business. The more they spend on being more competitive and improving their business the more they make in return. So tax cuts in the US have repeatedly spurred the US economy. So much so that they are now a mantra.

The reality is that the US market is no longer a free market and business has fled the US. So cutting taxes on the rich improves the economy of India, China and other countries but has little to do with US economic growth. Tax cuts only work to spur US growth if the businesses that are invested in are located in the US.

The second problem is that big corps the primary benificiary of tax cuts for the wealthy have no compitition. Monopolies exist in almost every strata of the US. So much so that it is impossible to be competitive against fortified monopolies. As such investing in infrastructure does not make economic sense. Why be more competitive when there is no compitition? So instead any additional profits are just pocketed.

The third problem is that taxation has reached a level today that it has driven many Americans abroad. Driven many small companies out of business and large ones overseas. A frequent piece of propoganda used by both parties is using Gov funding to spur the economy. This is like taking half your house then giving you back a quarter of it and expecting you to be grateful. Taxation introduces middle men who's only purpose is to facilitate the movement of that money. So even in a honest system without graft taxation creates leaches on the money that passes through it's clutches. After adding in graft, ineptitude, waste and a host of other factors that have plagued all forms of Governerning since the first tribal council, then you have what amounts to a black hole where large chunks of taxation just disapeer. Gone off into the void. So for every dollar put back into the economy several vanish into the void. True some come back in one way or another. Generally to fatten the wealthiest bank accounts. Which defeats the whole income redistribution concept of tax the rich. Since the rich just get it back through corruption all you've done was move the money around on paper and penalize the few honest wealthy.

The simple fact is that taxes are a necessary evil. The higher the taxes levels the more evil they become. Income redistribution is a myth, actually more of a fairy tale. Tax cuts to the wealthy today only speed the torrent of dollars flowing overseas. So the entire taxation issue is pure propoganda by both sides. Proponents of both parties are blind to it because they have ceased to consider the logical implications of the party planks they have bought into. When somebody does they become alienated from that party. Feel betrayed but often just change the name of the betrayer by buying into the other parties propoganda. So there is a willing element to succesfull propoganda. Almost an eagerness to give up independent and rational thought. To have a higher purpose even if the reality is that purpose is a complete lie.

Example 5 - The war on drugs.
Here is where you see the general public buying into some really huge whoppers and doing it for years on end.

Marajuana despite scientific evidence given over a period of many years including one good report given to the very panel that got marajuna illegalized, Marajuna has been demonized with exagerated and mostly outright fabrications. It is not a harmful drug. It has no major negitive social implications and several minor positive ones. Yet people have lost their lives, property and liberty over the usage and possession of Weed. Countless gov sponsored reports have purported that weed usage will do all kinds of horrible things to its users but few if any have any scientific or historical facts backing it. The US gov pours billions of dollars into preventing people from using light drugs like weed.

Slogans are a big part of propoganda. Better dead than read. Your brain on drugs and so on. It's an encapsulation of the core ideal of the propoganda. A way to constantly reinforce it. This is built on a foundation of "educational" films, books, articles and such all of which use loose facts and fabrications to demonize a group. In this case drug users. The real purpose is actually mostly economic. It gives people jobs to go pursue druggies. Though more jobs would be generated by the legalization of marajuna than are created in hunting it. the big difference is people like jailors and drug agents depend on the Gov for their livelyhood. This makes them dependent and easily controlled. So the war on drugs is just as much a war of control. It is also a socio/class battle. The war on drugs has been used as an excuse to target political/ethnic/religious groups. It has also been missapplied to commit gross theft by the US gov in the form of the ricco laws being applied to the war on drugs.

Benefit to the US in pursueing the war on drugs? None. No good thing has come about from it. On the flips side alot of lives have been ruined. People killed. Corruption has been accelerated. It opens up holes in the US borders for real dangers such as terrorism. It turns American against American. It alienates populations in other countries. Cost the US people billions each year. We spend more on the war on drugs each year than the war in Iraq.

To see more examples just pick the newsource of your choice. Left or Right you'll find lots of propoganda being heaped on it's victims.

Answer 2

Every State of The Union Address by every US President (especially the one right after 9/11) are good examples of propaganda. The one following 9/11 was almost a remake of the movie 2001 A Space Oddyessy-watch the response of the Congressmen and Senators, you would think George W. was the freaking monolith.

Answer 3

I can't answer your question directly but I can give you my experience with it. As a teenager I had an interest in short wave radio. One of the first stations I was able to find was radio Havana, Cuba. Now that was propaganda, especially back then, just after the revolution and shortly before the missal crisis. Then I found radio America out of either South or North Carolina, what I found is we do the same thing, our propaganda is just as bad as Cuba's. can you imagine that? But it was interesting to me to find out that somewhere in the middle is the correct answer, and all you have to do is try to determine where that middle is.

Answer 4

Propaganda means information that is often biased or misleading used to promote a political cause or point of view.
A true Christian will never enter in such activites.
I don't think any where Bible permits to do this...
I am replying this question after reading your answer to "Western religions more like a threat??"

Answer 5

Propaganda means to tell things with a 'slant' that will guide the reader to a particular point of view. For example:
The Premier of Russia and the President of the US have a race and the President wins.
The US reports that the President won and the Premier lost.
Russia reports that they came in second and the US came in next to last.
They didn't lie, they just twisted it a bit.

Answer 6

Propaganda does not belong to only one side of the spectrum:

Left-wingers: Blame Bush for all wrong-doing, Fear-mongering of a possible Christian theocracy in the U.S., Iraq is a lost cause, All rich people and corporations are evil.

Right-Wingers: The idea of a gay "agenda", feminist "agenda", liberal media bias, War on Christmas, Christian persecution in the U.S. Anti-war people want America to lose in Iraq, Watsh your Muslim neighbor, could be a terrorist.
A vote for democrats is a vote for terrorists

On both sides: Group (x) (x meaning almost any adjective, christian, jewish, far-right, far-left, islamic, gay, feminist, anti-gay, anti-womens rights, pro-war, anti-war, pro-choice, pro-life, secular progressive, islamic etc.) they all have some hidden, secret, evil "agenda"

Though I do admit the right-wing loves scare tactics a lot more than the left.

Answer 7

Farenheit 9/11. It is propaganda because it is a fabrication of the truth (I can prove that but you have to have seen the movie). It promotes anti-bush and anti-war by emotionaly connecting the Bush administration to corruption. Also there is alot of propaganda in the middle east. Areas that are controled by extreme muslims(Iran, Lebanon, ect) show america as an evil empire and Bush as the spawn of Satan.

Answer 8

Propaganda is the dispersion of lies and disinformation deliberately designed to dupe people into believing something not true or real. examples; anti-gun rhetoric, animal 'rights' advocacy, environmental extremism, 'hate crimes', liberalism, feminism, gay rights. It promotes non-issues into huge overblown sensationalism, divides peoples, berates and/or defames good people, rightful thought, shifts blame, diverts attention from vastly more important things (Bill & Monica diverted the public's attention away from the fact of his acts of high treason!), Propaganda has been used by tyrants and dictators for centuries.

Answer 9

Google: Tokyo Rose.
She was a master of it during WW2. As a side issue, she was also pardoned by Gerry Ford:)

Answer 10

Right here on this site, plenty of propaganda.

Answer 11

Communism
Racism
Terrorists
Sexism
Gay RIghts
Womens Liberation Movement