Hey, what is up? I’m so glad you’re back for another episode of the Filter It Through a Brain Cell podcast! I love it when I hear from you and you tell me how much you’re enjoying listening, and how much your kids are enjoying listening, too! Truly, thank you!
In fact, I wanted to start today’s episode by reading one of the reviews you’ve left on the podcast recently. This one is actually from my nephew, Caleb, who is 15 (yay! I love my teen listeners!) Caleb said:
Thanks a million, Caleb, for listening, and for leaving a review for the show! It seriously helps when you subscribe, rate & review!
Alright,let’s dive into today’s topic. Today, I wanted to discuss Propaganda & what it is.
We’re in the middle of a series on different kinds of appeals, and I have several more still to share with you, but these appeal fallacies fall under the propaganda category and I don't want to assume that you know what Propaganda is. So let’s talk about it a little bit!
Propaganda comes in many different forms, but ultimately, propaganda is an attempt to get you to buy into an idea or a belief. Brittanica.com defines propaganda as “the dissemination of information—facts, arguments, rumors, half-truths, or lies—to influence public opinion.”
There’s really two main aspects of propaganda: the method and the motive.
For the method, as you heard in the definition, a lot of times propaganda is based on things that are untrue, overly simplified, half-true, twisted, taken out of context or downright lies for the purpose of playing on people’s emotions. There’s almost always an emotional response that they’re trying to evoke. It could be fear, dread, disgust, envy, pity, FOMO: the fear of missing out. They could be evoking a scarcity mindset, getting people to believe there’s not enough of something, which causes people to act irrationally (hello, great toilet paper shortage of 2020, you guys remember that?!), or it could be certain feelings that they’re trying to stir up between two people groups.
Now, as for the motive, it’s simple: they want to get the people to think, believe or act a certain way. And they want to be the ones to dictate what that certain way is. And there’s always a reason they want to get people to act in that specific way…it somehow will benefit them to get this certain group of people believing and acting in a certain way. Maybe it’ll help them politically, financially, it’ll help them win, it’ll give them more power, etc. But there’s always a motive when it comes to propaganda. Someone is always pulling the strings.
Any group or organization can use propaganda, and lots of them do… but the biggest places we tend to think of it is in government & politics and also as it’s used during wartime.
I want to give two examples of how propaganda was used during WW2. (And by the way, yes, you may have noticed that WW2 is my favorite period of history to read about, that’s why I use it in examples so often!)
First, let’s talk about Nazi propaganda. The Nazis launched a full-scale propaganda campaign about the Jews…it’s singular focus was on creating racial hatred, and sadly, it was highly effective. In fact, Hiter is quoted as saying, “Propaganda is a truly terrible weapon in the hands of an expert.” And, seeing as how he was the first minister of propaganda for the Nazy party, he was an expert!
They taught this racial hatred & division in many different ways, and it was even pushed heavily in their public schools. Truly, the German people were continually convinced of the inferiority of these other races that their government was telling them were dirty, carried diseases, took money from the Germans, etc, etc. And sadly, it was very effective. It eventually led to the extermination of 6 million Jews, and 5 million other races or groups of peoples who were also deemed “undesirable”. What an atrocity.
So that was the Nazis. Did the US also use propaganda during WW2? Yep, we sure did! One example of US propaganda was right here at home in the States in order to drum up support for the war among Amerians. One very famous example of that is Rosie the Riveter. She’s a fictitious person who was made up to help encourage women to go get factory jobs to produce planes & other vehicles needed for the war effort. And Rosie the Riveter is just one of the propaganda efforts created to help get Americans back at home on board with the sacrifices they would need to make to support the war effort. Interesting, right?
So, I ask you…is Propaganda good or bad? We would likely say that Nazi propaganda was bad and US propaganda was good…is that really true? Do you agree with that?
In both instances, it was creating an emotional appeal to people’s hearts & minds in order to get them to think, believe & behave in a certain way.
What’s interesting is that there can be many different types of propaganda. It can be art, it can be speeches, slogans, pamphlets, fliers, social media posts & memes, documentaries, TV commercials, cartoons, advertisements, music, plays, movies, books or other literature…even sermons and religious institutions. The possibilities are literally endless. And since most people have not been taught how to think (go back and listen to episode 4 to find out why), it’s very, very effective. People who don’t know how to think are easily manipulated through their emotions, which is exactly what propaganda does.
Now, is it true that propaganda is always bad and evil? That’s a great question! One could argue that all marketing is propaganda. If I were trying to get you to buy a certain brand of sneakers, I would want my TV commercials to be effective in motivating you to go online or to the store, spend your money and buy my sneakers. My motivation would be to sell sneakers and support my sneaker-making business. Is there anything wrong with that? No, of course not.
But a wise person, when watching my TV commercial should ask themselves a few questions: Do I need another pair of sneakers? Do I even like them? Are those sneakers any good? Will they last or just fall apart quickly? Are they even comfortable? Do I have the money to spend on them?
Right?!? Do you see what I’m doing here? I’m filtering it through a brain cell and actually taking the time to think about what I’m being told before I take action on it. I’m making sure that action is really what I need to be doing right now, or if I’m just taking action b/c someone else is influencing me to do so.
So here’s the question to ask yourself when you’re faced with propaganda: “Who’s behind this message, what are they trying to get me to do, think or believe, and what emotion are they trying to evoke to do so? Is what they’re saying really true??” *repeat*
Guys, this is what it really comes down to! They know that if they can make you FEEL a certain way, they can get you behave in some shocking ways. But you don’t have to fall prey to this!!
Tune in for tomorrow’s episode where we’re going to dig even deeper into the emotional appeal behind propaganda and learn why it’s used so often, and how to be on guard against it.
Remember: When you learn HOW to think, you will no longer fall prey to those who are trying to tell you what THEY want you to think and it all starts with asking one simple question: “Is that really true?”
