HOW PROPAGANDA CHANGES PERCEPTIONS AND PEOPLE

By Author Unknown

Courtesy of: The Reformation  Society, P.O. Box 74 Newlands 7725, Cape Town, South Africa.

“Then Jesus said:… ‘And  you  shall know the truth and  the  truth shall make you  free.”‘  John 8:31-32

The first  casualty in war is truth.

Beware the Victor’s Version

As my history teacher in  Rhodesia reminded us: Beware the victor’s version! War time  propaganda becomes school textbooks.

Mass Suggestion

As early as 1930, John  Dewey observed that: We are being exposed to the greatest flood of mass suggestion that any people has yet experienced.

Manipulation of Public Opinion

Propaganda is to Democracies what  violence is to Dictatorships. Propaganda, the  calculated manipulation of public opinion  to serve political and ideological interests is pervasive. We are also exposed to   commercial  propaganda ,  marketing  and advertising.

Prop-Agenda

Propaganda today has moved  into prop-agenda, not only controlling what  we  think,  but  how  we  think, and  what  we  think  about. Propaganda aims  to do other people’s thinking for them.

Selective Focus

Propaganda uses highly selective images, devious and prejudicial language. Dubious  linkages, confusing issues and distorting reality with disinformation, is a daily reality.

Revolutionary

George Orwell wrote: In a time  of universal deceit, telling the truth  becomes a revolutionary act.

The First Battlefield

Karl Marx declared: The first battlefield is the rewriting of history.

Propaganda and Agitation

In his book, What is to be Done,  published in 1902, Vladimir Lenin  defined propaganda as  the  use  of historical and scientific arguments to indoctrinate the educated and  intelligent masses.  Agitation was described by Lenin as the use of slogans, stories and selective  half-truths  to exploit  the grievances of the un-educated and ignorant masses.

Deceit is Justified

Every unit of the  Communist Party was  to have  an Agit-Prop section. Deceit  in propaganda is justified because the end justifies the means. As Vladimir Lenin regularly said: Treaties  are like piecrusts,  made to be broken. To tell the truth is a petty bourgeois habit, but to lie and to lie convincingly is a sign of superior intelligence.

The End Justifies the Means

The aim  of propaganda is to rally people behind a cause. If this requires exaggerating, misrepresenting, or even  lying about the issues, in order  to gain that support, the end justifies the means.

Tactics of Propaganda

Common tactics  used  in propaganda are:

1. Ignoring the historic  context
2. Using selective stories
3. Utilising a narrow source of experts, those who toe the party line

4. Demonising the enemy and
5. Using a narrow focus  (the zoom lens,  rather than the wide angle  lens of context.)

Truth  Surrounded by Lies

Sir Winston Churchill, the British prime minister during World War II declared: In war time,  truth is so precious that  she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.

Propaganda in America

Mark Twain, in 1916, described the rise of propaganda in America: Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon  the nation that  is attacked, and  every  man  will be glad  of  those  conscience­ soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war  is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception.

Nazi Propaganda

Many  people know that   Joseph Goebbels used propaganda to advance the aims of the Nazi regime of Adolf Hitler. What  few people realise is that  Nazi propaganda was  based and  modelled upon  Allied propaganda against Germany in  WWI.  Joseph Goebbels was an ardent student of American public relations pioneer Edward  Bernays.

Psychology and Social Science

Bernays based  his methodology on the social science researches of French  psychologist Gustav Le Bon in his 1895 book: The Psychology of the Crowd; and on Sigmund  Freud’s 1922 book: The Analysis of the Ego and Group  Psychology,  as well as the research of Russian  experimental  psychologist Ivan Pavlov, as published in his 1926 book: Conditioned Reflexes.

The Committee on Public Information

Edward  L. Bernays  (1891-1995)  was  a  nephew of Sigmund  Freud.  Bernays  was  a theatrical publicist who was employed by George Creel as  a propagandist for  the  Committee on  Public Information (CPI). President Woodrow Wilson of the United  States, by executive order, created the Committee on Public Information in association with the  Military  Intelligence Bureau. The  CPI was America’s propaganda  office. The  CPI  defined propaganda as:  The   systematic, widespread dissemination, or  promotion, of  particular  ideas, doctrines, or practices, meant to further a particular cause or agenda and weaken that  of another. It is a systematic effort to manipulate attitudes, beliefs and actions by the use of symbols.

Hidden Manipulators

German  philosopher George Hegel, in his 1821 book: The  Philosophy  of   Right ,  explained   how  in democracies the  public is manipulated and persuaded by  hidden persuaders and hidden manipulators. French author Anatole France,  wrote: Democracy is run by an unseen engineer.

Controlling Public Opinion

Bernays  based much  of his methodology upon  the works of  Walter Lippmann, who wrote about controlling and managing public opinion. His ideas were later published in Public Opinion (1922) and The Phantom Public  (1925).

Enlightening Elites

Walter Lippmann was a member of US Army Military Intelligence during World War I. Lippmann believed that most  people are  irrational and  act  chaotically. Because people are  unable to independently make rational choices, they  need to be guided by a specialised class  of  enlightened elites.  Lippmann described people as: simple minded and sheep-like, incapable of formulating or organising their desires, interests and wishes. Therefore enlightened elites can lead  and  educate the  masses. As Lippmann put it: Making of  one  general will out  of  a multitude of general wishes. Bernays  stated: The public must be regimented.

Mobilising Hate and War

In 1927, Harold D. Lasswell, a professor in Political Science at the  University  of ChiCago, analysed the propaganda techniques employed by the  Allies in WWl: A new  and  subtler instrument must  weld thousands and  even millions of human beings  into one amalgamated mass of hate and war and hope… propaganda. It is the new dynamic of society... the fact remains that propaganda is one of the most powerful instrumentalities in the modern world. Propaganda is a reflex  to the immensity, the rationality and the woefulness of the modern world. Lasswell explained that to: Mobilise the hatred of the people against their enemy, represent the opposing nation as a menacing, murderous aggressor… represent the opposing  nation as satanic; it violates all the moral standards….

Objectives of Propaganda

Lasswell identified  four   major  objectives  of Propaganda:

1. To mobilise hatred against the enemy who must be de-humanised, portrayed as barbaric, brutal, cruel and uncivilised.

2. To preserve the friendship of Allies.
3. To preserve the friendship, and if possible, to procure the cooperation of neutrals; and

4. To demoralise the enemy.

Warning Against War

Before being elected as a candidate for peace in the Presidential Elections of 1916,  Woodrow Wilson warned: Lead this people  into war,  and they’ll forget there  was  ever such  a thing  as tolerance. To fight, you  must  be brutal and  ruthless, and  the  spirit  of ruthless brutality will  enter  into  the  very  fibre of national life,  infecting the congress,  the  courts,  the policeman on  the  beat,  the  man  in  the  street.  In January of 1916, Wilson stated: This is a government of the people  and this people  is not going  to choose war.

Reversal of Policy

After being elected, under  the slogan  of he has kept us out of the war, Woodrow Wilson  established the Committee on Public Information which  forged  the nation (which was  overwhelmingly opposed to intervention) into a situation where, if anyone believed that America’s entry into Europe’s war was a mistake, then they were  branded a traitor!

Changing Perspectives

More than 8 million German-Americans lived in the USA and many were sympathetic to the cause of their homeland. One third of Americans were immigrants. Most Americans were not connected to the European conflict by blood, or capital and were not interested

in waging  war  overseas. The Committee on  Public Information (CPI) developed  into the  most formidable propaganda apparatus in history. A muck­ raking journalist, George Creel, was appointed to lead the CPl. With a phenomenal budget, the CPI recruited from the best of business, media, academia and the art world. The CPI blended advertising techniques with  a sophisticated understanding of human psychology.

Democratic Propaganda

It was  the  first  time  that  a  modern government disseminated propaganda on such a large scale. Although propaganda  came  to  be  linked with totalitarian  regimes such as the Soviet Union and Red China, it is a fact of history  that it first emerged in a democratic state. Although,  as a journalist,  George Creel  had  been an  outspoken critic  of censorship, the CPI immediately took steps to limit conflicting information. With the Espionage Act and Sedition Act Voluntary Guidelines were  enforced on the news media and ensured that the mass media in the United States was flooded with  pro-war material and perspectives. On any given week more  than  20,000 newspaper columns were filled with material gleaned from CPI press releases.

Mobilising the Masses

The CPI created a Division of Syndicated Features and  recruited the  help  of leading novelists, short story  writers and  essayists to present the  pro-war position in popular digestible format, reaching 12 million  readers a month. The  Division of Pictorial Publicity had  at its disposal the  most talented advertising illustrators and  cartoonists of the time. Powerful posters  painted in  patriotic colours presented compelling images throughout the country. The poster propaganda motivated millions to enlist  in the army and  navy or buy Liberty bonds. The Division of Films ensured that the war was promoted in  the   cinema. The   Hollywood  film industry wholeheartedly supported the war  effort with  movie  titles  like:  The  Kaiser – The  Beast  of Berlin, Wolves  of Kultur, To Hell with the Kaiser  and Perishing ‘s Crusaders!

Propaganda Changes Attitudes

The cause of the Allies was  creatively publicised in every available communication channel, including pulpits. Lasswell  pointed out  that propaganda wins wars, with words, pictures, songs, parades  and many similar devices… by the manipulation of collective attitudes.

Emotional Appeal

CPI  propaganda showed the  way  for  future propaganda agencies by appealing to the heart,  not the    mind. Emotional agitation  and  skilful manipulation made use of manufactured atrocity stories and simplistic slogans such as: Make the world safe for Democracy! Will Irwin, a member of the CPI, wrote  after  the war: We never told  the whole truth – not by any manner of means. G. S. Viereck  quoted a Military Intelligence officer who  declared: You can’t tell  them the truth.  Victories were routinely manufactured by American  military authorities, while defeats were suppressed.  Dishonesty was encouraged.

Sentimentality

The  analysts attributed  the   failure of  German propaganda in America to the fact that: It emphasised logic over passion. As Count von Bernstorff observed: The  outstanding characteristic of the average American is  rather a great, though superficial , sentimentality. The  factual  German Press  releases failed to grasp this.

Altering Perceptions

As Lasswell observed:So great are the psychological resistances to war in modern nations that every war must appear to be a war of defence against a menacing, murderous aggressor.  There must  be no ambiguity about who the public is to hate.

Made Up Atrocity Stories

Bernays openly  admitted that he and  his colleagues used  made-up stories to provoke the hate  and  fear necessary to raise war-bonds and recruits for the war. Some of their stories, such as a bathtub full of eyeballs and children being killed by the enemy were actually recycled  stories  from previous conflicts.

Propaganda Kills

So effective was the anti-German propaganda of the CPI in the USA that Dachshunds had to be renamed, 14  states banned the  teaching , or  speaking, of German in  their  public schools. Mobs  assaulted American immigrants from Germany. At least  one man, Robert Prager, a German coal miner, was lynched by an angry mob in lllinois.

Appealing to Idealists

The CPI recognised that while emotional appeals and simplistic stereotypes of the enemy could  influence many, the intellectuals and pacifists needed different motivation. To them  American military  intervention in  Europe was described as:  a campaign to  end warfare forever  and establish a league of nations. To industrialists the war was modified  as a conflict  to destroy the  competition of German  industry. The propagandist does  not need  to ask  if it is true,  but merely, does it work?

The Value of Propaganda in Peacetime

In the final months of 1918, a war-weary American public ousted the Democrats who  had led them into WWI. The Republican majority  in Congress brought the  CPI under  increasing scrutiny. The  director of CPI’s foreign  division  later  reported: The history  of propaganda in the war would scarcely  be worthy  of consideration here,  but for one fact  – it did not stop with the Armistice. No indeed! The methods invented and tried out in war were too valuable for the uses of governments, factions and special  interests.

Regimenting the Public Mind

Edward Bernays took the techniques he had learnt in the  CPI  to  Madison Avenue and became an outspoken proponent of propaganda as  a  tool  for democratic  governments. It was of  course the astounding success  of propaganda during  the war that  opened the  eyes  of  the  intelligent few  in  all departments of life to the possibilities of regimenting the public mind. (Propaganda, by Edward Bernays, 1928)

Subverting Society

Most Americans came to realise  that they had been lied to and manipulated by deceit disguised as news. Many sought to  pin  complete  responsibility for America’s involvement in the ruinous World War on hate mongering  militarists in the CPl. However, as one noted: Ultimately their guilt is less important than the questions their  activities raised about the  role  of propaganda in a democratic society. The whole theory of democratic society was  rooted  in the belief  that free citizens  could  form  their  own  opinions about the issues of the day to decide their collective destiny. Freedom  of speech, freedom of opinion,  freedom of association, freedom of thought and  freedom of religion are fundamental  necessities  for  any democratic process.

Is Propaganda Compatible with Freedom?

However, during   the  First  World  War,  America’s political leaders decided that their citizens  were  not making the correct decisions, quickly enough. So they flooded  the   channels of  communication  with dishonest messages  that  were  designed to stir  up emotions and  provoke hatred of their  long  time trading  partner,  Germany. The war came to an end. But  the  propaganda did  not.  Today  many   who espouse  the ideals of democracy behave like dictators and   propagandists. The   question is  whether propaganda is compatible with freedom. Propaganda clearly  undermines a  population’s ability  to  think clearly and critically about  world events. Simplistic, emotional appeals undermine logic and reason.

Discerning Between Information and Disinformation

Students of propaganda soon  noted  that while  the CPI was  the  largest propaganda operation to that date,  it was  not actually the first such  deception operation. Shortly after the end of the American Civil War (or War Between the States) journalist Colburn Adams  wrote: The future historian of the  late war will have a very difficult task to perform… sifting  the truth from falsehood as it appears in official records.

Newspaper Wars

Two prominent newspapermen  took  the credit  for leading  America  into the Spanish-American war of 1898. William Randolf Hearst (1863 -1951), and Joseph Pulitzer, editorially clamoured  for  US military intervention against  Spain.  Through  disinformation and  media manipulation these newspaper tycoons induced the United States  to wage  an  unnecessary war  against Spain.  Sensational, inflammatory and propagandistic articles and  editorials in  Pulitzer’s World and Hearst’s Journal succeeded in inciting war hysteria and  public enthusiasm for war with Spain.

Organising a War

Randolf Hearst famously sent  artist  Frederick Remington, and  other Journal correspondents to report  on  the  Civil War in Cuba.  When  Remington reported: Everything is quiet. There is no trouble here. There will be no war. I wish to return.  Hearst sent the following famous telegram in reply: Please remain. You furnish the pictures and I’ll furnish the war.

Inciting Conflict

Pulitzer and  Hearst  published inaccurate coverage, rumour,  subterfuge, hearsay and  outright  fictitious reports to drum  up a feverish  public demand for war. On 15 February  1898, the US Battleship  Maine  blew up in Havanna harbour. The cause of this explosion was never determined, but the immediate US media reaction was  to blame Spain.  Pulitzer  and  Hearst clamoured for war  with  titles such as: Maine explosion caused by bomb or torpedo? Later Hearst’s Journal ran the headline: How do you like the Journals‘ war?

The Father of Spin

After  WWI,  Edward Bernays pioneered  Public Relations  (PR) and became known  as The Father of Spin. As the PR consultant for the American Tobacco Company, he campaigned to convince American women that  they  should smoke Lucky  Strike cigarettes (the  torches  of freedom) to emancipate themselves!

Public Relations

Today American  businesses spend trillions of dollars on marketing. PR firms employ over 150,000 workers.

Adolf Hitler on Propaganda

In Mein Kampf, Adolf  Hitler analysed  Allied propaganda techniques used  during  the First World War: The art of propaganda led in understanding the emotional ideas of the masses and finding, through a psychologically correct form, the way to the attention, and then to the heart, of the masses….the purpose of propaganda is …to convince …the masses ...its effect for the most part  must  be aimed at the emotions…. The war propaganda of the English and the Americans was psychologically sound. By  representing the Germans to their own people as Barbarians and Huns, they prepared the individual for the terrors  of war…all effective propaganda must be limited to a very few points  and  must  harp  on these  in slogans  until the last member of the public understands what you want him  to understand by your  slogan… to be a leader means to be able to move the masses… the intelligence of the masses  is small. Their  forgetfulness is great. They must be told the same thing  a thousand times.

Tactics of Propaganda

The  tactics of propaganda have  been  analysed by numerous studies. Professor Johann Galtung  listed some of the tactics used  in propaganda, including: I. Decontextualizing violence: Focusing on the irrational  without looking at the reasons…

1. Decontextualizing violence: Focusing on the irrational without looking at the reasons…
2. Dualism: Reducing the number of parties in a conflict to two, (when often more are involved.)
3. Manichaeism: Portraying one side as good and demonising the other as evil.
4. Armageddon: Presenting violence as inevitable, omitting alternatives.
5. Confusion: Focusing only on the conflict arena, but not on the forces  and  factors that influence the violence.
6. Never explaining why there are acts of revenge and spirals of violence.
7. Failure to explore the causes of escalation and the impact of media coverage itself.
8. Failure to explore the   goals of  outside interventionists, especially big powers and bankers.
9. Failure to explore peace proposals and offer images of peaceful outcomes.
10. Confusing cease fires and negotiations with actual peace and
11. Omitting reconciliation as a viable option.

Distorting Perspectives

Propaganda does  not need  to be true, as long as it is plausible. Sometimes it can tell the truth, but withhold the point  of view  from  the  other side  to create a distorted perspective.

Preparing a Nation  for War

British journalist,  Phillip Knightley, identified  the four stages  in preparing a nation  for war:

1. The Crisis: Negotiations are failing! We‘re on the brink of war! War is inevitable!
2. The Demonization of the enemy leader.
3. The Demonization of the enemy as individuals.
4. Atrocities: Even making up stories to whip up and strengthen emotional reactions.

Betrayal of Trust

Knightley  observed: The  media demands that  we trust it, but too often that trust has been betrayed.

Propaganda Strategies

Miren Gutierrez of Inter  Press Service  summarised propaganda strategies as follows:

Incompleteness

Inaccuracy

Driving the agenda

Milking the story

Exploiting that we want to believe the best about ourselves

Perception management

Reinforcing  existing attitudes and

Simple  repetitious and emotional phrases.

Words are Weapons

Words are weapons in warfare. Propaganda involves word games. Name calling of the target nation  by labelling people,  groups and institutions in a negative manner.

Glittering Generalities

Glittering generality with regard to allies, labelling their people, groups and institutions in a positive manner.

Euphemisms

Euphemisms are  used  to pacify the  audience  with bland meanings and connotations, such as pacification, technical incursion, etc. Civilian casualties are  referred to  as:  collateral  damage. Murder is replaced with: liquidation. Terror bombing of cities  is called: saturation bombing or strategic bombing campaign. Starvation of civilian populations is called an economic blockade or sanctions. Looting of farms and murder of farmers is called: dekulakisation or land reform. Racial decriminalisation is called: Black Economic Empowerment and Affirmative Action. Sexual perversion is  called Alternative Lifestyles.

False Connections

False connections are  used  to transfer symbols and imagery of positive  institutions to strengthen  the acceptance of the cause. Making use of testimonies from  individuals not  qualified to make the  claims made (for example having sportsmen advise on how one should  vote in a Referendum!).

Ordinary Appeals

Special appeals include: the everybody ‘s doing it, join the bandwagon argument, through words designed to heighten or exploit fear and an appeal to ordinary citizens by leaders doing  ordinary things  that  the viewer can identify with.

Thought Control

In 1921, American journalist Walter  Lippmann said that the art of democracy requires the manufacture of consent.  George  Orwell  described it as thought control. As democracies cannot control  people by force, it controls  them by influencing  what they think, how they think and what they think about. Propaganda is to democracies what  violence is to dictatorships.

Gullibility  of the Public

Propaganda tends  to work  because people wish  to believe the best about  themselves and their country. It is often very hard  to believe  that our own  leaders could possibly lie to us! From how the media  portray them, they seem such likeable people!

Crowd Psychology

During the Nuremberg Trials, General Hermann Goring was reported  to have said: It is always a simple matter to drag the people  along, whether it be a democracy, or  a fascist dictatorship,  or  a parliament,  or  a communist dictatorship… Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them  that they are being attacked and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism, and exposing their  country  to danger. It works the same in any country.

Perception Management

John  Rendon, the  Founder of the Rendon  Group,  a PR Agency, told cadets at the US Air Force Academy: I am a politician… who uses communication to meet public  policy… objectives. In fact I am an information warrior and a perception manager. Did you ever stop to wonder how the people of Kuwait City, after being held hostage for seven long and painful months, were able to get hand-held American flags? Well, you now know  the answer. That was one of my jobs.

Manipulating Public Opinion

Another propaganda tactic is character assassination. Smear  tactics are  used  to discredit, or destroy  the reputation of someone perceived as an obstacle to the  policy makers. The calculated manipulation of public  opini on  to  serve political and  ideological interests is achieved by appealing to the emotions to create reality which  demands the action  desired by the policy makers.

Holocaust in Rwanda

In Holocaust in Rwanda I documented the ease with which  the orchestrators of the genocide in Rwanda confused international  journalists and  abused the national media to mobilise the  unprecedented concentration of  carnage. The  massacres were meticulously organised  in  advance. The  MRND government of Rwanda manipulated the international media by portraying the killings as spontaneous, tribal anarchy, uncontrolled tribal killing, tribalism, the result of the war.

Disinformation

A smokescreen of disinformation allowed the killers to proceed with  their  diabolical plans  and  kill over 800,000 people in a mere  six weeks. They isolated their victims by imposing a news blackout, cutting telephone links, establishing a  dense network of roadblocks and  imposing a nationwide curfew.  By cutting  communications and  restricting travel,  they isolated their victims and sought to stifle the flow of news. They also timed  the genocide to be launched on 6 April 1994, when most African correspondents were in South Africa for the Mandela elections. With most  foreign   news  distracted by events in South Africa, the mass  murderers in Rwanda  were able  to play the humanitarian card,  pleading for emergency aid, all while they were  engaged in genocide.

Mobilising Mass Murder

While  deceiving the international news  media, the MRND mobilised  their national  news media to denigrate all the  targeted Tutsi tribe  as foreigners, Hamitic invaders, cockroaches, racial supremists who needed to be returned to Ethiopia by having  their bodies thrown into  the  Nyabarongo River. Wild rumours were recklessly spread  by  Radio  RTLM accusing the  Tutsis of sinister plots. Popular  poets and  songwriters composed songs to  provoke the majority Hutu tribe to hate their Tutsi neighbours. By totally dominating  the   mass media ,  the   Hutu extremists were  able  to mould  minds  and  fill them with  hatred and  a lust  for blood. Hundreds-of­ thousands of Hutu people were motivated  to murder their  neighbours. Hutu teachers murdered Tutsi students. Hutu doctors and  nurses murdered Tutsi patients. Hutu  priests  and  bishops murdered Tutsi congregants. The Holocaust in Rwanda was  yet another proof that propaganda kills.

Dehumanise the Enemy

Many of the  massacres of prisoners and  atrocities committed against civilians in WWI and WWII, including the systematic saturation  bombing of cities, would not have been  possible without  the demonization of the targeted enemy and  their  civilian   population  by propaganda. The farm invasions  in Zimbabwe were preceded  by state propaganda vilifying whites in general and  farmers  in particular. The Mau Mau murders in Kenya and  the Simba  massacres in the Congo were also motivated  and  mobilised  by propaganda which dehumanised the  targeted white farmers and missionaries. The incessant, anti-white propaganda in South Africa has led to over 3,000 brutal murders of white  farmers  in some  of the  most  torturous ways possible. Songs such as “Kill the Boer! Kill the farmer!” sung by prominent ANC leaders are like pouring petrol on  a  fire.  The  fact  is  that   propaganda changes perceptions and people. Propaganda kills.

The Truth Sets Free

That is why it is absolutely essential that we know the truth of history  to recognise the lies of propaganda. We need to study the truth in the Bible so that we can be freed  from the deceptions of the world.

“You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you   free.”  John  8:32