Propaganda

Is propaganda or merely a difference in perspective?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lglTUspyeus

The word “propaganda” is nearly impossible to describe. Though what it lacks in clarity it more than makes up in multiple definitions . As O’Shaughnessy says in his book; “it is inevitable that there will be no collective agreement about the definition of propaganda in the sense that we might accord on the meaning of many other words”. To make his point O’Shaughnessy spends the first part of the book quoting numerous explanations from scholars. Not surprisingly, they all seem to simultaneously agree and disagree with each other.

A major issue O’Shaughnessy raises is what exactly the goal of propaganda is; communication or persuasion? Though the bigger question is; “are all ads propaganda?” the answer is “kind of” but even that is really a “draw” .

I like to follow the opinion of the scholar Jacques Ellul, who says “All propaganda is necessarily bias, but not all bias is necessarily propagandist. While this view is a little controversial (not to mention convoluted) it raises many questions and hence many of the authors and scholars he references throughout the book don’t like it.

Despite this, I think it can best explain the ad that I’m choosing to write about, so with apologies to the opposition, I am going to stick by what Ellul said.

The ad I chose was a quite personal ad against Ron Kind. While Kind passed many bills regarding health research on some pretty outrageous topics, he never passed one for the soldiers to get more funding. By stating these two facts, the opposition reached the absurd conclusion that Kind would pay for anything sex related, but nothing to help the welfare of our troops in Iraq.

This is clearly propaganda. Even if you don’t prescribe to what Ellul said. How? Well first, let’s revert to Ellul’s definition, and we can clearly see that is a biased propaganda. But even if you don’t like what he said, there is still a sufficient explanation to proclaim this as propaganda.

O’Shaughnessy states that “propaganda is manipulative and generally attacks one emotional side”. Also he says that “it usually goes to persuade the ambivalent ones”.

Now let’s take all these into account the way the average viewer would.

The typical American doesn’t know much about the mid-term election candidates so odds are he is more than a bit confused. He turns on his/her television and sees a political ad saying that Ron Kind pays for sex, and not for soldier in Iraq. As chances are he (or she) cares more for the soldiers in Iraq than the masturbatory habits of adults—their conclusion about Kind is a foregone one, And given the almost surgical precision of the TV time bought to communicate that message, odds are its reaching viewers who will not just cast their vote for the opposition but voice their perceptions to anyone who’ll listen (and many who’d rather not).

You mind say, that the opposition’s campaign propaganda is the un-Kind-est of all