On the "Propaganda"
DEFINITION OF PROPAGANDA AND EARLY MODELS
From
the very beginning of the 20th century to the 1940’s, there were two giant wars
that had effected at a tremendous rate almost all part of the universe. In this
era, scholarly thought that media has enormous power to consent people what it
intented to. With the conception of paradigm of mass society and the atmosphere
of the war it was commonly accepted that mass communication tools are the most
powerful propaganda tools which can easily effect on people’s visions on their
mind. In other words, all these times mediated tools were seen and deemed as
“brain washing tools”. The dominant
model in these times were hypodermic
syringe
model and it was percieved that the messages of media
were sent to the minds of people just like how a nurse injects a syringe to a
patient. In this regard, masses can be easily manipulated by the hand of the
media instituitons and if one that would use media tools properly, than it will
probably gain all over it. This assumption came with propanganda analysis as
Harold Laswell put it down as scholarly.
But
what is propaganda? We have to describe it and then scrutinize deeply with its
historical background and have to mention what the today’s techniques are.
Meaning
of propaganda has always been debated but it could be defined as the integrated
messages that once organized and planned in order to effect masses’ behaviours
and thinking. Considering this definition of propaganda, the primarily
intention is not providing an independent information, but are presenting an
information which can manipulate their own masses at first. This message
generally use at politics, especially on behalf of the political parties or
powers.
The
word “propaganda” comes from modern Latin -propagatus which means circulate
things in particular thoughts and ideas. When we look at the modern type of the
word, we can move on from what Wikipedia
says: “Originally this word derived from
a new administrative body of the Catholic Church (congregation) created in 1622, called the Congregatio
de Propaganda Fide
(Congregation for Propagating the
Faith), or informally simply Propaganda.
Its activity was aimed at "propagating" the Catholic faith in
non-Catholic countries.
HISTORICAL
BACKGROUND
When
we turn back to the historical background of propaganda, we might say how
Gustave Le Bon’s quite important theoritical contribution to the sociology which
is known as quoted “An individual in a
crowd is a grain of sand amid other grains of sand, which the wind stirs up at
will” overlapping with incidents during the war times. According to Le Bon,
the masses can easily be manipulated by media as an external factor. The peak
times of the propaganda were exactly when the faschist rulers came into power
in Germany and socialist ones in Soviet Russia. During the World War II, the
mass communication was deemed just as propaganda. Afterwards, this sense of
communication faded away with the beginning of economically booming period of
West countries. Emergence of wealthy, integrated society which consist of
people who show solidarity each other paved a way to criticise propaganda model
and bring more pluralist view of media. The very important scholar of this era
was Paul Lazarsfeld who had showed that the effects of mass communication tools
on the people is “very stricted”. But
he then asserted with Robert Merton a different notion which they called “narcotic
dysfuntion” concept which defines the
audience’s non-reaction type on the issues
they encourage rather than take an action.
TECHNIQUES
OF PROPAGANDA
Let’s carry on with propaganda’s
itself and ask:
What are the techniques of propaganda?
First, as everybody probably knows it very well, the Slogan. The propagandist should envisage an effective motto
which could be accepted by masses so rapidly and wholeheartedly. This motto has
to be clear, easy and catcy. Second, repetition.
If the motto or idea can repeat enough, then it can be settled down to mind’s
of people who be objected of. Third, oversimplification.
It provides more people to understand
the message and beyond that, gives people an image of self satisfaction that
they think theirselves like “yes, I can understand the message!” Fourth one, overexaggeration. This concept tickles
the individual’s sense of homuor and helps making good relation with individual
and propagandist. Fifth, orchestrating.
It is referring put the elements of propaganda in order to urge people not to
understand differently as a result of being individuals but gives the same
messages and returns with the same outputs from given every single person in
the mass society. Orchestrating keeps the machine work and produces same
outputs as parallel with the initial aims.
As
a conclusion, the propaganda has to be understood as the two faces of Janus. On
the right face, the propaganda has an allegation that informing people and
making true opinions on their mind’s but on the other part, the issue is how do
the media manage it; by imposing some opinions without given any chance to
questioning by whom be addressed. This situation has swayed to more modern
definition; PR (Public Relations) but
the style of how it conducting is not new at all.
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