PROPAGANDA

PROPAGANDA
Garth Jowett and Victoria O'Donnell have provided a concise, workable definition of the term propaganda: they indicated that propaganda is the deliberate, systematic attempt to shape perceptions, manipulate cognitions, and direct behaviour to achieve a response that furthers the desired intent of the propagandist." More comprehensive is the description by Richard Alan Nelson: "Propaganda is neutrally defined as a systematic form of purposeful persuasion that attempts to influence the emotions, attitudes, opinions, and actions of specified target audiences for ideological, political or commercial purposes through the controlled transmission of one-sided messages (which may or may not be factual) via mass and direct media channels. A propaganda organization employs propagandists who engage in propagandism—the applied creation and distribution of such forms of persuasion." Nelson also expressed that "Propaganda is the deliberate, systematic attempt to shape perceptions, manipulate cognitions, and direct behaviour to achieve a response that furthers the desired intent of the propagandist."

Both definitions focus on the communicative process involved — more precisely, on the purpose of the process, and allow "propaganda" to be considered objectively and then interpreted as positive or negative behavior depending on the perspective of the viewer or listener.
Propaganda is generally an appeal to emotion, not intellect. It shares techniques with advertising and public relations, each of which can be thought of as propaganda that promotes a commercial product or shapes the perception of an organization, person, or brand. In post-World War II usage the word "propaganda" more typically refers to political or nationalist uses of these techniques or to the promotion of a set of ideas, since the term had gained a pejorative meaning. The refusal phenomenon was eventually to be seen in politics itself by the substitution of "political marketing" and other designations for "political propaganda".
Propaganda was often used to influence opinions and beliefs on religious issues, particularly during the split between the Roman Catholic Church and the Protestant churches. Propaganda has become more common in political contexts, in particular to refer to certain efforts sponsored by governments, political groups, but also often covert interests. In the early 20th century, propaganda was exemplified in the form of party slogans. Also in the early 20th century the term propaganda was used by the founders of the nascent public relations industry to describe their activities. This usage died out around the time of World War II, as the industry started to avoid the word, given the pejorative connotation it had acquired (Ross, 2007).

Propaganda consists of the planned use of any form of public or mass-produced communication designed to affect the minds and emotions of a given group for a specific purpose, whether military, economic, or political (Linebarger, 2008). Linebarger continued that propaganda consists of the planned use of any form of communication designed to affect the minds, emotions, and action of a given group for a specific purpose.
Journalistic theory generally holds that news items should be objective, giving the reader an accurate background and analysis of the subject at hand. On the other hand, advertisements evolved from the traditional commercial advertisements to include also a new type in the form of paid articles or broadcasts disguised as news. These generally present an issue in a very subjective and often misleading light, primarily meant to persuade rather than inform. Normally they use only subtle propaganda techniques and not the more obvious ones used in traditional commercial advertisements. If the reader believes that a paid advertisement is in fact a news item, the message the advertiser is trying to communicate will be more easily "believed" or "internalized"(Hoffmann; Broadwin and Berghahn, 1997).
Hoffmann; Broadwin and Berghahn were of the opinion that such advertisements are considered obvious examples of "covert" propaganda because they take on the appearance of objective information rather than the appearance of propaganda, which is misleading. Federal law specifically mandates that any advertisement appearing in the format of a news item must state that the item is in fact a paid advertisement.
Propaganda is also one of the methods used in psychological warfare, which may also involve false flag operations. The term propaganda may also refer to false information meant to reinforce the mindsets of people who already believe as the propagandist wishes. The assumption is that, if people believe something false, they will constantly be assailed by doubts. Since these doubts are unpleasant (see cognitive dissonance), people will be eager to have them extinguished, and are therefore receptive to the reassurances of those in power. For this reason propaganda is often addressed to people who are already sympathetic to the agenda. This process of reinforcement uses an individual's predisposition to self-select "agreeable" information sources as a mechanism for maintaining control (Ross, 2007).
ORIGIN/HISTORY OF PROPAGANDA
English gets the word propaganda from the term Propaganda Fide, the name of a Roman Catholic organization charged with the spreading of the gospel. This meant literally ‘propagating the faith’, prōpāgānda being the feminine gerundive of Latin prōpāgāre, source of English propagate (16th c.). Originally prōpāgāre was a botanical verb, as its English descendant remains, only secondarily broadening out metaphorically to ‘extend, spread’. It was derived from the noun prōpāgo ‘cutting, scion’, which in turn was formed from the prefix prō- ‘forth’ and the base *pāg- ‘fix’ (source of English pagan, page, pale ‘stake’, etc).

Propaganda has been a human activity as far back as reliable recorded evidence exists. The Behistun Inscription (c. 515 BC) detailing the rise of Darius I to the Persian throne is viewed by most historians as an early example of propaganda. The Arthashastra written by Chanakya (c. 350 - 283 BC), a professor of political science at Takshashila University and a prime minister of the Maurya Empire in ancient India, discusses propaganda in detail, such as how to spread propaganda and how to apply it in warfare. His student Chandragupta Maurya (c. 340 - 293 BC), founder of the Maurya Empire, employed these methods during his rise to power. The writings of Romans such as Livy (c. 59 BC - 17 AD) are considered masterpieces of pro-Roman propaganda. Another example of early propaganda is the 12th century work, The War of the Irish with the Foreigners, written by the Dál gCais to portray themselves as legitimate rulers of Ireland.

PROPAGANDA AND TRUTH
Truth is not the absence of propaganda; propaganda thrives in presenting different kinds of truth, including half truths, incomplete truths, limited truths, out of context truths. Modern propaganda is most effective when it presents information as accurately as possible. The Big Lie or Tall Tale is the most ineffective propaganda (Snow, 2007).


PROPAGANDA AND EDUCATION
Education is not necessarily the best protection against propaganda. Intellectuals and "the educated" are the most vulnerable to propaganda campaigns because they (1) tend to absorb the most information (including secondhand information, hearsay, rumors, and unverifiable information); (2) are compelled to have an opinion on matters of the day and thus expose themselves more to others' opinions and propaganda campaigns; and (3) consider themselves above the influence of propaganda, thereby making themselves more susceptible to propaganda (Snow, 2007).

It is almost certainly the case that the ultimate achievement of higher education for the great majority of people, is to open them up and prepare them for bigger and bigger lies and to make them receptive to being part of a group that simultaneously sees itself as above propaganda, and also as a member of a semi-elitist class. As Ellul suggests, however, education, at least as its referred to in the modern sense of the word, is an "absolute prerequisite" for propaganda.

In fact, education is largely identical with what Ellul calls "pre-propaganda"--the conditioning of minds with vast amounts of information, already dispensed for ulterior purposes and posing as "facts" and as "education." Very similar to Snow, Ellul follows through by designating intellectuals as virtually the most vulnerable of all to modern propaganda for three reasons:
a). they absorb the largest amount of second-hand, unverifiable information;
b). they feel a compelling need to have an opinion on every important question of our time, and thus easily succumb to opinions offered to them by propaganda on all such indigestible pieces of information;
c). they consider themselves capable of "judging for themselves."

TYPES OF PROPAGANDA
According to Cunningham (2002) propaganda can be classified according to the source and nature of the message. White propaganda generally comes from an openly identified source, and is characterized by gentler methods of persuasion, such as standard public relations techniques and one-sided presentation of an argument. Black propaganda is identified as being from one source, but is in fact from another. This is most commonly to disguise the true origins of the propaganda, be it from an enemy country or from an organization with a negative public image. Grey propaganda is propaganda without any identifiable source or author. A major application of grey propaganda is making enemies believe falsehoods using straw arguments: As phase one, to make someone believe "A", one releases as grey propaganda "B", the opposite of "A". In phase two, "B" is discredited using some strawman. The enemy will then assume "A" to be true.
From Psychological Warfare Journal, page 44
White propaganda is issued from an acknowledged source... This type of propaganda is associated with overt psychological operations.
Grey propaganda does not clearly identify any source.
Black propaganda purports to emanate from a source other than the true one. This type of propaganda is associated with covert psychological operations.

THE NEED FOR PROPAGANDA
The propagandist seeks to change the way people understand an issue or situation for the purpose of changing their actions and expectations in ways that are desirable to the interest group. Propaganda, in this sense, serves as a corollary to censorship in which the same purpose is achieved, not by filling people's minds with approved information, but by preventing people from being confronted with opposing points of view. What sets propaganda apart from other forms of advocacy is the willingness of the propagandist to change people's understanding through deception and confusion rather than persuasion and understanding. The leaders of an organization know the information to be one sided or untrue, but this may not be true for the rank and file members who help to disseminate the propaganda (Nelson, 2006).
Hinder (2003) also indicated that propaganda is important in dehumanizing and creating hatred toward a supposed enemy, either internal or external, by creating a false image in the mind. This can be done by using derogatory or racist terms, avoiding some words or by making allegations of enemy atrocities. Most propaganda wars require the home population to feel the enemy has inflicted an injustice, which may be fictitious or may be based on facts. The home population must also decide that the cause of their nation is just.






PROPAGANDA DEVICES
Name calling: Demonize the enemy


Glittering generalities: Use vague and ambiguous terms that people blindly accept without question.

Civilization, Christianity, good, proper, right, democracy, patriotism, motherhood, fatherhood, science, medicine, health, and love

Transfer : Claiming the authority, sanction, and prestige of something we respect and revere and apply it to something else being advocated. Also called “association.”


Testimonial: Us of a spokesperson or endorser.


Plain folks: Appeal to common folks.

President in blue jeans on his “farm.” Bartels and James commercials

Card stacking: Using the arguments that support your position, but ignoring or even denying the arguments against. Also called “special pleading.”


Bandwagon: Join in with everyone else (who matters). Don’t be the last one on your block to not have . . .


Source: (Mein Kampf from Chapter VI: War Propaganda, 2006)

A THEORY OF CONSTRUCTION OF SOCIAL AND/OR PHYSICAL REALITY

According to socialists, Berger and Lukmann (2008) the construction of social reality is an ongoing, dynamic process that is (and must be) reproduced by people acting on their interpretations and their knowledge of it. Because social constructs as facets of reality and objects of knowledge are not "given" by nature, they must be constantly maintained and re-affirmed in order to persist.

John Searle’s The Construction of Social Reality is an examination of the relation between physical and social reality. Searle describes how physical reality provides a foundation for the construction of social reality, and investigates the nature of the rules which constitute and regulate the social world. He defends Realism (the theory that there is a real world existing independently of our ideas and representations) as necessary for our understanding of social reality, and he also defends the Correspondence Theory of Truth (the theory that statements are true if they correspond to facts in the real world). Searle distinguishes between "brute" physical facts and mental facts. Brute physical facts include such things as rivers, trees, and mountains. Mental facts include such things as perceptions, feelings, and judgments. Mental facts are ultimately caused by physical facts, in that mental facts depend on physical and biological functions which are required for consciousness. The physical and biological processes which are necessary for consciousness enable conscious individuals to recognize physical and mental facts. Thus, mental facts are based on physical facts, and both physical and mental facts are required for the construction of social reality.

According to Searle, mental facts may be intentional or nonintentional, depending on whether or not they are directed at something. Intentionality is a quality of representations whereby they are about, or directed at, something, Intentional mental facts may be recognized by a single individual, or may be recognized by multiple individuals. Thus, intentional mental facts may become social facts when they are recognized by many individuals. Social facts are facts which are generally agreed upon, and which have collective intentionality. Searle maintains that brute facts are objective, and that social facts may be both subjective and objective. Brute facts are objective, in that they do not depend on our attitude about them. For example, mountains and valleys are physical facts, no matter what attitude we take toward them. On the other hand, social facts depend on the attitudes which taken toward them. For example, the value of a five-dollar bill is a social fact which depends on our agreement that a five-dollar bill is worth something. However, social facts may be objective when they are commonly accepted, and when they are not a matter of individual preference or opinion. For example, the duty of a policeman to enforce the law may be classified as an objective social fact. 

According to Searle, social facts may be epistemically objective (in that they are not a matter of individual preference or opinion) but may be ontologically subjective (in that they depend for their existence on being agreed upon as facts). Searle also explains that brute facts may be status-indicators of social facts. For example, a driver’s license is a brute fact which indicates the social fact that a person may legally drive a car. A status-function may be imposed on a social fact by collective intentionality. For example, the fact that a person is driving a car without a license may be assigned a status-function by collective intentionality. Searle describes how status-functions may also be institutional facts. Institutional facts are social facts which depend for their existence on social institutions. For example, marriages, businesses, property, and governments are institutional facts. Brute facts (such as baseball stadiums or government buildings) may be status-indicators of institutional facts (such as baseball teams or governments).

According to Searle, social rules may be regulative or constitutive. Regulative rules may regulate an activity (such as driving a car), while constitutive rules may create the possibility of an activity (such as playing a baseball game). Constitutive rules provide a structure for institutional facts. Institutional facts ultimately depend on brute facts, that is, social reality is ultimately defined by physical reality. For example, in order to say that a particular player in a football game scored a touchdown, we must have confirmed the occurrence of a physical event which we called a touchdown. Searle expains that brute facts have logical priority over institutional facts. If there are no brute facts to provide a foundation for social facts, then there is no logical basis for the structure of social reality. Searle explains that both physical facts and mental facts are constitutive elements of social reality. Intentional facts may become social facts by collective intentionality. Social facts are collective intentional facts, and may become functional facts when they assign functions to physical or mental phenomena. Functional facts which assign status-functions to phenomena may also be institutional facts. Institutional facts may include linguistic and non-linguistic facts. The structure of social reality is a hierarchy in which logical functions are assigned to social facts, and in which status-functions are determined by collective intentionality.

According to Searle, intentionality functions against a Background of mental capacities which are nonintentional or preintentional. Background mental abilities are necessary for intentional states of function. Searle contends that Realism, or the viewpoint that reality exists independently of our ideas and representations, is a necessary part of the Background. Searle does not explain how differing views of social reality or differing representations of collective intentionality may become a source of social conflict. He does not describe how social reality may be viewed differently by individuals from different groups or classes of society. He also does not attempt to extensively discuss how phenomena which are viewed as facts by some people may not be viewed as facts by other people. According to his view, physical reality is the same for all of us, and exists independently of our representations. The structure of social reality may involve the assignment of functions to subjective facts, but social reality must ultimately be based on objective facts.

Seale’s definition of a social fact is that it is a collective intentional fact, i.e. an intentional fact which is agreed upon by many people and which is not a matter of subjective preference or attitude. However, a social fact may be agreed upon by a large number of people, and may still not be agreed upon by a large number of people. It may not be possible to determine exactly how many people must agree upon a social fact before it becomes an objective fact. It may also be important to fully investigate the agreement or disagreement of different forms of collective intentionality, if we are to recognize the differences which may occur in our views of social reality, and if we are to achieve social harmony and understanding. Searle’s theory of intentionality is thus an important development in the philosophy of mind and in understanding the metaphysics of social reality.

HOW IS COMMUNICATION RELATED TO PUBLIC RELATIONS?

Communication is the process of exchanging information, impacting ideas and making one understood by others. It also includes understanding others in return. Indeed understanding is critical to the communication process. If one person sends a message to another who disregards or misunderstands it, then communication has not taken place.

Communication is something people do. It has no life of its own. There is no magic about what the people put into it. When no studies communication therefore, one studies people and relating each other and to their groups, organizations and societies , influencing each other, being influenced, informing and being informed, teaching and being taught, by means of certain signs which exist separately from either of them. To understand the human communication process, one must understand how people relate to each other.

The power of communication, through oral and written word and the images that flash around the world to millions of people in real time, is more awesome than any individual or group or even nation. The world has become, “a global village” as the 20th century communication professor once put it. As a sequence, communication has never been a more potent tool and communication must be handled with great care.
Communication in planning public relations, aims to articulate an organization’s vision and support the overall business objectives. When it comes to public relations, communication with the publics, have been categorized into four models. Press agentry, the kind of activity most associated with public relations which are other times referred to as propaganda. It is a way of communication with emphasis on benefit to sender rather than the receiver; public information, which is a kind of information that seeks to provide information to people. And here accuracy is essential because it the release of relevant information to those who need it; two-way asymmetric, which introduces the idea of feedback or the two-way communication. It is however seen as inbalanced or asymmetric because it’s intended to change an audience’s attitude or behavior towards an organization rather than the organization’s practices through persuasion. Lastly, two-way symmetric; which is often referred to as the ideal of public relations. This model involves ideas of dialogue where organization and its publics exchange views leading to both being influenced and adjusting their attitudes and behaviors.
The public relations practitioner is a professional communicator more than anyone else in the organization. The practitioner must know how to communicate. As public relation practitioners known, however, communications with target publics is much complicated than this set of questions suggests.

A public relations practitioner also plays a role both internally and externally. Internally, he develops optimal relations with employees, managers, unions, newsletters, management and brochures are all important medium through which the public relations practitioner communications through to the internal publics.
Also, externally, as he involves himself communicating with groups of people outside the organization including customers, dealers, suppliers and community leaders.
Although all this are endowed with some capacity for communication. The practitioner can earn the respect of management and become trusted advisers; they must demonstrate a mystery of communication skills.

When communication is planned as it should be in the public relations, every communication must have a goal, purpose and objective.

Firstly, the communication goal of an organization is to reform and educate a particular public. For instance if MTN launches a new product, they would come out to the public and inform their customers on how to use the product.
Also a regular goal of communication to public relations is to persuade people to take certain actions. Such persuasions need a lot be overly aggressive. For instance in this time where there are so many telecommunication networks, that is MTN, TIGO, KASAPA, VODAFONE, and AIRTEL. If MTN would want to have more customers than their competitors, then they need to persuade the public with their products and services in order to achieve this aim.

However, motivation of employees is a regular original communication goal. Also a typical communication goal is to build a mutual understanding of a group of opposition.

The 2 step flow theory stated that an organization would send a message to the mass media, which would then deliver the message to the great mass of readers, listeners and viewers for their response. People today are influenced by factors which the media could be one but is not dominant.
Employee communication serves three purposes:

First, internal communication, which is meant to employees to get them to understand the organizations culture and values.

Also, internal acculturate communication is a way of informing employees of organizational development happenings through news.
Furthermore, internal communication is a way of the organisation to listen to its employees, to hear employees concerns and questions. All of these purposes can be served in any variety of ways and new technology increasingly affects the manner in what employee’ communication occurs.

Another importance of communication to the public relations in media relations where the public relations practitioner communicates with large groups of people outside an organization is practicable through the mass medium queries, arranges news conferences and issues news releases. These coordinates coach executives for news interviews and sometimes serve as their organizations spokesperson.
In a nutshell, we can say that communication plays a major aspect of the practice of public relations.