LEAP ONE
Propaganda in my life
News and Information
The winter Olympics is currently taking place in Pyeongchang, South Korea. I like to stay updated with the games, I find them interesting and always root for team USA. Most of the information that I find on the Olympics is mostly from social media sources, including snapchat, twitter, facebook, and even Instagram. The other day, I came upon a tweet from Now This News, with a video captioned TV Station Confuses Pyeongchang With P.F. Chang's.
The footage is from ABC7 in Chicago showing the newscaster describing how the Olympic games in South Korea is a show of unity. But, instead of a ‘Pyeongchang 2018’ graphic in the background, the news station mistakenly wrote ‘P.F. Chang 2018’. The station announced that it was a mixup, and the video continued on to tell how accidents like this are common.
This is propaganda because it questions my beliefs and thoughts on what newscasters are taking seriously. Also, question the intention behind it. Jacques Ellul defines propaganda as “Propaganda is a form of information that panders to our insecurities and anxieties.” This information gets me worried about the future, what happens in a newsroom made a major graphic mistake that could have given false information to the public that was more crucial than just the host town of the Olympics.
This can even be a form of misinformation, because of the misleading headlines, And can be a harmful kind of propaganda. Was this a hoax? Or was it just an error from the news team?
Advertising
This is an ad for Venus razors. The ad showcases singer and public figure Jennifer Lopez in a little sequence dress dancing on stage with lights. The caption on it is “Today is another day for your inner goddess to step out and shine.” - Jennifer Lopez.
The one thing that triggers me about this ad too is how only the “Goddess to step out” part of the sentence is in a bigger font than the rest of the sentence. ‘Get our Goddess Showing’ was a campaign launched by Venus with Jennifer Lopez. This ad suggests to me, that in order to be a great goddess and look like the spectacular Jennifer as they are showing in this picture, I must use Venus. This becomes triggering because you should not need Venus to let the goddess step out of you and shine, it should without any alterations.A famous person endorses and supports a product, this is a form of testimonial propaganda.
“I believe that competition in the future will not be only an advertising competition between individual products or between big associates, but that it will be in addition be a competition of propaganda.” Edward L. Bernays
Today, it seems to be big businesses is just trying to get the most popular public figure for an advertisement. Because the more famous the person is, the more people will want to be like them and promote what they are promoting.
Entertainment
Within the past month, I binged watch the series Black Mirror on Netflix. Every episode tells a different story of exploring a new high-tech world where the most unpredictable distress and cutting-edge situations come together.
I never watched a serious that makes you think about the future and how certain situations can be possible in the world. Nevertheless, to say, this grabs my attention.
“Stories offer ideas and information about good and evil, right and wrong, thus embedding values and ideology into narrative form.”
For me, these stories that they are showing make me think about my fears and anxieties, to think about if a world like this would really happen.
Education
One of the issues I see today is the fight for education to be either reduced or deducted. With that, plans that politicians propose are a big issue between opposite parties. Being a college student during the past election I was interested in informing myself with the current student loan debt crisis and what the candidates would do to help stop this.
With Donald Trump being elected president there is still a lot of issues holding people against having the right financial support before and after they receive their education.
Today, for people to express their feelings on education and college debt there are numerous amounts of reposts circling the internet to help make a change. The meme below informs us that student loans interest won't be deductible under the new tax bill. This is a representation of how many students feel the minute after they graduate, depressed and stumped because of the fight to pay student loans. This propaganda makes you think, you ask you at the bottom to "share if you think this is unfair". Here is where one's opinions and thoughts are expressed. I think this propaganda is beneficial because it lets people test if they agree with this certain law or now.
Government
When scrolling through Facebook, it's almost impossible for me to not stumble upon propaganda about the government and politics. Since post-election of Trump's win, propaganda has been developing to be more and more outrages. I think now than ever propaganda is viewed as harmful rather than beneficial and its because of the election outcome.
Below is a meme is on Kim Jon-Un looking off into the mounts with his binoculars, preparing for a missile launch with the caption reading "Tell the troops to stand down Republicans are destroying American themselves". This is prime form of propaganda and a representation of what people are thinking about the US government. This is attacking all the opponents who are Republicans, triggering political feelings for almost everyone in the states. At this point, I find this propaganda to be more offensive to the whole US nation than to North Korea. Propaganda as so starts to trigger the specific reasons behind it.
Activism
I think the use of propaganda is crucial is the fight for activism. Activists try to important society in a belief that they strongly stand for. In the past month, there has been a trial going on against the US Women's Gymnastic team doctor Larry Nassar. Larry was sentenced to 175 for decades of sexual abuse. In this trial, the woman gymnasts came to the stand to express the terrible situations they were put into because of him. The photo below shows Aly Raisman, a former gymnast with writing on her body starting "Woman don't have to be modest to be respected." Aly is using her voice and her body to support survivors. To me, this form of propaganda is very beneficial to the American Society. Because of her, other activists came out to tell their stories and to fight for their opinions and beliefs.
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References
Bernays, E. L., & Miller, M. C. (2004). Propaganda. New York: Ig Publishing.
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Holiday, R. (2017). Trust Me, I’m Lying. New York, NY: Penguin Random House LLC.
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Jack, Caroline (2017). Lexicon of Lies: Terms for Problematic Information. New York: Data and Society.
Levenson, E. (2017, November 11). Aly Raisman: I was sexually abused by former USA Gymnastics doctor.
Retrieved February 13, 2018,
from https://www.cnn.com/2017/11/10/us/aly-raisman-abuse-usa-gymnastics/index.html
