Propaganda in My Life

Let us begin with the basics. Propaganda is a fairly simple concept to understand. Walter Cunningham puts it like this, "Propaganda is indifferent to truth and truthfulness, knowledge and understanding; it is a form of strategic communication that uses any means to accomplish its ends." Let us not forget though that propaganda is not always bad. Although it seems awfully shady that someone is influencing your opinion by any means necessary, the idea of influencing someone’s opinion for an outcome has a wide range of possibilities. It could be something like influencing someone to vote for a new basketball court for kids in your hometown. I think that we could rationalize that as an understandable and beneficial use of propaganda. On the other end, someone could be influencing your opinion on how to live, how to vote, how to think, feel act. This to me is a negative and harmful use of propaganda.

Social media and other media outlets have an extremely powerful position in modern society. A lot and I mean a lot of people rely on television news as their sole source of information, particularly the older generations. I do not know how often you see television news, however every time I have ever seen it, I am blown away by the sadness, and the negativity that is put out into the world every morning for people to start their day off with. Without delving to deeply into this one media outlet. Let me just say that every news station has a political, economic and social opinion that they aim to direct you towards. Politically, they have an opinion on let’s say who the best candidate would be for the election. Do they ever blatantly say, this particular candidate is who you should vote for? Maybe, maybe not. Socially they have an aim as well. The media does a really good job of conveying their opinions without bluntly telling you this is how you should think. Economically, they are paid to give the public information. Let's ask the question, who is paying them? What is the political and social aim of those paying them? What economic gain do news stations have for the way they put information out into the world. According to R. Hobbs & S. McGee, Journal of Media Literacy Education, there are seven propaganda devices, name calling, band wagon, glittering generalities, flag waving, "plain folks," testimonial, and stacking the cards. (Hobbs & McGree, 2/9/2017)

Let us step back into time for a moment and take a look at history and propaganda. In the middle ages kings used religion in order to incite fear into the poor people. Why he did this was so that people believed a couple of things, one was that they had no ability to move up or down from their socioeconomic status. The second was so that people believed that being both rich and poor was God given. Historians call this type of kingdom a decentralized society. The reason is because the king uses his power to stay in power, and keep his wealth. At no point in time does the king want the best for the poor, which associate similarly to slaves. He has a work force who he can drain the life out of which simultaneously get taxed by him. Centuries later, Karl Marx says, "Religion is the opium of the masses.” Well let’s discuss why he said that. First of all, he was a functionalist of sorts, which bases understanding of societies on a system of interrelated parts in order to maintain balance. Balance in these societies are all different, all dependent on what is going on. Society has changed, there are more Atheists now than ever before in history. So, if religion is less of an opium now than ever before, what can people use in order to influence, control, persuade others. MEDIA. Hello?! We see it in the election that just took place. Every news station portrayed each candidate differently. How is that possible, personal opinion? yeah maybe. More so, who benefits from these candidates being portrayed one way or another? It could not be these big-name companies, who control major portions of industries, could it? Oil? Tobacco? Pharmaceutical? Any of these things ringing a bell. One of the most prevalent ideas discussed within the younger generation was the legalization of marijuana. Who makes money if that is legalized? It is NOT the American people, I can assure you of that. We saw this discussion everywhere. Television, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and so on. Every media outlet had a say on this topic. Guess what, the idea that the king taxed his slave-like population while they worked day in and day out to serve him, is happening now. Have things changed relative to the middle ages, yes.

Society and the modern world is entirely different. However, the media is the new opium. The only purpose is to serve the people who control it. In my life, I have watched people go from smoking because it was popular, to being addicted, to attempting to quit, to having cancer because of the same exact things that were being advertised on television to the entire population. Commercials made cigarettes look, "cool" they made them look enjoyable and fun. At no point, did the people making millions if not billions off of them tell you by smoking these cancer sticks you are reducing your life expectancy by seven to eleven minutes every single one. I have seen people smoke a pack a day for years. You think these millionaires were blind to the fact that they were selling you cancer in a box?

The world has changed systematically. Instead of propaganda on the radio or television which had far more impact in the early to mid-twenty first century, the internet has become the hot spot for social, political and economic influence. In an article from the Atlantic, how social media is being weaponized across the world, Emerson Brooking and P. W. Singer discuss the use of social media by Isis as a method of creating the world’s first physical and digital terrorist group. (Brooking-Singer, 2/9/2017) Coincidentally they go on to discuss the distorted world the internet puts into play. "Social networks are bad at helping you empathize with people unlike you, but good at surrounding you with those who share your outlook. The new information ecosystem does not challenge biases; it reinforces them."(Brooking-Singer, 2/9/2017) The real problem is that on the internet you have little to no privacy. Everything you search on google, everything you look to read about is readily available to those who seek to empower themselves with such information. I believe people have the wrong idea about the internet, in that they go and try to find a safe place and instead of finding that, they are followed and used as a marketing strategy for terrorism and conflict.

Works Cited

The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, n.d. Web. 09 Feb. 2017.

"Opium of the People." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 09 Feb. 2017.

" ." Tobacco Fact File, How Tobacco Effects Your Life, Cigarette Amounts, Cigarette Substances. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Feb. 2017.