Poll of the Day > Do you think Propaganda can be justified?

(+) Yeah! (+)

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Really depends contextually. Sometimes maybe.

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Anything can (and does) get interpreted as propaganda

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propaganda was heavily used during the vietnam war to demoralize the enemy

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Lokarin posted...

propaganda was heavily used during the vietnam war to demoralize the enemy

doesnt seem like it worked

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Kotenks posted...

Would you consider a campaign against drinking and driving to be propaganda?

I don't think so, considering it's against something that is pretty much universally known to be dangerous

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"Lying and manipulation is okay when it's used to support the things -I- believe in" is an incredibly dangerous path to go down, no matter how justified you tell yourself it might be.



Kotenks posted...

Would you consider a campaign against drinking and driving to be propaganda?

Not really, if you're simply presenting facts as opposed to deliberately manipulating them, distorting them, presenting opinions as facts, or purposefully presenting your case in a way designed to appeal to emotions over logic. At the base level, drinking and driving does lead to more accidents and deaths. And because incredibly strict laws have been passed to prevent it, it is worth pointing out that you can wind up in a world of shit if you get caught.

That being said, the anti-drug PSAs of the 80s and 90s were definitely propaganda - even if you accept the basic premise that "drugs are bad and kids should be discouraged from using them", the way the ads were presented was straight up an attempt to terrify kids into obedience, and was often presented in a way that wasn't necessarily entirely accurate or verifiable.

The sad part is, kids aren't stupid - and the deliberate propaganda tone of the ads actually caused drug use to spike upwards after their initial success - as kids started figuring out that the PSAs were kind of full of shit. When a PSA basically tells you that smoking a single joint will destroy your entire life, but you know multiple people who get high and seem relatively fine, you're going to just stop listening to the propaganda. Which backfires hard if it makes you more likely to question whether or not other, harder drugs are as bad as people claim they are. After all, if everyone lied to you about how bad marijuana is, maybe they lied about heroin as well. Can't hurt to try, right?
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Avoiding Drugs, Violence, And Negative Choices Early

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If any Democrat says they don't like propaganda they are just lying to themselves, that is all they know how to do is spread propaganda, mostly through the MSM and Hollywood elitists.

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Considering the multitude of interpretations, it's a little iffy. There's a false assumption that propaganda has to be either misleading or outright fictitious, but that's not necessarily the case. Some examples are just designed to elicit a strong emotional response. I believe it's generally objectionable because of its nature, but... there are definitely degrees.

And while there's some propaganda that doesn't feel justifiable under any circumstances, I'm not sure that the lesser forms of propaganda require justification. For example, John Oliver is a propaganda machine, but I would expect a lot of people go into that expecting massive amounts of bias and misleading statements. It's only a problem when people take him at face value, which I'm sure a certain percent of his audience does -- but, as a LWT viewer myself, I know that a lot of people don't. It's different from say, NPR, where most listeners might take NPR as gospel because it's an actual news outlet (even though it heavily editorializes and slants the news); at the same time, I'll hear some stories and discussions that require an absurd level of double-think to overlook the glaring contradictions.

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Never.

Zeus posted...

For example, John Oliver is a propaganda machine, but I would expect a lot of people go into that expecting massive amounts of bias and misleading statements. It's only a problem when people take him at face value, which I'm sure a certain percent of his audience does -- but, as a LWT viewer myself, I know that a lot of people don't.

I feel like I disagree. If only because I remember back in the day when they'd do polls and younger viewers would say that The Daily Show was literally the only news they watched, and they pretty clearly took more or less everything at face value.

Basically, it's the difference between seeing something as actual news being presented humorously versus seeing it as pure comedy that's just based on current events. I honestly think most people fall into the former camp at this point, which is why I felt like Jon Stewart was absolutely full of shit when he said he had absolutely no journalistic responsibility because he was a comedian, and hypocritical as fuck when he called out other "infotainment" news programs for not having journalistic responsibility.

Though at this point, I'm not even sure how many young people are even watching shows like TDS or LWT. These days most of them are probably just getting their news through Twitter.
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As a concept, propaganda entails lying to some extent or another to convince people to behave in a way that they wouldn't have if you simply told them the unmanipulated truth (pretending for a moment that the concept of unmanipulated truth is something that actually exists). That's generally bad, even if it's being done for (what you feel is) a good cause, because lying to people has a tendency undermine their trust in you and/or encourage defiance for spite's sake. Informing people is good, but just informing people isn't propaganda.

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they needed propaganda to get more soldiers for ww1/2
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adjl posted...

As a concept, propaganda entails lying to some extent or another to convince people to behave in a way that they wouldn't have if you simply told them the unmanipulated truth (pretending for a moment that the concept of unmanipulated truth is something that actually exists).

Do you consider anti-drunk driving campaigns to be worse than presenting "both" sides, though? It feels fairly reductive to imply manipulation is inherently negative, which is what tying it together with lying and manipulation (which both largely have very negative connotations) accomplishes. Propaganda itself is neither positive or negative.

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ForteEXE3850 posted...

For the purposes of this topic, the definition of propaganda is...

1. the spreading of ideas, information, or rumor for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person

2. ideas, facts, or allegations spread deliberately to further one's cause or to damage an opposing cause

The point being, the point of the "propaganda" is to deliberately be biased, whether you agree with the idea being pushed or not.

It really depends.
If propaganda includes instances where all of the information is true and accurate (and not in a "lie by strategically framing statistical results in a manipulative way" kind of true), then yes. Definitely can be justifiable.
But most people wouldn't consider such examples to be "propaganda".
Like...I just saw a video a few days ago that talked about how aerosol products put an expanding hole in the ozone layer and it was through a concerted messaging campaign and political action (including unanimous UN declarations, which like never fucking happens), people were able to ban them and reverse the damage.
Is that propaganda?

Just like the military, offensive ability has its purpose.
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agesboy posted...

Do you consider anti-drunk driving campaigns to be worse than presenting "both" sides, though?

There isn't really another side, at least not one that isn't implied by doing a little basic math on drunk driving stats. If you say 30% of car accidents are caused by drunk driving, it's implicit that 70% are not, but presenting the inverse statistic is largely meaningless (though not entirely unlike what the "Covid has a 99% survival rate!" people are trying to do). The fact of the matter is that driving drunk significantly increases your risk of being involved in a crash. The other side of "you might be fine though" doesn't change that point, nor does it in any way affect the conclusion of "you should avoid driving drunk."

Now, if you start exaggerating the risk (such as "If you drive drunk you will crash and die")? That does become a problem, because it means people who look into the matter and find out that you're lying about it will be less inclined to trust your judgement and opinions and may be driven to defiance because they resent you. This is more or less what happened with anti-drug PSA's, as PO mentioned above.

agesboy posted...

It feels fairly reductive to imply manipulation is inherently negative, which is what tying it together with lying and manipulation (which both largely have very negative connotations) accomplishes.

At some level, you can say that any sort of persuasive speech is manipulative, because you're trying to change what the other person thinks, but I think the fundamental difference is whether you change their mind by getting them to think about the situation as a whole and agree with your assessment, or change their mind by manipulating the information they are presented with to lead them to a conclusion they wouldn't reach if they had the whole picture. The former is treating them like an intelligent person and engaging in intellectual discourse to arrive at the desired conclusion. The latter is hoping that they're stupid enough to be tricked into agreeing with you. Propaganda, by and large, falls under the latter umbrella, even if it's trying to lead to conclusions that we might agree with.

As an example, opponents of gay marriage often like to bring up statistics that show that children of gay parents tend to be worse off on average than children of straight parents (based on various metrics that I can't remember off the top of my head, but they aren't needed for this example). Dismissing those statistics outright by saying they're untrue - even for the sake of promoting the generally good idea that is gay marriage and parenthood - is dishonest and manipulative, and generally only galvanizes the opposition. Contextualizing those statistics by looking at how other factors affect child welfare, however, provides a basis for saying that the law should not prohibit gay parenthood any more than it prohibits black, poor, or single parenthood. There's also plenty of basis there to use those statistics to call for improved screening measures for prospective adoptive parents to ensure that they will beat the average, without needing to categorically rule out gay people regardless of how fit they are to adopt. That still might not convince gay marriage's opponents, since they'll cling to their own propaganda, but it does discredit them such that they may eventually relent, and in a public setting, it reduces the risk that they get any fence-sitters on board with them.

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adjl posted...

There isn't really another side, at least not one that isn't implied by doing a little basic math on drunk driving stats.

https://mobile.twitter.com/dril/status/464802196060917762

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adjl posted...

That still might not convince gay marriage's opponents, since they'll cling to their own propaganda, but it does discredit them such that they may eventually relent, and in a public setting, it reduces the risk that they get any fence-sitters on board with them.

Your second example here is literally still propaganda, though. You seem to be under some sort of misunderstanding that propaganda inherently involves lying or manipulation, when it can just be recitation of facts with necessary context, and it can allow acknowledging counterarguments.

If your words are meant to effectuate a change in opinion or policy, it is still propaganda. Contextualized propaganda is still propaganda. The deliberate recitation of entirely true facts at opportune times to change people's minds is still propaganda. Not all propaganda is ends-justify-the-means cult of personality shit or conspiracy shit, nor does it need to be. Propaganda is constant in our lives; you engage in it daily on PotD.

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agesboy posted...

Your second example here is literally still propaganda, though. You seem to be under some sort of misunderstanding that propaganda inherently involves lying or manipulation, when it can just be recitation of facts with necessary context, and it can allow acknowledging counterarguments.

If you take that approach, though, "propaganda" refers to literally all persuasive speech, making the term thoroughly redundant. It would hardly be the first instance of English having a redundant word, but if its pejorative connotation grants it unique value by attaching an element of dishonesty to it, I'd say that's a connotation that makes the language work more smoothly and should therefore be considered the best interpretation.

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Metalsonic66 posted...

Anything can (and does) get interpreted as propaganda

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Most things, even those with negative connotations associated with them, have positive uses.

The problem is people not using them for the more lofty goals.

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ParanoidObsessive posted...

I feel like I disagree. If only because I remember back in the day when they'd do polls and younger viewers would say that The Daily Show was literally the only news they watched, and they pretty clearly took more or less everything at face value.

It was a very different show when Jon Stewart was at the helm. I was bummed when he left, but I think he saw the writing on the wall. The Twitter mob would probably be calling him a terrorist by now if he hadn't.
I remember not too long ago when he was a guest on Colbert. He was saying how he thought COVID was lab leaked. The look of discomfort on Colbert's face was so obvious. He might as well have screamed "You're not allowed to say that Jon! You're not following the narrative!" It's sad how much creepy group-think has taken over this country.

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People hate propaganda because they associate it with viewpoints they disagree with. Few people are self-aware enough to realize it's there when they're agreeing with it. That said, if it contains lies/exaggerations it's always wrong to a degree (although it might be a "lesser of evils" thing).

It's not right or wrong, but each group making it might be right or wrong.

As for the political shows (conservative radio, liberal late night shows, etc) those are extremely unhelpful propaganda. They detach political debate from reality (and real people with opposing viewpoints) and turn it into a game of laughing/mocking opposing viewpoints. They have significant responsibility for the decline in decorum, rational compromise, lack of progress, democracy, etc in the US.

They are exactly why someone like Trump got elected, who's entire schtick was mocking opposing viewpoints (and holding shockingly few viewpoints of his own so he was relatively immune to counter mockery). Mock liberals, mock China, mock investigators. Believe nothing.

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