Seeing that I am a person who was five in the year 2000, it is easy to say I have spent my years growing alongside technology. In the past 17 years, technology has progressed from month to month, year to year. We’ve seen an impressive change in camera clarity, television definition, computer speed, smart phones, iPhones, and film quality. While the use of non-digital outlets decrease. One thing that is still shocking is the month-to-month advancement of social media use. Beginning in 2004 with Facebook, social media has taken the entire world by storm. From Instagram to Twitter, Vine, YouTube, and Blog sites. Through each of these outlets, the average everyday person has the ability to have a voice on an extremely public level. When we find ourselves in a situation like this, propaganda will surface.
While I have grown up in a developing era of social media and technology, I have also seen the growth of propaganda in advertisement, entertainment, journalism and education. Each of these categories has a connection to social media. An adult may have a different understanding of the recent (last 20 years) of propaganda use because their developed brains have interpreted such use much differently than a child has. For example, when I was about 10 I had seen an ad for Kenwood Chef in a book at Barnes and Noble. I still believe that was the day I became a feminist!
The ad reads; “ The chef does everything but cook- that’s what wives are for!” Pictured is a man in a suit and behind him stands his wife—nails painted, perfect white teeth and a cute little blonde bobbed hair cut. I remember thinking to myself, that’s what wives are for? Why? For some reason, at 10 years old, no one had any answers for me. I began to notice what I was seeing in my own life. My mom worked more than my dad and he was the one making dinner for my sister and I. It didn’t make any sense. I found myself thinking a new way. Technically this ad holds negative meaning, but in turn I developed a better sense of self- and that is definitely a positive outcome. Today I am a student of Gender & Women Studies and a proud advocate for women’s rights. Propaganda isn’t always bad.
Another piece of advertisement has had a positive effect on me- so effective that I changed my entire lifestyle. In 2009 I made the decision to become a vegetarian. I have always had a deep love for animals, and I felt I was a hypocrite. I took it upon myself to change my diet, never touching a speck of meat. There are all types of vegetarian, vegan, and healthy eating advertisement that float throughout the U.S. Most of them involving the whole guilt trip tactic. This particular piece of advertisement has never seemed to slip my mind.
For six years I refrained from eating beef, pork, fish, and poultry. My health started to decline due to my poor diet, but I could never get myself to go back to eating animals. I would imagine images such as the one above, and would feel guilty about it. Most people would give me the classic “they are already dead” to make me feel I wasn’t even making a difference. Eventually because of my health, I started to each meat again but I could never seem to shake that sense of guilt. Propaganda at its best.
Propaganda is almost always present in entertainment, or persuasion at the least. When I think back to my favorite television show, I remember all the different types of “right and wrongs” the show displayed. Being young, I believed it. The last episode of Friends aired in the spring of 2004. Soon after, I started to get hooked on the repeat episodes. When I was about 12, it was officially my favorite television show. I looked up to the 3 main female characters- Rachel, Monica and Phoebe. I believed that everything they did was right, and everything they criticized was wrong. The lifestyle they led was a paycheck-to-paycheck, carefree, and stress-free life with occasional up and downs. The show taught me that being single is better, working a mediocre job is better, dating around and nonchalant cheating isn’t that bad. It is funny now to look back and realize it was just a form of entertainment, but for a young mind it is more than that.
Within my own experience in this little thing called life, I have come to notice where propaganda is most present. Journalism. I have always been a fan of newspaper. It feels more authentic; being able to hold in it your hands. No scrolling or clicking involved. But one thing I have noticed is the amount of propaganda the newspaper entails. Propaganda has been extremely evident in this past presidential election, and the medias involvement and influence has been worse than I’ve ever seen. When we first heard of Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton’s race to the White House, the media went berserk. The amount of fake news, out of context quotes, allegations and dirty laundry that surfaces to intimidate both candidates was astounding. Professional news stations and newspaper journalists were using their platforms for the sole purpose of tearing down one candidate to promote the other. This type of propaganda is the type of unethical behavior we picture when we hear the term propaganda. The truth, half-truth and lies were filling every television station, social media site and radio throughout the country. In this scenario, the propaganda had a motive—to win. Simply the tone of the reporters voice on the Fox News channel is a stem of propaganda. The use of name calling between the two candidates is a device used in propaganda. Name calling =“Trick to make us accept a conclusion without full consideration of essential facts in the case.” (Hobbs & McGee 2014) We were able to see this often with the “Big liar!” and “Deplorable!” outbursts from each candidate.
It doesn’t stop there for Journalist. Politics are just a small part of their propaganda game. Some journalists tend to have an opinionated voice hiding behind their writing. We see this in the world of Sports, which is a world of competition. But the competition isn’t always on the playing field. Sports fans are a major group that keeps the media in business. With this past Sunday’s Superbowl Win, the New England Patriots made history. But for some this big win isn’t as big as it is for others. The NY Times published an article called “Tom Brady, the Future Hall of Famer Some Love to Hate.” (Macur, J 2017) The author writes, “He looks the part of the greatest quarterback ever, which he is.” Now I am a Patriots fan myself, but if I wasn’t, I wouldn’t be too happy with the way the author uses her own opinions in the sports article. The point is- Journalism has always & will always carry bias attitudes. It is up to us to spot it out before propaganda gets to our heads.
thesocialface.com
As a proud soon-to-be college graduate, I can say I have had a fair amount of schooling- enough to be able to look back and see all the way in which education failed me. The current education system is full of rules. Abide by the textbooks, believe what they tell you. I guess you could say I am a person who does their research before you have me convinced. Especially in a world like today’s. I remember being in my junior year of high school, sitting in my world history class. History- my favorite subject of all time. The teacher was very particular about our textbook and we never strayed from the beaten path. On this particular day, we were learning about the magical, wonderful, and peaceful discovering of the United States of America. Now we had heard of this wonderful Christopher Columbus long before high school, but we were too young to get into detail about it. Now was the chance to read and learn all about this man and his journey to the New World. The education system has taught me a few things about Columbus. All of which don’t entail the truth of how this man indeed discovered the New World. For some reason, textbooks forget to include the fact that Columbus was a rapist, murderer, exploiter and a fraud. Why does the education system want to leave that part out? This is propaganda at it’s finest. As Walter Cunningham put it, “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.”
Macur, Juliet (2017) https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/06/sports/football/tom-brady-super-bowl-new-england-patriots. New York Times. “Tom Brady, the Future Hall of Famer Some Love to Hate.”