Politics and propaganda Weapons of mass seduction \kholas IACKSON O'shai (.hmss,> Manchester University Press Contents Preface Introduction /•(life vi 1 Part I Defining n run and reasoning why 1 A question of meaning 2 Explaining propaganda 13/ 57 Part II A conceptual arrangement 3 An essential trinity: rhetoric, myth, symbolism 4 Integuments of propaganda f>5 1 10 Part III Case studies in propaganda 5 Privatising propaganda 6 Party propaganda 7 Propaganda and the Symbolic State: a British experience 145 158 (g 172 AT Part IV Marketing war 8 Nine-eleven and war 9 Weapons of mass deception: propaganda, the media and the Iraq war Afterword Bibliography Index L93 210 (o) 238 245 256 This book is nol an attempt to commission a new concept but to recommis-sion an old one. The term propaganda' faced conceptual extinction because it had become an anachronism. How could a cynical, media-literate cadre ever respond to its histrionic excess as earlier, more naive generations had done? The word had disappeared because the reality it signified was apparently no more. Yet ideas do not die. they merely hibernate. From the taunting videos of Osama bin Laden to the euphorias of the embedded journalist, from the lucid rhetoric of the anti-globalisation movement to the empire of spin to the scalding polemics of US campaign advertising, propaganda is back, centre-stage. What other literary formula might we use to evoke the theatre of imagery which we inhabit today.; The whirligig of fashion applies to concepts as well as clothes. This book is thus an analysis of the meaning, content and significance of the word propaganda' today. Its focus is primarily on the current world order, though history, and indeed the history of the word, is a constant presence. The content of its subtitle, seduction' (in Latin, a leading to oneself), is deliberately chosen because that describes the art of the process. Effective propaganda is often seductive propaganda. Propaganda is not usually a lie (because a lie Is not instrumental t0 its ends), but persuasion, and not the seeking of truth, is the objective. ln fact there is no unvarnished truth' anywhere, and even the success of ideas is inseparable from the fact and process of their propagation. If our current reality is indeed socially Con structed. In Searle's sense, then this must imply a formative role for „ • r j . r com- munication, and for propaganda as a sub-set of communication. There Is an ideal book about propaganda that has yet to be written jni is not it. neither does it pretend to be. But it is original in a number of WayIS It applies a conceptual approach to propaganda, and then grounds this analysis In a series of contemporary case studies, ending in an assessment of the role of propaganda in the remorseless new conllu t which began on 1 ] September 2001 The book also recognises I need to treat the subiect more broadly than hitherto, since its conceptual identity has become localised in totalitarian regimes or wartime hyperbole. As Hampton and Stauber (200 3) suggest what masv media, public relations, advertising and terrorism all have in common is a one-sided approach to communications that can be best thought of as a "propaganda model'". Moreover the book focuses not just on describing this phenomenon but according it some explanatory depth. The approach is both descriptive and analytic. For example, one key idea is that, like the seducer, the effective propagandist will not assault but insinuate, not challenge values directly but package the thought to fit the perspective. And we argue that propaganda texts are not necessarily meant to be taken literally but rather represent a fantasy we are invited to share (often a fantasy of enmity, where we seek self-definition through constructing our antithesis). Finally. I would like to thank my many friends, mentors and colleagues, but in particular Morris Holbrook of Columbia University. leannie Grant Moore of the University of Wisconsin. Nigel Allington of Gonville and CallU College Cambridge. Bruce Newman of De Paul University and Phil Harris of the I Iniversity of Otago. They have waited patiently for this book. Here it is. N.J.O. Introduction The iiliM of propaganda Before the spring of 200 3. propaganda as ,i concept had been relegated beyond the marginal to the irrelevant. Its conceptual identity was lost amid the new ■endemic lexicon of persuasion. communication theory and the manipulation of consent: the concept of propaganda in popular imagination relegated to the monochrome, stuitenng imagery of bolsheviks and storm troopers. Then began an awakening recognition, .1 cumulative cul-lural drift: lor in a culture where image is sovereign, where symbols matter. \\ here 1 he hair of public figures becomes a nexus of political symbolisation. it OOUkl not he long before an old word that could interconnect these phenomena would be rehabilitated. For we seemed bereft of a concept that could give ■ unitary understanding to the perplexing new realities of our own social back yard - from Wall Street analysts wrapping dol.com and high-tech shares in a cling-film of myth to the evolution of the accounting and finance profession (Arthur Andersen. Enron. Worldcom. Tyco) from purveyors of led to narrators of fiction, to the ascent of spin" (the affixing of determinate labels on to indeterminate events). Then there was Iraq. The word propaganda, like a lexical Rip Van Winkle, awoke to a new era. Everywhere, commentators claimed to detect the hand of the propagandist - in the embedded journalist, the elaborate propaganda ministry at Oaiar. the Coalition of the Willing' and other rhetorical bric-a-brac of the allies, and in the myths - of the Hussein Bin Laden link, and of the Weapons of Mass Destruction. This book differs from other books on propaganda in the elasticity it attributes to the term: orthodox literature has erred in restricting meaning to explicit texts such as the polemical tirade or black" propaganda (like the secret wartime radio station. Gustav Siegfried Eis). So the proposition is that propaganda is not synonymous with mere overt polemicism. but informs manv cultural products, including such apparently politically neutral areas . „ .U-imu-nliiries - and. wn,le tnis explanation h.,v, Wd. si,u,-1- ...templed 10 conceal propaganda cmenammcnt vohuk-s like- It* M.....„, Huron Munchausen or Lu,,H Kic/s (Rentschler 1996). One clear problem In the recognition of propaganda is the frequent d.ffi. cultv encountered ID dlSttaguUhlng U Othef thjD retrospectively. Pr0pa. nnda in the social environme.il is often naturalieed and we are unaware of it The merit of seeking to redeploy the term in critical discourse once again is that it does dutv as a sensitising concept. Foulkes (1983) drew attention to invisible proptfUldl perpetuating itself as common sense1, and quotes Orwell: all art is to some extent propaganda Thus for Foulkes the Nazi: has long ceased to be a real historical being. He nw inhibits the demonic twilight of the entertainment world: the mass-produced collective subconscious within which Zulu Warriors coexist with Invaden from outer space and the Waffen SS ... Propaganda docs not often come marching towards us waving swastikas and chanting Sieg heil': lis real power lies in its capacity to conceal itself, to appear natural, to coalesce completely and indivisibly with the values and accepted power symbols of the given s«>< lei y The explicit propaganda of earlier generations would strike people today as merely comical. The role of propaganda in human affairs has been underplaved by the limitations of its contemporary definition. The asp.ration here is to refresh propaganda as a distinct generic entity, and claim new territory for it as a pervasive attribute ol technological mankind for words dirJ^L . What we lack a word for we fail to perceive. Hnd uZct^T^Tc time the word propaganda" appeared to have LZ I ,blepcnod °f replaced by terms like persuasion' or advocacy w defunct- "> be the language and conceptual formulations currently bad! rCaIily tnrou&n integrate the apparently disconnected into n,\t,.n.^ ■ circulation, which enhance the conceptual richness through whi, h wraceS!?*' and tnus we neglect the interconnectedness of modern commu ! RS' demise ena. from spin" to the Afghan and Iraq war-. lcations phenom- The attempt to insert a new phrase Into the political Im, elucidate the meaning and conceptual anatomy r>f that te °n* a$ well as activity. With the Tight' terminologies, much else- might1/8 n° fliv°'ous nuanced debates and clearer and more rigorous bases for em °"°w - more Words are our tools: for example, the phrase 'presldenualP,f1C'1' itudie* something that Tony Blair has certainly been a< i.used of. OJ0?iVe^nrr»ent, meanings and debates - on Amerlcanlsallon. the cult of person*** many '^y. the demise of cabinet government mid parliamentary .........i rfwitj - mto a perspecvre Concept! may be right, wrong or half true, but vmboot them argument would b< ih< more Impoverished as we search for icrtnse formulae to describe tfv phenomena thai we can only dimly apprehend. Contents The structure of the book is conceptual rather than narratrye-ueau iptive in ' ' : ">': »'-xi is organ Keel round an explana; r ~.-.z--.:>~ Myth ; ~ * " Ph'Moru. iIn- foundation concepts of propaganda, are discussed in detail and seen as animating and structuring the core edifice, or ' --" ' '-' ' ••••>< rpt such as hyperbole. uie.\c-*- ?~ ' ' T.brup-ofefkXL deceit, the scan h for uiopia. otherness and the creauon of enemies Then the focus moves to a scries of specific case study analyses of ' - - • ' ' ' ornrria tfi.it embody these element - ir.z ; - r'o-r.enon of ^yinboltc Government', the rise of single-issue groups, negative political campaigning, a-A tb<- M Bd wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The organising paradigm to thus: foundahon concepts - myth, symbolism, rhetoric, key ele-f'jnia:tj. emotion, enemies, manipulation, deceit, Utopia. Summan rtnt*-/. of the key themes Defining propaganda The attempt to first, and necessarily, to try and define uiunaganda an elu-. - - • . ■( if it vernacular charge carried by the 7 v.- problem is that in the ssnMM olar propaganda' is merely a term of opprobrium. Yet ..- • bow we define something iUuminates the theories that we hold fn one sense, of course, the entire book is a definition of propaganda and its domain. Is it merely, as Schumpeter 11966» says, any opinion with which we disagree? There is unintentional propaganda press photographs (or example, and what is propaganda to one person is not -.- .\'.('. - •-, ■.■ ,-/h' i meaning is negotiable. The issues of definition are atooones of scopr. many things, for example a libel case • McDonald's), can be prop< Mutation, especially secondary education, is another theatre of propaganda, where state objectives are sought under the guise of the factual pedagogy of truth. This more elastic definition of propaganda -: . • ..-'.>. ' . of state activity that would no: nonanlj bfl .ncludcd in rnore orthodox reviews, hut such official vices as the manipulation of statistics, or the control of Information, are surely legitimate candidates for a V.V'.;r.- , <■/',!/ I In- stale Is inevitably one of the pnncipal loaHptfon :.".;-'.;>.■ ui a democracy it cannot resort to coercion alone or even at all. and all governments, even non-democratic ones, seek at the passive acquiescence of their people. The claim is that 'propaganda* is emphatically not merely another word for advocacy, is distinguished from mere marketing by its didacticism and its ideological fervour. Whereas marketing is rooted in consumer response propaganda asserts, and ideology is seldom submerged, although it maybe reinterpreted to fit the particular cultural paradigms. Explaining propaganda The book then continues by seeking to explain the phenomena that it has sought to define. The essential argument is that the propagandist dramatises our prejudices and speaks to something deep and even shameful within us. Propaganda thus becomes a co-production in which we are willing participants, it articulates externally the things that are half whispered internally. Propaganda is not so much stimulus-response as a fantasy or :onspiracy we share, the conspiracy of our own self-deceit. The force of propaganda is also the forcibility of the Utopian vision. We argue that Utopian visions are the underlying presence in much propaganda - the thirst for Utopia creates an illusion of a perfect or perfectible world order. This is manifest in phenomena as diverse as socialist realist painting or the advertising industry. And the successes of propaganda are unintelligible without the recognition that the persuasion strategies propagandists espouse are in the main emotional. Emotion is seen as the antithesis of reason and the power of propaganda is largely the power than hy assertion and ^X^^^ n^XTe^ tain emotions such as fear and anger: and escheu- ' J. ■ , rational decision maker. eu models of man as a Foundation concepts: symbolism, rhetoric, myth This review of what are seen as the foundation concepts of propaganda is ^tensive, and the conceptual basis for the applied case studies that follow „„. |t would be impossible to imagine a propaganda devoid of these elects Hfective propaganda is the synthesis and manipulation of all three Ttae chapters examine the definitions, meanings and debates over these uxms and their salience in propaganda. these Hhiioric chapter seeks to explain the enduring success of rh persuasion. We are concerned with how rhetoric works _el°rical forms of This th* u,ins o lhe c°nstituen dements of good rhetoi ic Ideas such us Ihe co production ol meaning, the power of ambivalence and the woikliitfs ol ihelorle subverslvcly within a value system rather than as an exiei mil challenge to It, and the distrust of the power of rhetoric from the nine ol Pinto expressed in the half fearful, half admiring description ol IViules ('a kind of persuasion pliiyed on his lips i Particular attention nttnehes io ihe Importance of metaphor as the key tool of persuasive rhetoi u Other ideas of particular NttfWSl ihe concept ol resonance' (Tony Schwartzi: good rhetoric smouldei s in ihe mind*, llic notion that rhetoric is not merely a conduu ol meaning; ImiI actively crealcs it; and. related to the concept of the Rheioi u-.il \ imoii (e y. Sl;n Wars'. Axis of Evil'): the Hall jamieson thesis on the Icinmis.iiion ol i heloric ; Ihe power of partisan language to embed itself in ewrydnv discourse and Ihus appear natural, neutral and objective the easily overlooked rhetorical forms such as bureaucratic rhetoric uoda\ the propagandist use (if language often has obfuscation as its objective such as Ihe phrase no clear proof of animal-human infection in Britain s I1SI-1 crisis); the propaganda use of lan-. • hange perceptions .»s M Ith the piVtfllN |TOUp Mfhk h myt that it advocates the "ethical thelV of mahogany products la perverse juxtaposition that seeks to ethicise the unethical by a linguistic strategy that places it in a fresh perspective). The political and social impact of rhetoric is critical - such as the lan-.'rategies used to persuade in the environmental and genetically modified food debates i Frankenstein foods') and in the American 'civil war of values' its historical impact, with examples of great rhetorical events like Reagan and the Challenger disaster; rod the rhetoric of war. both the lang'ja&e of dynamic metaphor as in Miller's images of blood pollution or RooseveltS day that will live in Infamy' to the evasive technical jargon of modern warfare which deliberately alms to detach people from the human realities, as with collateral damage'. 'Aulhi Nor could propaganda exist without the myths that rhetoric articulates. Myth, defined as the sound of a culture's dialogue with itself, expresses the kry values of a society in story form. We see myths as critical to society's Integration and sustenance, and to destroy a society's myths is to destroy The Impact of rnyths on history has been critical for example, the German mfttarfst myth of the 'stab In the back' by democrats at the end of World War I - and the core methodology of propaganda has been the creation and sustenance of myths, such us the myth ihat the US constitution tngfarmtt the right to bear arms. It does no such thing, yet the popular ill li.iimir.i: I IiMoi \ art t. ; • I I Ml iii i |.N C »\\ II >c : , • • •, i\>\ > i In i iIn1 impc r • -./if/ nl Iiisitu \ in the a v Bl Finland >taDa Mi lu.ilh die- train « 'I *■# AM Nii'l vvii.n playing the '.' I'/j/IniiI homelimes vn 4 I Ir. Iffiptti I i.i, ,|,( "• llulil I Ik v , i/i/l.l I1: In tin ||,| ' im/IIi rnlirpir I. Wrwl. ,„ ,|„. t rlvill |.y \1v; '.. / ih»I ntyrt ', immi I'.tlxuhclh I i':k 'jwnlhnl In silk ')[>.r/.iimln \\v - jp In l»»- y.irclrd : hr Wii*. wrm 1-,/r. H'iy ) The ^>ri1:<-<|»irni rs lot th .....i < I mi untile consumer crand.*. '.■,i i ognlllve short cut why read a treat Kr firm tunc .... iM «»l a i iincature Gennar. oaVai wlih | Inui^ln^ . ... monocle(Rhodes 1993 dbdft <-h imur vlvlillx , . I.i. niir form of mei < ' m. . niumunl , iv, whom •!»«• ad of reading a a chore. Symbols can and • mlwouler. simplify or r~..; /'li. I In- »lnlu\ 1. , • •' 1/ < hnip lot in ' i c _j t—i,,, r\,nnpK\ . , i \>j\\ iiiul uon-tixec . , - <•of a*sir^^H,,«,,»»HP-- . .....p.„N,u,h .he> '. .....« n,o >"1 '-mlnwiMl with „ mm.oolmlmeof symy.s. ^ in 11 iin l.isenstein /.„ Hrx,s a,v „H„ wlih lis literally fa tin Mm Ihoro cowboy. ......Ii St ' .u.»nU. \w\\ no it\sv* .^jj-oi tfc*raan«**'i the sum and .ii ti»«* ^«Hadcww1^,^r,,WM advatttaa* i <»i i . \ rli-iMi'iits of propyf The lilnllv of Myth Hfi> \.,t , I.mi. Hi- .»1 propaganda ,.■ nl in pai lu ular: mbollfm underglrdi other major " 0Qk I prim IpU- themes in *ome Manipulation ami deceit I, , -..i\ ili.il propaganda is rn. II, i« mi i h.ii.uteristic of th<- o■■ riiirnl the term is equated v.-iir. I,mI oevei n uth seeking 01 ,,<-- i .<■ riiilnl In persuasive advocat some essential essence ' •■;! ". the populai understanding al propaganda Deceit and [<>rymda does not necessarily make the rnoi ol asking for belief: in-»<.;<: /j^rral ion h presented for US to JotolB Jin a •♦haied experience. Anolhci aspect of manipulates. .or -.hip and the exclusion or control ol Information. In the fir-.t < V/at for example, licensed groups of journalists were strictly super vi v. r -. were excluded altogether, thai mi.,lb. i Important form of propa^mda today remains stale censorship, the denial ol information. And then »h>-rr \% passive (bureaucratic! propaganda. I lie use of reports. Mat. - <-t/ to manipulate perceptions. Ihr ... lal construction of enmity propaganda is a consequent- ol ,t n>>,\ f,,r enemies: they are not just il,. i. i.ui necessarily there: they -/j/>-"A,rfr,Hrand definition to ourvalues and tiny motivate us to aMion \h'-y provide someone to blame when thing- go wrong. Their common humanity is reducible to a mere cipher, rim li.. « oinmunism's top-hat mmyt of ihe r apllallst. It Is indeed difficult to imagine a propaganda witho . • lor enemies are essential to a com- pelling narrative structure, but the' hoi' i■ m \ i«'l,m" ..^ain^n insuperable problem guUllni htnd in hUtor) \c ; wnl- remains an Insuperable problem, ;,r, r,oi .inn- «i« loidenUQ w ■ ^ There js no ,in;,| wordi Debates but th |lI ••' ■N 7N * !Ul uxl onlv taken further. Hut that propa-'" h ;' ,l" ' ' ,M,VI'' Vr -m »n< m our society, an important social garni* »»•'< Iirni i» v 11111 \ |Ufd by [ls lrue name, and studied as part A question of meaning This chapter teases out the meanings of the term propaganda . a task complexified by it5 common usages and connotative content. We orient and nuance the derininon through a number of primary categories: rational persuasion, manipulauon. intent, breadth. The chapter seeks further clarity of definition by exploring the complex and ambivalent relation of propaganda to the mass media, appraising some of the limitations of the analytical methods that regularly convict media texts of the ideological determinism associated with propaganda. Subsequently we engage in a summary discussion of the conceptual elasticity of the term as embodied in such diverse cultural theatres as education, the arts, bureaucracy, war. journalism-Defining propaganda Propositions on propaganda. This is a dull chapter. No book purporting to explain propaganda can shirk the imperative of actually trying to define the term, a maddeningly elusive task which necessarily involves a recitative of competing definitions. We begin by reviewing the key propositions which summarise the principle debates about the definition of propaganda: a definition that must remain open ended since there can be no closure when a concept comes laden with so much historical baggage. Problem of definition: no agreement It is inevitable that there will be no collective agreement about the definition of propaganda in the sense that we might have accord on the meaning of many other words. Our task is to extract what seems most reasonable from the competing interpretations of the term. Since propaganda is a . ii is to pics, ilbe Us social signification ~r;;;r:........................ and w have no rigorous scteniUU source or juridical authorft, ZZ term but only hlslo. leal usage U; jillrmpl lo Mm propaganda isto ^iLhtbupnn......iceptualn.....-licM n.....vtdiBne propaganda is* .^expression o.^^ ^98 .there are no agreed mUtUtl u.n ■......."I toUl cnl.Tmwhjchallowthe •on of propaganda from Into mttton Schumpeter (1966) said that Zwiry usage ol the term propaganda refers to any statement .ting from a sottlte Hi... * M HOI Ufa « bfc Jones Singh 1989, ^afr^tn.^.indifference between propaganda and the institution-bound mission of information Whtl IB ma.ke.mg is selling . in school is leaching in the chun b ll p.osclu.Mnc. In POUUCI H propagandising, in military is indoctrinating' foulkes (198 51 comments that propaganda .-■ve concept to delinc paiih because lis recognition or supposed recognition is often a function of the lelatne historical viewpoint of the I m serving n' Thus mam uwcstigaloi s limit themselves to extreme situations such as war. 1'oulkes further argues that the recognition of propa-nda can be seen as a function of the Ideological distance which separates the observer from the act of communication observed. \ccording to I'ratkanis (Pratkanis and Aronson ll)91). the first documented use of the term occurred in \h22 when Pope (Iregory XV established the Sacra Congregatio de Propaganda Fidel in the wake of the Counter-Reformation. Militaristic methods were falling and propaganda aw established as the means of CO ordmating efforts to bring men and women to the "voluntary acceptance of church doctrines: the word propaganda thus ,1H»k on ncgatfe meaning In Protestant countries but a positive COOnoUUon atmllai to education or preaching) in Cathnlir areas ... the term propaga.uk. did not see widespread use until th. k Of the twentieth centurv when „ ^ J J ZSSZ uaJ??™* employed during World War One and those late, used hv l.milUarian rVgtaeT Colloquial uses Nevertheless the delinition of propaganda is complicated b colloquial usage wherein propaganda is always associated ^ i!** faCt of a execs*, and only I term of abuse, signifying the hyperb'1) ^ ldea of declamatory. The pre-war anli-m.ii miana film K,v|,» Madneu extrerne. its hysteria the kind of excess popularly ascribed to propagandas?*11*in rumours, the outrageous libs that vet tester in the gutter of ueXts°rthe sciousness-that the Holocaust did not happen, that Nine-eleven c°n" or an Israeli plot, that the lunar and Mars landings were ena^fSaClA led in a 4 furttion of mrntilnu II ■afywood Uudio ArmiliiT illustration would be so-calM m.„ v ,„„„„ gaoda. such as Oil llpanCM campaign against Sunkist kmom m wl|lr|| fapanev- agri' uliural groups 'spread the rumour via the media thai Amrrl-~ '•" *'d wllh Agent Orange' tl'hioigo Tribune. 1 2 June |S) A major reason for thin elusiveness of meaning is that no working dHiniiion of a concept can ever he separated mil from iLs colloquial uv:s Hyperbnllr ; " r";,"v paHiniliir uses of propaganda rather than d'-v ripiluns of some essence of propaganda llself. Nevertheless such colloquial usages cannot stmpl. ■■ it Midi scuss I he lerm obiectivelv are distorted by the accu - - - ol ihc (i)incpl through history, its asvy lahore, wiih the Third Reich, for example making dispassionate analysis difficult Ureseher 11987) argues thai 'propaganda' conjures up imizf of go-.f-rnrnrnially : ' •/"/.< 1111» r in the eoutext ol a h : - * .-..ir I sually. Americans ID par in ular llnnk ol propaganda as an activity that r. engaged .....-man or totalitarian governments. In fact a: fjrev h»r points - -,')a may involve the truth, even though it fall, into thf , ,(n-rather iliau hurrah' words. That the idea of propaganda •< >. y.ln'fi elements ol guile „ ;r:.r:.r.i. and if. .ire not - i' - ;,oar'.fii even from the objective definiuons. Can there then bf 1)0 merllorious propaganda- The genre Itself i. viewed - - , - . ■r« riily 11 iiuuiral and even its w^anirne uses consigned to the l^/wfc-al ambo of rieeessary evil, like the bombing of cities Examples of a ■ . , propa/arida are more numerous than we would imagine, and -- - .oi ui'-iely a psychotic e\pre»:. r. >.\ ■;. luuetion- - -• -,, <,< ,t virluous propaganda \\ hca I rexomp!'-propaganda alternative strategy to legal coercion, as demonstrated by the ■ v ' //" n ili«' very different attempts to deal with the scourge of ■egaJoYngt and thai ol cigarettes. The scope and complexity of the idea of propaganda have often been in pacta parochial definitions that invest it with its hmUlar and r verrisv ulai meanings. The word is not value-neutral and its strong connotatrve asso* laflOOJ need to be interrogated if it is to be used critically -. - - ......,m< ally II I ( "boose to speak I it meffaklg 11 ■propaganda' .. . ..... ',< < i ■.imIy 111a111 is worthless ii mag be iporthj bet aote the aapsr»J>/r- «-jahh-.h I he cause as a legitimate one is worthy. Words are took 76 use Ux>la iflaCl Ively demands not the search for the perfect tools , . . v, . hul rsilher that we recognise the limitations of (hose we do The term 'propaganda' may be conceptually flawed, but it Is not thereby redundh i >1 Clarity ■ | . a,~cthe iinamhii'.uOUl transmission of n.^nd. genera.lv ,m ^ ^of ^ '(lari.y may not be an e»c«i •« ,hjs inherem „ , ,r,a,n.y a normative soll)(iofls. Schick 11985?^ lion, lhat it is a complex pur\e\ot eIat* prtwnda to media whose symbol systems are visible Foulkes ,l9,J( ! auM thus argue that a propaganda doctrine socialist realism, could p*. irav only those problems and conllic.s lor which the system ostensibly has •• solution and he also relates this phenomenon to western mass culture in Rhetoric Lo*ar Ml Reason Michael Meyer (1994) argues that manSpalai - . .; r-anda piocccd .1" llirqiirslion they were dealing wllh were solved. However. good propaganda may disguise the fact that it thinks the is\\/ neutral 'communication . While the term propaganda' If tmutknu uwd erroneously as a substitute for other categories of permarion, M It not synonymous with persuasion as such .iiul i> in fan a high.7 1. .< f',rm of advocacy. There are many examples of non-oropagMidwt Ofrftiaflon. Authorities - Jowett ijowett and O Donnell 1992». (or exempt' do distinguish propaganda from persuasion: propaganda L- ■: / imlrrd with a general societal process whereas persuc^ '/:-:: . an individual psychological process'. Propapeaii is 'sanes eogfief>a. end its targets are the multitude, and this, as lowett say*, if what dvftngulfhei it from persuasion. Propaganda if sssotecil a* (bt Obverte of 'reason', or rational persuasion, oiter- c •:' - ■• - t.>,v\ information'. Thus some have claimed to perceive an e.T'.'.T'. >. : y. anty in ilie language of politics, that political language ha1; '.v. -.uyy. 1 he one emotive, that uses rhetorical- emotional appeakiprf/per/y - ''■>) 'he other passive (rational and informational). Propaganda if certainly not rational persuasion. The appeal to reason \\'-' ■ ->mMher propaganda strategy. When we ce; ym (lie attempt to distinguish it from advocacy, we also say thai %VAtt\t% 1 tense meaning" rather than a bounded or lexical definition - its "•/'//./. ition thai I know it when I see it'. To some extent one ./-xt.t.i f/, ir / and deline propaganda by what it is not. As a sealed ftffnufm tht COtlCCpi excludes notions of intellectual exchange. Smith etaf (1946]ftlngulfh between propaganda and educa-1 it in by arguing that the 1t*v' f > .">ui erned with attitudes on controversial issues w'hereas the letler if concerned with attitudes on non-controversial Issues. According tofenf**. | i 9$9), the problem with this distinction is that it assume w- . - >..: ■■.. non t out roversial, which it is for the haves ol society lee.'.''. . *: r. '.almon believes, are also manipulative and benefit from v/ J&y vtu 0MMd labels which conceal persuasive intent. Yet other cr II having no conceptual content distinct from rrw. •:. a, . hut propaganda is more specific than < ommunicauon'. a w**: >>• h r»>rs lo any transmission of information 1« • '"'i ,„u\ " .1 '"li without itnlgriiHui *•« coflununtt atlon i.umui ill merely •» * aim li • • "'' ................1 M.r. .1 hyptftW .....iill I • hli t- UW)ctt«,A ........Hll rtllilll pyNMl II III endi are ^ ,,,,,„ ,i ii II I It ti lltftl between propane and hud «1 »i • ( ( ..... j | ....... ....... || ... judgement**, andcommumu .....|(............(, ,flherw1ie weaccept, YetlenguMi;* ....... , , ,„, ,..........l.illrd PorTafc ^2^^ - L , HI......- Z......................................1............M:™ *al Hettgnedi.......In -------- ' ' 'i*'™.-. doing the the tatereitt of Ua wtliw IMlltl......1....... mm-ly particular type* of propagand......Iwtltmitl.....l|illWHl mineconceptualessence of propagandait - * n I a ManlpiiLiiiiMi Prnpagaudii irpn .mi id, „1,1111,. , TrumnsH.i,..............„„'';' ;•.......«* se.de............1.1..............„ //I - ''^Propaganda subversion .Ml|.i..,..„......I,.............„, ' ,MH,W»» "'id works best by speak of an.....httulpolmii. ,, ( i( ( "" " ^ ni'aninglessto conceptually rtnlu i id.u 11 |,„ i( | J "J ' """ *ould ,,d. r the term would mourn I hi i...... t... i.,, i, , t l( (' ' ""' 1 .....gnhed her people Reformation h..d. ...tiu ..n,h.......,..... M"»V which her Protestant tosubsi.ii.i. an.......\\ 11• i•1 • ■ i , ii, .,, ""......'^therefore,than soubriquet the Virgin I....... ........ «»„ ,,,,,moted tne Mosl sehu.iiiM idiuo.i i......*.«|«| ,|..... 'propaganda' and .1,, ..i............... , (| ...... »» i ,, lhe word information h pl.mn. .1 i......li in »|„ , ,,M»Mb,,,, r , prop-,.....m v............i.................m.; ^ in Cadu.ll,.............................|.....„ •;»•'•;... ,.,„,„ Vs encevial.uiuaiii|.id.aii.iiM| ..\imI..(|., „,«dili».. . '' '■♦••*u, . "i li.l....... . . ^llUlnfl.- onuinaupucuyoi w.....iwmi i hi(, ,,,,,,,,„'"''v. '•i^r nmnlpulal.......i ..... „„,„ '" " ""<" U. „ , " V iow«............................................:,;'unu terminal planol l,.lui,.... -i ,,,, , „„„„.„,,.......... "" lul „r,0 ' " ""m,„.„, Prede 19 to fulfil an objective'. Propaganda is the deliberate and to share perceptions, manipulate cognitions, and direct ~- ~ - -" ' --" '• - a response that serves the desired intent of the propa-: The word has attracted negative connotations and now refers to of communication in which a communicator manipulates others, their being aware of the manipulative effort, for the source's than the benefit of the receiver'. '1978) also attempts I number of definitions of propa-on deceit: Che fcc= to me - "vu'ral iRoman Catholit meaning pr paganda has now - "• v.nrd rhetoric to mean laofup WB& \erbal strategies aeptive and misleading, or which misrepresent the true motives is that language - most easily a slogan, but perhaps a White an editorial, a book - which influences the false doctrine ideology. es propaganda further: while propaganda might once the political exhortation or patriotic speech (propaganda of generally implies some element of deception, either in the or in the motives of the speaker Thus there is a very fine line oratory and propaganda. bf thai very selection of examples these and other authorities ons. slea2e would appear to be the common denominator. oe true of its vernacular meaning. Yet. while propaganda is g more than advocacy alone, manipulation is a vague - . - that incorporates e\ er\:h:r.g irem selectivity of facts of fraud. All advocacy manipulates. Inherent in these • .. '.v on that propaganda iee> >c a mere extreme form. • - . \hr\ to effective persuas ru: does a disservice to the to the definition of propaganda, and can one indeed a I propaganda? The point is not a frivolous one. since ' : - ;• omena embraced bj the tern: rrepapmli would be vastly to extinguish the requirement of intent. The attribution a motive would ascribe an introspection, a level of self-analysis ers and evangelistsdc not r-jiseii- :he possessors of of truth do not see themselves as propagandists but as -. ■■>.•;.<.-pting llus point alsc ;;T.:_;i:r: r.t problem of defi-the term's conceptual expanse to embrace the work of ■ mixers and ihe like. and. indeed. ^ ...... „ , ...:». .W*'^ ^lund propaganon of Ihevtew,^ '">■'>>mr* Februarv 1 S» would neverhT !^m«* •» » "^rr^x-h theoretician of propaganda, regard, c """ ,,i„i,l»-' ' . >henihe biases are unconscious ^ '"' ' ' -t^^TSKie mten.. Ellul thus mate* TS- .h* <^fZS^ and bias. This is would no' »"i .. - fcctvcen propag«",u. — >llmi,si ,a.i> i e^w>*'? ^I^ariK biased, but not all bias is necessary I""|mh...u!,m i • » • ; * • nen awafC that lhe messages'art 1' 1 'r 1,1,1' rac bet priTrirnHa 15 sometimes the most "nwo- "i' i "Maimer ortheheaorian. of propaganda might judge a total ...... /. . J* producer did not: all those school books and ,......, « hw h ^caoirftbefJonesof the British empire were not neces- „, ih s,,n b) «»ai«ia«as|WWtfida. They thought they were telling the truth or < r>ey**i the proudest voices of conscience and profession: the i ,>i that ■ art ma>haee been manipulative, but the intent may not haw bean 1 heajucatton of the relationship of intent to propaganda, then .i.iiiui no i at] .-solution - particularly in relation to education, whose iN-il.igngucs see thuaatlwu as communicators, yes. persuaders sometimes. '" v" ,M>17 rsuchenucs. propaganda is defined by inten- NW ,IM1 í polmcal effect on a particular audience ......t*;;„ ,„■■' — but u imPues that the com- ^nfcation is iiurposeluL And lark* • 1990) argues that by propaganda 1 n » the .Iŕlilvratf ancBpt 10 persuade people to think and behave in a 'leViu-d I: v\ - - v- much propaganda is accidental or unconscious. 11,.,, l .un d^ ussmg ihe conscious, rational decision to employ techniques ','„.,m,.imou . ^ » adaew specific warlike goals.' These sources. ,,„ q Mould Mi one eltfaanwdánt property of propaganda as being this i(|h . mieni M iniueiice. bm ihe same could be said of much human .........unk itton - rarek caked b thecommunicaior entirely indifferent to ,i......m loencesoí theaataaagr InrWrri. tf propaganda were only purpose- .... if "~. '■ - - : : most t-i —i iMiiiiiimmc.iiKin.iMMJiwuuwiicncwDea. 'n lact most lunrf f r^yvx-l „„,Uniu>nal pi |i ip ■ *i * produced all the time, muchof■ i?d VOCaC> l.„ i \ | i olive-green Might suit and with I helmet tucked beneath his left arm. Inspi rational music kicks in as the spot conunues. An announcer runs through Kerry's record while the advertisement goes on to Hash images of him at various points in his life: making his presidential announcement before the carrier Yorktown in South Carolina, receiving a combat medal as a young navy officer, speaking with voters, speaking at hearings and writing at his desk. The \ew York Times comments the commercial does not bang viewers over the head with the image. In fact, the script does not refer to it once. Campaign strategists said that is because the moment speaks for itself and provides a good curtain-raiser for a spol that highlights Mr Kerry's vast experience as a soldier and politician.' Propaganda can be indirect, and a text can be usurped as propaganda even when the intent was neutral - the creation, for example, of an image in photo-journalism Key images from the Vietnam War were scorched on to the consciousness of world opinion: the napalm-burnt girl, naked, running in terror: the South Vietnamese General Loan (Eddie Adams I tiring a gun into the head of a helpless \letcong suspect: the John Filo image of the college girl kneeling over a lifeless body at Kent State (Goldberg 19^n. Whatever the intent of their original photographers and publishers, these images circulated internationally through many media as classic atrocity propaganda: their perceptual construction helped determine how we interpreted the war then and how we remember the war now. One communication wehjcie that particularly raises the question of intent in propaganda is the documentary. This announces in advance an intent of objectivity, addressing burning issues of the day. While nobody would suppose that a alimentary rilm maker would properly lack a sense of mission, the ostensible purpose is truth telling and it is therefore a particularly appropriate wehade tor the confection of lies. Television documentariescau mutate into propaganda by the very measure of their selectivity, and without, necessarily, any conscious intent on the part of the producers. Lesley Garner, the reviewer of a BBC-2 television documentary on euthaoaaaa. Death on Request, pointed out that the merciful self-chosen extinction exhibited in this film Is still one end of a long /fining what and rea.< m Mtll spectrum whi. I. - '"'« deliberate deaths of the disable. ' tinted (fftil,, ^ l295); ,U thÍS CaSf *«5 \Mkers recorded tl.. •,. I..I in. w„„ď. ..I .i I hitch motor neurone disease suf. ,-.u.r Ceo van Wendd ilr I.....k In mi ostensibly powerful documentary lboú, the organised ending Ol I I"....."< ^ ^ are protoundly moved by ins niflering tnd«nv1n( wl by ilir ImmimUy ol his official executioners, hut the tilm is about a >,mKlr . »'.r, mul II does not seek nuance or debate about the complex...... ..I 11..........•'" Al wlu.l stage does this, a partisan a.gument. mature from mlvoi m v i.....piopiigmulař An interesting point oi comparison is ail OVtrlly pro nilhmmsln propaganda lilm called / Accuse, directed by Wolfgang I.Irbniei wlilcli prtmlaredon 29 August 1941. The V..i functionaries .mpl...... i.....e. I I.H.i •• 19 19 (secretI euthanasia decree explained it to Llebene......I n,pi. .led n lilm (Herzstein 1978). since Goebbels had sensed dis.pii.-i among nuiiiy over the regimes policy, espe-v tally among Catholn / Accuse is about the dtttrlOrlUon inulri multiple sclerosis of a young woman whose hush.nul yi.mi. ihe release she craves by killing her. some-ihing doctors have refund I lei husband is put on trial. The concluding scene illuminates I In- II gumontfl I"" i lUl h.m.isia lhal the regime had sought to mobilise. The do. i.»i < haiiw". hh mind Comments Herzstein: the dialogue in ihls •.. n.. i. . hIm-mu-Iv .lleetive. intellectual as well as emotional in its apprul. mul n|'l">rtntty Cllculated to let the audience make up its own mind about tlK |m..I.|. ... Nm one Is portrayed as a hero or as a villain, audiences tell il.r il..-......|,,.|lnH sympathetic for the accused and his action. ElicltlriK Hum. ... in... ,„,,iiv ||U- aim of ihe regime. In I Accuse it is the law .I,.,, |„ mm|r ... seem barbarous, not the administrators of euthanasia Pni <.......... ||lm ... intelligently made propaganda designed^ precipitate ,. , ,......, ,„ „, ,c„e,a. climate of opinion by rais^ Both films use the COie Id... ..I „ h.lplrss sulferino r^r l die at a time and undei 11......iita....., 0| theli oWchoo^ WiShCS t0 documentary thereby propaganda o i wall (even thouahllirtf u the 1995 it is not perverted in *,>. lo, example.employsm^Sa^S^ it. ,i. it II i A questton <•/ meaning 21 USOClate with propaganda the Idealisation, ttoesitostareoí the British enemy. Ihr dwelling on Ihul enemy's atrocities while simplifying the causation but U is not propagánd*. The imperialism it denounces is long defunct. DOT tl there any cause in the contemporary world for which it COllld ba Mm .is lymbollC advocacy. In this it is different from another Altcnborough lilm, Cm/ Ireedom. Had C.undfii been made in the days of the k.ii ii would, Indeed, have been propaganda. Breadth However, ľi.iik.inis and Aronson (1491) note that as scholars began to study the topic in more detail many came to realise propaganda was not the exclusive property of totalitarian regimes, nor were its contents limited to clever deceptions The word had evolved: it is communication of a point of view u n h the ultimate goal of the recipient coming to voluntarily accept this position as if it were his or her own. Many critics define propaganda very indulgently. Lee (ll)Sh). for example, includes the press, since it: cmpli.isisi-s the existing and superficial and neglects socially important eco-nomle and political developments.... International affairs are stereotyped or caricatured, reduced to positive and negative generalities . . . political campaigns for office or for reforms are dramatised in simplistic and personality terms with basic issues avoided, glossed over or presented in a biased manner. Then there are such things as the development of obviously kept researchers, often under contract to prove specilic policy contentions or to ploi special Interest social strategies'. I 11111 (l U7 j), similarly, sees propaganda as an omnivorous force: arguing that his definition is too broad. Urescher (1SK7) criticises this tendency to see virtually any form of communication as propaganda: In Ellul's views everything is propaganda. Under these circumstances, it is equally useful if nothing is propaganda.' Hllul. Dreschcr argues, would consider the multinational corporation to be propaganda, but surely it is only indirectly political m its expression. Any label is rhetoric. Inscribed within it is both a perspective and a domain, but labels also have inherent plasticity and they remain open to conceptual repackaging. The word 'propaganda' needs redefinition as well as definition. No longer can we dismiss it as merely something to do with Der Stunner. Lenl Kiefenstahl. Pravdu, hveslia or even the occasional party political broadcast. Today it assumes myriad disguises and reinvents itself, now as an objective video news release on animal rights, now as the latest management lad or popular treatise on pseudo-science. The purpose of reclassification is to alert us to the new possibilities it has colonised. Perception , . ^anda can ignore the special relev No attempt to discuss oc mlnment is historically the most the entertainment Industtj W.ir 11997). everything is political. Most enter- But we reject the vocm M M ' ; f()r m i ilnment either eschews polit ^> ot tMTOU KUt Women euner e* text ,t am scklom be Q noses or to estabhsn the etnuauv num ______«. . . poica because politics is a sicnat which activates a defence mechantsm. The broad social uberalism of mam entertainment products - ractal integration, harmonv. social esteem lot dilTerent segments of the community-represent an ethos. This e&OS nu> be celebrated overtly: it is more likely to be simply a benevolent nai raiiw assumption. But it is not propaganda. All entertainment is propaganda would be a nonsense, the notion that since entertainment is manufactured b|J commercial interests it will invariably celebrate the status sua The I ranklurt School in particular viewed all entertainment as propaganda for a dominant social order - as gratifying to the masses and therefore contributing to their further enslavement. This is a gross simplification. As a cultural product entertainment must seek out novelty and therefore sub\ ersion, since continuous celebration of the status quo would bore. Drescher et al. (1987) argue that what we classify as propaganda is also a function of receiver perceptions the same message may function as objective information or as a persuasive statement in a different context' and 'whether the message is interpreted as fact, propaganda depends on the perspecm e oi the receiver.... A sender may also tr n message with the intent that it sor\ e more than one function i!nSmi13 may also be transmitted w ith the knowledge that Nation A willV <\SSageS as statements of fact while Nation B will find them to be *gard them nature.' Thus Drescher argues that the speech that to some so^h^ "* simple patriotic praise may be perceived by others to have self-s^ ^ propagandist motives (Boardman Many apparent cases df^ and ganda 'will be interpreted differently by different readers'. Tn Pr°pa_ lere are ambivalent cases which provide both information and fog - for e the newspaper which announced that intlation in March rose 3.2 rj^p]e Cent, question of meaning 2S continuing the trend of declining rates of interest"! Films may be propa ganda only in the sense that some of the audience would choose to rem i ... if to propaganda, since that is the meaning they have chosen to appropriate from a repertoire of possible meanings. A literary or musical piece, such as Mozart's Marriage of Figaro which satirised the aristocracy on the eveol tin-French Revolution, can be used as propaganda (Perris I 9K5). and as pollt ical propaganda it was the more beguiling, and the more dangerous, because clothed in a language that was not verbal but tnusli bI arid there fore both meaningful and imprecise. Derrida 11981) claimed that no single interpretation can claim t«> be the final one. He demonstrated this not by revealing how the text's meaning ll reconstructed but instead by deconstructing a text in the sense of showing its failure to be interpreted unambiguously. Of course this is not true of much historical propaganda, one of whose characteristics is that meaning is indeed non-negotiable. Even in the war propaganda realm we do indeed meet examples where an openness to interpretation exists: the subtlety ol B film like Powell and Pressburger's Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (194 U introduces us to layers of meaning. And Cook (1992) has described how -partly through the agency of para-language-the message anil story line ol much commercial advertising is ambivalent. For example. Calvin Klein advertisements would seem deeply vulgar if put into explicit words (see J. O'Shaughnessy 1995) . This coheres with the Hovland thesis thai people are not passive receptors but active participants in the creation of meaning (Hovland and Janis 1959). The most extreme version of this view sees all meaning as a ultimately a co-production between text and viewer receiver (see Kellner 1995). An apparent propaganda event can turn out to be anything hut. Responses - how people choose to interpret material - may diverge from what the producers intended or what logic would anticipate. This was. for example, true of the television film The Day After (Adams el al 19Kb). about the aftermath of nuclear war. It had the distinction of the third highest viewing audience in US television history, and therefore (potentially) some social significance. The prediction was that It would foment opposition to the policy of nuclear deterrence. The reverse happened. The share of people seeing Reagan as the more dangerous President declined appreciably, from 36 per cent to 2 7 per cent. This can be explained on several levels. First, the film was not the explicit propagandist evocation of nuclear armageddon predicted by the political right. In fact it was rathei anodyne. Second, nuclear holocaust was shown as survivals, which may have surprised people, since Americans already accepted the destructiveness of nuclear war. Third, the film had received considerable publicity, sensitising viewers to possible manipulation, and making the Dtfinmq what and rvasonln 26 S nlm an.ic.imac.ic. Researchers were unable in dev. even ., trivial .„„ ~!ZZl££ is ***** more complex ma,,,, „„,,„,,,„. Moreover, .ut b. d js ideological-propagandist )s tll o meet and merge in a complex theatre of idee Oglca pluralism: pollUca, opinion becomes less delinite when people hold a portfolio ol right-wing and left-wing positions rather than coherent Ideological package, hi, is ;i consequence of components of the 1960s counter-culture bemg absorb^ into the political mainstream. For example, elements of the l.gure o Rambo himself - long hair, bandana, androgynous breasts - are derived Irom it (Tasker 199 5) while for Webster 11988) "the countrvs.de- is symbol that unites the contemporary ecologist with the old blood-and-soil Right (hinted at in terms like hick-chic Propaganda and interpretation Each producer of a message relies on its recipients for it to function as intended. This assumes they know how to interpret the message. Meaning is always negotiated in the semiotic process, never simply imposed implacably from above by an omnipresent author through some global code (Hodge and Kress 1988).This is where the didacticism of much classic propaganda fails in persuasive terms, for example Soviet propaganda, which assumed a hypodermic model of opinion modification: C.oebbels in contrast sought to disguise propaganda as entertainment. Traditional semiotics errs in viewing the relevant meanings as frozen and fixed in the text itself to be extracted and decoded by the analyst by reference to a coding system that is impersonal and neutral and universal for users of the code (Hodge and Kress 19 S H). The media text does not have one meaning but has to be internreted Rambo for example, within the social and political context that eave lir.h m it. so that the complete meaning of a propaganda event therefore emerges only when we study the society that produced it. Like many cult.. V^u rists. Kellner (1995) argues that the audience is not a passive pre-digested meanings'. The domain of communication and cult ^ °f be clinically separated, and in Kellner's view they are an inter, ^ C'annot There are dominant, negotiated and oppositional reading ^Sten1, propagandist this presents the problem of the unintended ^ F°r 01 UU^KI!U, mr~*X> Audiences......., d..................rrprtUtton and appropri- .,, ,magcs o create their own msinlngl] „,„„. f„r CXHmpIc, rncn ^w York homeless centre vv,,, .....lt(...... ,, ......,lliv|(. svmp.,lhcUc (owards Ihr pol.ee Mhis accords will, •................,, ,„.K,.mony and counter. hegemony: Kellner 199S) And wl„ ,, Ml. hurl Moore's Rogerand Me (Batenun ei al ilw.>>, an undeniably propagandist Um, was shown to a group of Japanese student*. il„ v a. luiilly reacted slightly favourably towards business in then own i OUntl v Negotiation of meaning Much in Him eludes precise study h can be dan ribed but Its nuanced rial ore makes analysis dilli, uli Mow do we dlssecl atmosphere' or tone? What ideological function do iim i ll.r i.. %iyllsti<- devices that qualify or even subvert a dominant klcnlogl. ,d reading, such as a certain playfulness? lasker < 1 9S> 51 complains ol 'StandardI "I truth against which popular films have been judged, standards whl< li rarely adinil the complexity of terms like fantasy". The new critics' lo< oj mi m face forms provides, it is argued, a valuable qualification lo a polltll al undei .landing of popular texts as an Uncontested space for the play ol dominant Ideology', since specific formal devices do not carry an innate 01 essenllal meaning. Attempts to stigmatise the mass media .is propaganda are usually doomed to failure because ol the Ideological elusiveness of much of their r on tent Yet. if political fixity ll .1 Charat LerlStiC of propaganda, it is rarely lo be found in the populai cinema I I ..-.kei I 99 11. As a consumer product, media must please target markets which are usually ideologically heterodox seldom therefore do Ihey Issue an ideological clarion call, more an snigmatic invitation to Interpretation Bntertalnmenl is both an important V|IJ(( , ol propaganda and en< BpSttlttM thl conundrum of its definition. Much entertainment that Is ehnrnclei Ised as propaganda by right and left-win;' < fines is seldom consumed as such by Its audience, since such critics are really searching for a i heloi leal bullel In an Ideological war. Critics are mo' h too willing to discern In texts I he hand of the propagandist and this Involves them simplifying the entertainment product in the cause of an ideological argument, such as those who dismissed the film Michael Collins because it had pre-invented the cai bomb and other pedantic details. The ,„n rtainment industry knows Hint II Is entertaining a politically plural audience, redneck as well us New York bohemlan. Interpretation is left open. Classification as propaganda may represent the coercive imposition ol .. rigid interpretation that the fuels do not support if Tacts' are taken to n.r lode the complete ensemble ........live structure, surface decoration ol i,vi stylistic devices, dialogue. ..leaning brought to the role by actors Il„ n-sull is « complexify //»,,.», ,\..... (( ( ,..,,„, ,,1 a dominant ideology -.wl,mt i,,,, j peiviiiii. for example - m:/ev..i,ily ni»,i„„(| »wi ihttl people appropriate it as prop..*.,,,-!.. '' r ,i .,11 for example. Blackhawl> h;„„ , ,,r|„lllr|,v ",'< |«biaiingbravery, military u,tur«,h lap . n . tl„-|„n, celebration or '-Mi.ovl/ ,.i ,„• i,,,-,,, ',„|„y loi which the soldier r. rmid< I/, prty M(( , (.M, T„t>iUm (198b) is more «-.. .1/ ' , ,| „ ,: .„•.-, Ibis in relation to ihr 7/i-hl, hm*,,,^ ^IIEi."' ... „m.l,...lses the question ol ^in,..,,,!,,^.......,, <:- y" ■ .......s a programme thai aiMly por.,„y, „„ ' ......I oilers a dominant ideol'/// ,h ,......„ • . . ............ nationalists as a sour. ■ t ..il horn 19HM ^ .. ^ , . .. ... ..a mid'as a site of divur iv< i/o//l« it...... inginp,- •....." •mined m any lixed or state /;.>/ />«r« ,„,, . , I< I. iiiiinale material . ;oo» leaSt'' «I!llI^*•0f'','',', h texts were conceived and. M* . w ... rd by tUf' , / 'V,v« i,, audience whocon,.,,,,.,,,.........., ||r lLvl .i*****1* * ..sthetlcfeaturesot the MMMlium would tboscWt." , ,.,/. ^ hecriudsesBarnouw.iWuili.,i,H„. add* '*^rZiaatrW i'"",,u' -4^ end US Impeelihtta, ftnet I.........w ber .......l»V ;.1S propaganda! bo,».......i.........,,„, CO**** \Zi%'M . subversive and parudW....... in fact R*ur ...... •>,... B.rnouw falls ,nto errors of interprrinii,.,, I.., „„,, ,,. nil Indifference "' " ' ' ■' •■■ BMracler lo lone and aim.....I,,.,.- lulling i„ ,htccIvc ,,l,'fr'i,"Vf Un[1ual interpretations such as ih.i. s.,u„. ,.| the i oniptratorlal wxid view embedded in straight or serious spy II, Uotl Thortourn accuses Barnouw of seeing , and assumptions thai undergo a continuous revision in the culturally llcenseil ex|>erience of con-the meaning of such cultuial texts were clearer Ihey mtffat Indeed fcmcuon as propaganda i ' : nd scope of propaganda At we have teen, critics differ in the elasticity ol definition that they would ascribe to die word 'propaganda While we canuoi |hm mil a definition so broad dial a ceases to possess an independent ot operational meaning, our ■4 • pecttae to thai current understandings have erred in restricting its aaeanbof. lo Bu*nu this breadth we discuss thl propaganda endowment <>f frithoWm. subject* such as war architecture, music, bureaucracy. For oen the date of an aatended event can haw propaganda merit and be nominated fcir that reason 911. the emergency telephone number in the United ft tin was packed by AJ-Oaeda with truly dlabolU nl cunning; another i»aw*i0>i aad education lies in tin- idea that** > ■•• • • / • ■ - : nation u-ai Ik ■ ^ • . .ApdBatddlSvSJSaSSi Is seen as the real anUdft yy. -o.ersively. lln-v iiiiyji b«j >> tost* SBBttj? For example. Nazi ma",*— .*»., |iftMlsflStt> MB SSHSB* of calculating lh« -)'/,,• BJSjBjhsspST i. All education pr«>grssSMBMslBSSVl "'.ada of 1 588 h portray/. . - • OD education are ultimas . -)•/-». . v: of education .r projA ; ■ ■ ■ > / •/;•' m education .r ..' v - ■ ,v • t* liberal propaganda I or «-/•■>•/ * .<••,.>• but do nol assum< •• >• ••»•>-■ .-. v»r conditions below deck.' What I «4argue that secondary edu' a-, r • v. i her offensive nor Mjo.«-r • • . . jes that stress comp**1 j <:' theatres. Tim (moo • ■ ■■ >• ■ . J he preference lor v/ - - r. ol a value prefe/ere; v.< -vr hfit> ■jBOOg professional hrlflrtiBBS ¥ i rton among the comm , • .jlum assume thai M bftSV , • a world very familiar n> .h-v.v. t >A education to pe/j/" : uut i/i the nineteenth and earis/ list ' i he purpose of text. t tfaaunen 1978). The V***m*¥J onal military her, a* - • ^etoderpinningil. t^lall'Vlj6Ul• ,.je< I dr.. iplirie are sold and sometimes o\ri sold - for instance, by the claim thai -.orm-thing (sociobiologv. lor example) is in fact a science*. Journalism Dr Goebbels. no slouch when ii I eme to ilw analysis of propaganda, vet\ properly observed, even the nail's, the most democratic paper in the world makes propaganda in that it deliberaiely gives prominence to certain lac is emphasises the Importance ol other \ hy writing leaders or comments about them, and only handles others marginally or not at all' (Her/stem IK) ?%) Goebbels understood, lor he was < oriternpluousof explicit propaganda, dls missing the Mylhos of Alfred KosenUrg as ideological belch. The dtlUlM tion between conventional |ournalr.rn and journalism-as-propaganda Is well illustrated by David McKie'si I'ft i» contrast of the style of tin- \Iim,»i and Sum newspapers in the \ ti'u neral .-lection.The Sun-campaigned with a style andbrutal wil which the Mirror rarely matched Hie difference between the pan;., ol i|.«- \„n ;„„! (he Mirrors predictability was the difference between the Mirror- ,-\,, lion-morning Time for a change' and the Sun's 'If Kinnock wins today will ih«-1. t person out of Britain please lui n off the lights.' illustrated by a pfc tUTI ol Ndl Klnnock's head in a light bulb Categories: direct action Propaganda, one would imagine. If popularly identified with il,r ,,,„ organisations of the powerful < or porallon, the nation state, the prev * nate. the totalitarian empire OhfVO the particular course ,i ^ twentieth-century history. II Is hardly surprising that propaganda liaacn J A question of meaning an activity <»i the omnipotent monoliths, and thai perhaps we should be grateful to them for not using its persuasion alternative, coercion. The identity of propaganda In the late twentieth century shifted fundamentally in so many ways. It is especially true thai propaganda is now no longer the exclusive prerogative of the holders of power communications technology, particularly the internet, makes self-authorship possible. Everybody now can be a propagandist. Not even money is entirely necessary. All that is needed is determination. Seen in this light, the idea of propaganda becomes more demonic to some and more acceptable to others. Propaganda is not only a means by which states and organisations can sustain their power and continuity, but also offers their miniature enemies a means of opposing them, such as the propaganda of direct action, and also, lor anyone who can afford a computer, cyber-propaganda. Modern propaganda as a genre is a resource both of the powerful and of the puny. Propagandist direct action which is provocative enough, such as lesbian activists abseiling into the House of Lords, will stimulate public attention. Many intelligent citizens, who would never see themselves as victims of propaganda, are nevertheless members of single-issue groups: not everything those groups do is propaganda, and nor are those of their activities which can be described as propaganda always contemptible. Often such acolytes simply do not accept that what their group is in fact doing is engaging in propaganda. (It is necessary to enlighten them?) At its furthest extreme, direct action becomes terrorism and is represented by groups such as the Real IRA or, on a more diminutive scale, the Animal Liberation Front. Such groups eschew constitutional process: they do engage in conventional propaganda but spike it with acts of violence. For Schmid and de (iraaf (Crelinston 1 9JS9) Terrorism cannot be understood only in terms of violence. It has to be understood primarily in terms of propaganda. Violence and propaganda, however, have much in common. Violence aims at behaviour modification by coercion. Propaganda aims at the same by persuasion. Terrorism is a combination of the two.' Bureaucratic propaganda War propaganda and revolutionary propaganda should be seen not as the (almost) exclusive contexts for propaganda, but rather as particular variants of it. Other kinds of propaganda might include, for instance, bureaucratic propaganda - the official accounts promulgated by government departments but. also, the way they manipulate information. Thus during the 1980s the definition of unemployment" was changed about fifty times by the British government. Altheide and Johnson (1980) assert that bureaucratic organisations through official accounts of themselves (propaganda) gstji'u'iy v».imi una ff8j*,l .. riu-v iK-M-i i»H",,mv bureaucrats draw q» create a selfMUsUficatorywor- ^ the |og|c Qf . ^ reaffirm a socially construeu H, s() forlh (KaKOW Th^ formation -statistics, annual. ■ in no the demise of ^ )rmauon - aw*——-....... The political forms of P......^ ,hc state itself-have kv-» ..... grea, dicta.orsh.ps. bu, pw.. ..... ;md inUmu^^ bureaucranc pwjjganda Rcm. ......... P ^ » ^ £ saged: measures of air pollution. ior i i «nere there is no traffic. 'Inlormalion can......I*' M*™ character, such as the so called 'Parents" Charter' mailed ... every single British home under the auspices of the former Cons,-, value Education Secretary. John Pea* Then again, information can be censored or withheld, even ancienJ information. The British government long conceal..! items from World War 1 such as details about the trial of Sir Koger Casement or even the sinking of the Lusitania, or information about Ireland in those years What, for example, was the identity of thai master spy who from 1 884 lo 1V22 gave Dublin Castle full details of the activities ol Irish nationalist conspirators.: We still do not know (Richard Bennell 199$) Some of what bureaucracy does is actually a propaganda activity, with the aim of increasing its power and diminishing its inconvenience. Bureaux seek the exercise of power for its own sake and to vindicate the magnitude of that power: and bureaucratic success is measured by the size of budgets and numbers of officials employed. Bureaux are organisations that seek permanence by self-perpetuation, they are thus their own self-justification and they seek their ends via. essentially, the control of information , in such methods as the denial of journalistic access). Incompetence is hidden energy is invested in preventing secrets, such as the bombing of Cambodia from being released (for example, the official persecution u Peter Wright). UUon of ^catcher Bureaucratic propaganda is I lad of Ufa |„ au societies TK m evasions and bureaucratic fog often thrive beyond the r d °mcia' hes. aganda textbooks precisely because they seem to |v the 1 fCrecn of ProP" publicly imagined to be propaganda, not hlgh-declbe|dnU| 'S °f whal is mannered and arcane. Conventional propaganda Is equaled^ Silenl guage but here is manifest the reverse - bureaucratic langu° 'Urid ,an' to sedate and It is therefore ignored. Bureaucratic propagandas °UVe,y Seeks language of obfuscation and obscurity, evasion and denial* |C,,8hl5 in the ciaJJy. seek to present itself as 'rational'. Administrative 1 d0es- ^Pe-idcological rigidities, proposals are made to seem logical andse?11 mtts^s indeed, the entire Nazi enterprise wus often veiled In such bu^ 'dcni ~ formularies. Neutral' vehicles, e.g. reports, statistics, carry id^^Uc .\ question of mranlnq 15 messages The normality' of bureaucratic propaganda is enhanced by its espousal of bogus rationalism, such as the claim in Britain s BSE crr.i. (Harris and O Shaughnessy I 947) that there was no clear evidence that BSE could move from animals lo humans (as if the requirements of scientific and civic veracity were the same). Moreover bureaucratic language is depersonalised, the author not an individual but a system. War as propaganda War is communication The aim is seldom the complete physical extermina-uon of the enemy but lo persuade them to surrender the object of war is therefore the enemy's morale. The activity of warfare is structured by propaganda obiectives. and. partly because of this, wars are conducted inefficiently. Strategy itself is often dictated by symbolic aims - the symbolic meaning of the place, rather than whether it is the easiest route or the most easily defended The strategies of World War II are in particular a theatre of symbolism. For example. General Mark Clark's determination to capture Rome in 1944 rather than advance up Italy allowed Kesselnng to regroup. Clark could, potentially, have cut off their retreat, but was more interested in the propaganda value of capturing Rome. In the Spanish Civil War Franco's strategy was distorted by the propaganda imperative of capturing the Alcazar of Toledo. This point could be made by innumerable other examples from the most famous campaigns in history: that propaganda value is a significant military objective and often overrides a rational military calculus. Notably of course there is Hitler's inflexible refusal to make a strategic withdrawal at Stalingrad when the Wehrmacht was trapped: Stalin, conversely, would hold the right bank of the Volga at any conceivable cost. Stalingrad was the symbolic pivot of World War II - and upon its outcome hung the future of the war In World War I the equivalent was. perhaps. Verdun. Thus propaganda and war are inseparable. In the twentieth century war had meant the mobilisation of vast civilian populations. They had to be convinced. For example, by the end of 1944 Dr Goebbels even withdrew 100.000 men from the front lines of the dying Reich - the size in effect of the current British army to make a colour epic about Prussia surrounded during the Napoleonic wars. Kolberg (Herzstein 1978) Propaganda also muffles the reverse*; of war. as with Churchill's conversion of Dunkirk from physical defeat into a great (moral/rhetorical) victory. Symbolic sites can be murderously contested when they engage with national myth Nuremberg, the great stage of Nazi rallies, was militarily valueless but »tlll the target of a notorious air raid. Battle may be sought purely for th«- imagery it generates. The 1968 Tet offensive by the North Vietnamese was. military, a failure, and the United States was the ,lHnr Ypt the US public - with Vieucrtg appearing even n* Snybecamea US defeat because it wa- : ■ : a* such. Thus m^ llltl;, ls not lust a branch of military activity. Matary activity itself ,8 ..'.hrmilly propagandist, in part, or entirely •, I „.„■ can be no final closure in the debate on Ike meaning and definition „1 propaganda and there will always he those v.r.: icpri the idea as bogus But il the word has no meaning, under what other terms can we dlscufj the phenomena it purports to describe- \1< rt r.t--2 -^rms and formula-ttoni give neither coherence nor intellectual chrecto: a word is a class.l,. cation system, and definitions are meaningless if they would include mi yihing from Goebbels to the 'host and found*Gotanan of the local news, paper in the same conceptual breath. Word' perceptions, we cannot be said to know' what we lack a language to describe, and without this particular word we become desensitised to the ubiqinty of its operation. Por example, when Governor Pataki asked that NewYorJr. schools should teach the great Irish famine as a Holocaust, that is. of defixrate causation, he Is both undermining the historical primacy of the Jewish Holocaust and teaching children an erroneous lesson. The real coaaewator. with the 20 million dead of Mao's Great Leap Forward | ] h 5 *fr-1961). and the derivative lesson on the rigid imposition i,l iv . - - : :Jeologies. is completely lost. Where propaganda is the text students come out of education not the less but the more ignorant. Why not. then, use the term? 2 {explaining propaganda Why propagandas This chapter seeks, if not to answer, then at least to understand that question better - or. more particularly, the persistence of propaganda into our own time. The salience of propaganda Lexis and events in history is not in doubt, although the measure of its impact is impossible to gauge and therefore permanently subject to dispute-, the visible continuity of propaganda as a mode of social mobilisation beyond the wars and dictatorships of an earlier generation and into our own age does, however, require us to seek some explanation. Where the entire communicaUons context is controlled, as in the old totalitarian dictatorships, as in the hermit kingdom' of North Korea today, the reasons for propaganda as a ubiquitous form of social control need little elaboration. What is rr.xaAom is why propagandas should still flourish in modern democracy, among a better-educated generation, one incubated moreover amidst the cacophony of mass media. Our cultural conditioning in Western countries includes the acquisition of learned defences against the blandishments of advocate-i. and advertisers of every kind; indeed, did we not learn to filter out many of their messages, our reason and even our sanity would be in doubt Yet propagandists continue in business via emotional appeals that exploit our uncertainty, simulate our fantasy and take advantage of our credulity: we ask for belief, and the request is answered. Propaganda, as has been discussed, is no recent, or ephemeral, historical phenomenon. The crusades, for example, were propelled on a cascade of ecclesiastical propaganda after Pope Urbans ?m*eof the term has actuary been a characteristic of all societies since people first lormed organised n**f "*■-« «*s^ say. the 'scientihc - _ , ;; ,,rlvlllK |M||U " far the ^"itkha^°LOT^ * find. 'I.....o.....^ century history .,^.jr,nJ, md new tooli of com with urbanisation anc ...-^ _{ >fj r,l.Kflllllled ^ - meant that authority w- ■; , ^h,;rriV;lv,,( l);,||rnK(,, m ..sed. Hierarchical socialcw ^ ^ omJtanl ()f ^ -~ lhenrt.il . ^1/or rven primarily ssary. their police sta" ;,r„paganda. More- - but by citizen inforrnantsj^--^ _ ^ moblUilUon constate now soughtnv.r* _ ' ^ )|( l|vha||on ^ .conscription, social°7*^™^|jon lhJll ,he threat of persuasion arose out of the rccopw" could not attain the ends the clctaWff fCttght no eallv explain the success* prta^nda today, in less naive ■pen political cultures ri for the persistence a ,n stable, supposedly raltonaiy hased and .cchnocentrlc -re power of theimpav :r-". -" ■' W«l wl,h no,d I empirical evidence at all. and the tenacity of Irrational beliefs - acquired :-. • ' - >.; ■ • v *-a "I the rational derived from the eighteenth >.:.-: ••.« v raiv possibilities of via communications technoflogfet (Robins ft oi. 19X7). For the modern state is. neceeaar. . >.-.-: r.« v apably. the propa- People are in general not **fled.....of logic and urgu- we do not train them to be §o They may deU< i ili< lie and still •r.e> believe its truth • llIls,Nll.M,l\ •id that people can respond favorably u, a eV(M, w|K-n that it is biased. ,da is also Utopian. VVh.le ,t * rrr^ ,, .„ , ,||f. „ ^ *r.:ch would be comprehen*Htl» - •,»,„ . i u ^~r> propaganda text woo.^r-v^/ itssie.fl miles exist - the Utopian Whom 1, ""I'" stM o( Propaganda, . - - • • /.V. ~;'^-Mo liunthinkable without sorr* rtstrm of fn* «,,,) the w, i'i ■ the obiect of idealist striving. " 1 '""»'«'. das chapter we first advance a theury«fceead »»r au,IM, _j*ty of propaganda today l«t porTtnaWty In it,. (1) -esponse to stimuli - - ...... ■■< i ,|„"" ,,l,v<'n Explains r n.:..- x appeal that a flee:.* the cynicism r - -Utopian vision sometimes the nitive processes - che the continued beliefs', m¥d pretation and explore how the temporary parochial I. issue groups as j all loyalties are present, for nhot and thus the activity not the every level of our activities: (2)in spite of from the spectacle of failed Utopias the of things still arouses the activists sr.: 11 then there are aspects of our cog-information which may account lor - <. e> to propaganda, such as de's- : and the permanent possibilities of inter-In the second section of this chapter we > i genre is explained by the : - -, ■ coercive control, weaker..r.z v sources, the .is* cnt if I BSgft*-of pobocal expression. In such a conten. the possibility of defection is it has to be continually rer cannot cease, making Why propaganda * approaches Emotion: the Most propa; For Hitler, per They are like a abstract reason complement her despise a petmer.er The notion of choice, as rati only of econo mists long clung maker: "but as Seare *1995$ what to eat in a ordered preferences indifference curse Laurence Moore Cults (19891 -is totally bereft of mtf t social and em ries as those wh.c ' as a calculus of rather than rational in the generation of collective' state has been determined less by for a strong force which wM the masses love a commander, and is the core of propa; whether political or rven the governing | science and marketing. Vet ity-maximising rational i t ts implausible to claim, in have some set of antecedent M calculations to gel on to a tdO Shaughnessy 20031. Intact-God (1994) and Marc . er by a message even sj all. and the appeal is (2000) contradicts and consumer decision i various options. Instead he "S deliberation in decision making as in the main descriptive - !h terms of self-described or other-described .mages of the choices ava.i-" whether a product or whatever. If decision making docs indeed resi 0„ mJj tiple alternative descriptions, propaganda s opportunity to persuade |le. in composing them. Faith can be based exclusively on trusi w„h0ut ^ real understanding. This is particularly true of the less well educated, wh,, tend to use the likability heuristic', choosing primarily on the basis of fCe| ing - the implicit favourite model - and then finding other evidence to justify choice. The search for evidence becomes subsequent, and not antecedent to. conviction. The rational model of decision making ignores the power of emotional prejudice to outweigh illuminated factual truth, our ability subjectively to decry a fact as false even when we know it objcciivdy to be true. In a study by Rozin ft al. (1986) people willingly ate fudge shaped as a disc, but much less so when it was configured as animal droppings, and similarly with sugar which they saw poured from a bowl and into a box which was then arbitrarily named sodium cyanide'. Known facts cannot bleach out negative associations and the powerful emotions they inspire The power of the emotional appeal in persuasion also arises partk out of our difficulty in resolving uncertainty, where there is no logical path but only multiple risk. Take the case of genetically modified foods. The concerned citizen remains mystified. One set of partisans point to the potential of CM crops to liberate the Third World from hunger, they argue also that fewer pesticides are required, less land needs to be cultivated, allowing more of the natural environment to flourish. Their opponents also claim closure in the debate by simple reference to the rhetoric of "Frankenstein foods' Previously we have argued |O Shaughnessy and OShaughnessy 2(M) J, lha. do no. react m proportion to the probability of some particular outcome emstem* emotions exist independently of assessments of logical probability n fTct simply to imagine an event causes emotion, even if th<- Zi , come is highly unlikely there is always wishful thinking while i and uncertainty create a vigorous market for dogmatic reass CUnty Today there ls no real reason to believe that rationality m publľ"tľ has greater sway than in the past. Some would argue that tod °urse cultural drift towards more extrovert emoiion-dnven forms of ^ {^CTt is a and therefore of persuasion, with our inquisitorial media < !„,'/,.. ^,i,viour shows, etc Many public manifestations of a mood of anti-vc "clonal u,ik attempt at reason: the rejection of genetically modified crow u,hu no I_,h_~l I___;„ ____.r I_____ . ľ* In not irranooaL was hyperbolic in expression. If human being* wer ° ,lSC'f rational dtaaon makers there would be little need for propaganda decisionaimply foals, they therefore Invoke values, and the MDoQoimh!^ "'at i-xphinimi propaganda 41 express, powei ind linderglrd those values. Decisions involve choices and trade-oils and tiMM ..re seldom value-free or devoid of emotion It would be ., ver) peculiar, unique perhaps, propaganda thai relied on reason alone B superficial, 01 social, assent might be secured by mere logical exposition hut often i)..I conviction and the commitment that Hows from conviction: indeed, rhetoric and feelings have by a tradition going back to Aristotle been viewed .is the opposites of reason and logic, even gendered opposites, feminine and masculine Persuasion and propaganda may involve tactual appeals to reason, but in general a process of logical exposition is peripheral to it. Rarely can a process of logical demonstration entirely convince, since it cannot remove all doubts - and where there are doubts, reassurance and therefore further persuasion are needed. We have claimed (O'Shaughnessy and O'Shaughnessy 200 }) that in symbolic logic, by contrast, there is only one solution - answers are demonstrated, errors exposed, in a deductive process. In life, decisions both trivial and life-changing must often review different persjxrtives. different interpretations, so that persuasion becomes possible. Thus the appeal of propaganda is in general to emotion and not to reason. It proceeds by dogmatic assertion, as if there could be no debate on the propositions advanced: in Le Bon's words an orator wishing to move a crowd must make an abusive use of violent affirmation' (Herzstein 197Xi Dogmatic assertion does convince, it elevates mere value judgement to the status of truth or law and. contrary to Petty and Cacioppo (19811, people are persuaded by such when they are content to delegate their thinking to others, be it pundit, priest or politician. Constant assertion can stun consciousness, naturalising the perverse as normal and interrupting internal dialogue to prevent counter-arguing. For propaganda is not a nuanced production: in it assertion has little qualification and the arguments of opponents are parodied rather than rebutted. There is frequent recourse to ad hominem: opponents presented as either bigoted or self-interested: repetition, simplification and black-white polarisation. Reagan, for example, would use anecdote and metaphor rather than argument, introducing citizens who had performed some selfless act. promulgating a never-never land of trickle-down effects and Laffer curves. Evidence is not to be assessed or explained, but manipulated or invented. Propaganda texts contain scant recognition or capacity for intellectual abstraction, they are actively antagonistic to abstract thought, eschewing the tentative, the complex line of argument, the weighing and debating of evidence. The concern of the propagandist is not with how we think but how we feel. There are numerous instances of propaganda and advertising exploiting this fear of emotional manipulation by claiming an appeal grounded purely in reason. This is. of course, an emotional appeal in itself. Governments are Defining what and reason 42 ,„ m iking il in the face of some catastrophic error „ par..' olarl. prOW U> ■ emotion. and this is the rh! > ,„„„„ ft*,,,,«» h,^^ ^henever the state or big bul J^?1 „ „| (be propagandist argume e»^ C^nda aimed a, sophisticated targets has. however, long ^ ,'.....• a/v S Z tonu* to reason. As U „, World War II did not g.ve up the blond beas and yellow m -v.;,., bu. took ,n.o greater account the need to expla n what ling for and what institutions they were defendmg. Ever, Goebbels ,„,pelled U> create an intellectual' weekly. Das Re.ch. to counterbalance the intellectually moribund Nazi media. I.topia Ifa b propaganda would seem to register the existence of a Utopia - it can be i hoped-for Utopia, or a Utopia irretrievably buried in the past. Many potttk al extremists are disappointed Utopians, and the vision of a perfect world or world order, its possibility, perfectibility or existence in the past, is the undisclosed presence behind propaganda. This would account for the harshness of some propagandas and their rejection of any offer to compromise, as the achievement of whatever Utopia their creators have in mind QOdnoally eludes their grasp, as. in an imperfect world, it is bound to do. It bj the impatience with the messiness. fluidity and compromise of the real world that marks the propaganda order. Thus activists rejected the claim of the first deaf Miss America. Heather Watson, to be ambassador for the deaf Sunday Telegraph, 26 March 1995). Hard-line advocates of cultural deaf-nev. resented the fact that she had learned to lip-read such that it was diffi-. , la guess B disability I he current orthodoxy dictated that sign language .s the only acceptable form for communication for the deaf. Deaf advocates protested, saying that she had no right to represent pe^^f^S she was unfamiliar with. In the words of one deaf Id^i u CUlture clinically deaf, but she didn't have the social identity of a d"''/ * A vision of the perfectible does sustain belief It a.ssuatterfiK PerS0n of the newly urbanised twentieth-century publics and h ,insecurities mankinds need for meaning and a coherent value system IV SaUSfy haps help explain fundamentalisms with their contempt'fohW°Uld pCr' lence of the secular world. From socialist realist art to the imb arnhiva-of consumer advertising, the dull footage' is edited out ^ ecstas»es 11982) terms, a Panglossian best in the best of all possible woridSChUds°n S al. .1986) have analysed Reagan's 1984 election campaign as S ^dams el lation of romantic pastoralism'. One photograph that appeared"1311^11" Exphminj r'W depicted Reagan beneath a huge mural of Rea*,,, I 0....1, v I..11 lam.•, mers - lyiMOfc ot the virtues for which Reagan oslmMhly -.i,„,| t|„.lt. hard work patriotism, etc. Such Imagery occurred In hi-. v.•...,„ ..dv.-r tising and campaign biopic: 'America had wander, d. h< n,ld U and the symbolism of traditional rural life becomes a way ol tailing ... whai wr had left behind. But this need for Utopia is what unites, ion. epinally and slylis tically. all propaganda. A yearning for the primordial. lor il.r pure lor a perfect world, in fact - is prelapsarian fantasy. ForMircea Eliade 11991). we long for something allog»ih»f dillerent from the present instant, something either inaccessible or j*rm.m< nil, lost, in fact he argues that it is really a yearning for paradise list* 11 On i he. IJglMiaul. behind the hectonng. the meanness perhaps of nai I. propaganda, lies tin-search for paradise, rage at its loss and some half-arti< ulaied id«-a ih.it .i once existed Hence. : : sample. Rubin (Kevles 1994; -.omm..n - Ka< hel Carson's vastly influential The Silent Spring (1962) thus: 'such popularisations have an excessively evangelical tone, akin to il...t ol ih« urnperance movement, which urges environmentalism upon us not only io preserve the earth but also to achieve a kind of personal salvation *.o .i.ilgia is one form of this paradise - in Eliade's view, the most abject nostalgia div loses the nostalgia for paradise. This. I think, is true of many politic -.1 < olioni for example, the yearning in later Rome for the pristine. as< eti M ol the Republican era. This is no mere romantic speculation Wiener 1198 h. for example, in his English Culture and the Decline of the liuhr.trml Spirit demonstrates the way a yearning for a lost rurality. an an .id... of Mrrrie 1-ngJand. permeated the culture, with negative consequences in hi* view In World War D this rural England was. time and again, the symbol in posters and films such as .Mrs Miniver. But nostalgia is not perhaps cx.u irj > In- right word to describe what is going on in propaganda. As Webster 11 'ihhi saysof populist rhetoric, it is important to see it as a strategic mobil»%aiion ol the past rather than nostalgia'. Indeed, the pasts of the propagandist bear little relation to the histoncaJ past - the Nazi creation, for example. ii aboriginal Germania'. was largely an exercise in fiction, and Webster argo< . that the Amencan 'new right was a mass of contradictions. It man..;" d conscript a mythologzsed past social community in the service of free-market rhetoric. Reagan has been said to speak for old values in current w >and like the nation, of which he is such a representative figure, he in a < oi.iradu lion in terrm-aheroof theconsumerculturepreachinKih' " '•'",' The anthropologist Mary Douglas (1996) argues that Ihr most basic choice that a rational person has to make is the choice about the kind ol society to In* in or. if you like, his or her preferred life *fk. Ptoople are viewed as continuously 'trying to bring about their Ideal form oh ornmumty life. In other words, the subordinate value for any pernor, it hie ** Wring what and reasot}. 44 ""9^ ,„v and it is the emotional attachment to this idea WKl form of commum^ *ould view human beings as dominates as a concern co-ordinating prmrini.: ich all dominates as a conoenx ^ ^ ^ co.ordinating principle JJ u.opians. so «nucn»« agajnsl other competing ways0f J' consumer purchase - minohty view, the utopianism inscribed h n; - «•* bu-perhaps— its persuasive force. Always open to persuade: «hy the activity of persuasion can never cease . oiu- nrvn to nersuasion. and therefore to that We are always, at least potent, y ^ * variant of persuasion known as propaganua. y ^ the most dearlv held pnnciple or ideal, s.nce principles are never spectltc com-bu g neral rules, thus raising the possibility of deviance in any par. 1" We may be environmentally conscious shoppers but lapse on occasion: as Leutin and Miller , 1979, show, the relationship between general ideology and spectfic choice is not strong. Our choices are not linear projections from our pnnciples - if they were, our beliefs would be extraordinarily tenacious and saturate every action we undertook. Many decisions are complex and ultimately incoherent, drawing upon myriad beliefs and values, some contradictory, some changing in intensity according to context. If our principles do represent imprecise general rules rather than specific commands, the possibility of persuasion must exist in perpetuity, since there is always a potential openness in the application of the general rule to the specific case, a flexibility propaganda can always exploit. The art of propaganda lies in changing perspectives, and to change perspectives we have to alter interpretation, to interpret the emotion-arousing situation in a different way so people reassess its significance. This is a debate not about the truth of facts in themselves but about their meaning, and there is no challenge offered to values per se but to value judgements, which are reinterpreted. This process is in its fundamentals emotional, not. as de Sousa (1990) says, some sequence of logical inference but of emotional argument with the aim of persuading the audience to share a perspective or conjure up a certain experience. Only then, when both parties are conscious of sharing the same perspective, can rational argument and logical inference proceed. The cunning propagandist will not proceed bv assault. The targets and values will appear to have been left intact and the new argument will stress how the new interpretation coheres with the old values. For example the Irish Georgian Society sought to combat national ist prejudice against the preservation of Irish country houses as relics of colonial rule by proclaiming them the handiwork of Irish craftsman and Explaining proixignndti artisans, and thus worthy of , sfafcndOfl ,,, lhis SCMSC gG()d r , subversive, since only by RfljNi Ion i u. ii., Hve persuasion proceed Com mcrcial ads. for example. m;»> ■.. ,\ u, assuage Kui|, through reinterpret tion. particularly violation-, of fog rules acquired from past author.r figures like parents, hence KentCH |pj I rltd ( lucken identified its core marketing problem as guilt, whir h .1 sought to assuage with the slogan 'Its asn to feel so good about a meal and theories may linger on even after their intellectual rejection, htttWM what Thompson (1979) calls excluded monsters' - for example Weber's thesis on Protestantism and the rise of capitalism. Thus explanations for the vAU < nv» '"•.•» of propaganda may lie in the fact that many beliefs and attitudes cxlnl unknown to us. Propaganda is often effective where it resonates'. surfacliiK '-i' hwartz 1973) half-submerged. barely articulated fears and asplrailom dial He beneath the level of everyday consciousness. I homr/.on l'»M>hh Tl»'<>n, (1979) has relevance here. 46 DefinÍn9What^rea Intotheo^ ^ľto to propaganda can appeal, arous^dcot enmities thatS The example of the Balkans ,s pertmen here, where a « h had occurred within the context of World War II was refought. ^ recrudescence of the old labels and the old warpaint. It ,s also trUe , stereotypes, which do not die so much as hibernate; propaganda reireshes and rcinvigorates them. Clinton, for example had not been high tax. high spend but that image of the Democrats can always be easily resurrectedby I heir Republican antagonists. The impact of propaganda can be very long-term indeed, encouraging adherence to a cause long after defeat has become inevitable or even already occurred. Hopeless causes slill have life left in them, testament to the enduring power of propaganda. There are many reasons for this: we do indeed have aspirations to bring about something but. on occasions, recognise our goals will never be realised (e.g. to reintroduce laws prohibiting pornography) but pursue hopeless causes because it makes us feel we are doing something to bring about our vision: the cause may be lost, but it is not silent. Lost causes litter the landscape of history and pass on from one generation to another. Expectancy theory is impoverished when it ignores the expressive meaning of action, with expressive meaning involving the emotions. Expressive action contrasts with instrumental action. While instrumental action is a means, designed to get things done, expressive action permits us to ventilate our feelings or emotion. (O'Shaughnessy and O'Shaughnessy 2003) Second, whereas beliefs may be changed by new information, emotions do not necessarily cohere with them, at least not straight away They may continue to carry the charge created by past propaganda: beliefs have an after-life as well as a shelf life. Self-deception A further explanation for the persistence of propaganda is its role in self persuasion; the propagandist, whether party activist or Mormon ary, internalises adherence by the activity of propagandising0 jmiSS1°n* words, the function of the propaganda can degenerate into s ■ ° ° psychological needs of those who produced it in the first ljV1Cing tne Herzstein (1978) has argued that by 1944 Goebbels was makin^ Th"S ganda as much for himself and the leadership as for the masses' He Pr°pa that the later products of Nazi cinema and the slogan 'Victory in deatrV8UeS resented 'visions of salvation*. For the Nazi elite films such as the colour fi,P Explaining propaganda Rite of So, r,f„ p. where at the end eternity beckons with a heavenly chorus were allegories of the ,-nd I he aim was to transcend the doom-laden ores ent via belief in an immortality conferred by the approving judgments of history and future generations of Germans. Self-dec ept ion is thus another consequence of propaganda: it may also be an intentional objective. We can become co-conspirators in our own self deceit. Self-deception' is not necessarily always motivated by an aversion to some truth but. on occasions, simply motivated by affection for some-particular falsehood. (This is particularly true when through self-deception we neutralise an ethical dilemma.) Some, for example, continue to believe that (lie prac lice of the Roman Catholic religion was once illegal in Ireland, although it never was. Self-deception involves refusal to face facts or to lend them an utterly perverse but self-serving interpretation. Often the deft propagandist wants us to do this, the aim of the propaganda being to serve up plausible reasons for that frivolous interpretation, or for those 'facts' being untrue. And the potential is endless. The historian David Irving, for example, can describe Auschwitz as a labour camp with an unusually high mortality rate [Dally Telegraph. 13 April 1994». Presumably he seriously believes this. And any evidence can be twisted round: he can assert that Hitler gave no recorded, direct instruction for the Holocaust (true, but in the context meaningless). When challenged with the lack of evidence for a world Jewish conspiracy, for example, the paranoid antise-mitic will claim that this merely illustrates the cunning of the Jews. While we see this as mere self-deception or irrationality, there are also other explanations. The truth can be impossibly painful - and self-deception may thus be a necessary strategy for survival: we are seduced by the propagandists because I hey offer us a way of coping. People thus persist in adherence to beliefs despite all the evidence to the contrary. So Germans continue to believe in the essential decency of the German army, the Wehrmacht, In World War II while fully accepting the evil of the overtly Nazi institution!*: many found great difficulty in accepting the extent to which the army itself was compllclt In Nazi atrocities, as the outraged reaction to an exhibition on this theme in Germany revealed (Crimes of the Wehrmacht: Dimensions »1 the War of Annihilation. 1941-1944. Berlin Institute ol ( ontemporary Art, November 2001). Moreover self-deception may mean simply adherence to dominant values, avoiding the social awkwardness ol que .Honing I hem. at least publicly, and the embarrassment of standing out: self-deception can be a group phenomenon and not just apply to the Individual. If propaganda succeeds with part of a community. It can in fact Impact all of a community since even majorities can be tempted simply to > along' with the strongest opinion rather than the most representative. Fantasy Hyperbole does not make the mistake of asking for belief-itisa fam whfch we are invited to share, expl.cit and even paranoid, but the f ^ does nevertheless affect perceptions of he reality. One form of hyper> classic atrocity propaganda, for examp e the British claim in World that the Germans melted bodies for fat. Such exaggerations work n because people necessarily believe them but because they are willj * partners in a process of self-deceit of which they may be fully consci0us They want to see their own darkest fears and angry broodings made visible and'luminous. Propaganda does that for them. In other words, there is a political truth that exists independent of the objective factors in a given sit. uation. Propaganda is hyperbole - not all propaganda, certainly, for hyper. bole is a manifestation rather than a condition of propaganda. The aim of hyperbole-fantasy is to trigger self-persuasion by getting people to imagine some event, encounter or person: they talk themselves into believing or desiring something via this process of self-imagining. Much consumer advertising is also an invitation to share a fantasy, with the hope that imagining using the product will create an inner dialogue. Hyperbole became the rhetorical reflex of Serb media in the fragmentation of ex-Yugoslavia. For some time before the Serb invasion of Kosovo, the Serb media carried anti-Izvet propaganda claiming that he would establish a Muslim state. Pointing out that non-partisan sources of information such as the BBC were available to Serbs. Zimmerman H995) claims that people did not want to know the truth: they seem to know the difference between news and propaganda, yet when a choice is available most choose propaganda. The argument is that propaganda is often a co-production and that people lend to It a suspense of their disbelief, and they have a need to see what they recognise as their own fantasies rpflJ, a ?. media, their own lies to themselves remand -of the public space. When critics claim that ^ UeS they perhaps envisage a passive recipient VVhil ,manipulative'' exchanges may resemble this hypodermic form what propaganda the propaganda process may be more subtle. The id , ° 8°ing 0n 'm misled strikes at the root of the concept of man aT p!ople wi'»ngly maker, yet surely this is what occurred in Serbia Rwand rati°na' decision While much propaganda can be said to involve exa ^ eIsewhere-almost, is part of its definition - and indeed active misrepre86^1'0" " that> niably it sometimes involves the manufacture of falsehood11131'00' Unde" that its texts are even forgeries. Here we are in the realms of a^t^6 extent tion and deceit.Yet propagandists can do this almost openly with^ fa^rica" ence even conscious of the falsehood being perpetrated, becorni ^ auc^~ co-conspirators of an act wherein thev themselves are in a cf ^"'"g ense the Explaining propaganda 49 ,ul,ms. Once again the explanation is ,,„„ ,,1(.y „„. „.,,„ b shar, ,n a mutual fantasy.....,,. ,..........,„,,,.,, |)y ^ who U)() ^ ,° reach lor words like gullible .„„1 „;ilv, . slVlllIlllllK „„. BU(UeQce8 ^ * recognition of the techniques being „.,,.,! An example „1 ibis is morphine ,|ohnson i. When Prolrssor Harold s,.,. .,,„„,, ,„ |hc 1 Harold See doesn i think average Alabamans are smart enough to serve on juries.' Stamped on his face were the words 'slick Chicago lawyer'. A self-styled Commltlee lor I .irmly Values" produced an advertisement claiming that See had a sec ret past and had abandoned his lamily. allegations he strongly disputed In lad. he won. Another case, in California, related to the murdei ol twelve-year-old Polly Klaas. In 1996 one of the Democratic candidates lor Congress. Professor Walter Capps. was attacked thus by commercials: when the murderer of Polly Klaas got the death penalty he deserved, two people were disappointed . . . Richard Allen Davies. the murderer. And Walter Capps.' Commercials showed images of Davies and Capps with the labels I lavies the murderer' and Capps the liberal'. Davies and Capps were run" as a kind of double ticket. Congressman Vic Fazio found thai the la< e <>f Davies was morphed through computer graphics into his own even though he had not voted against the death penalty for several decades (Johnson 1997). Why propaganda? (2) Modern conditions Social control Propaganda, whatever else It may be. functions as a form of social control in the modern world, a substitute for social coercion and for more passive forms of social persuasion. Some social control is always necessary, but its potentials remain both liberal and illiberal, given the question of its form, extent and source (who wields it). Propaganda is 'soft' social control, prison is hard* and generally the most extreme alternative. Ullul (1973) sees propaganda as made necessary by technological society and that its end 'is the integration of man into the technological system'. He believes that we should teach people to live In and igalnfl Technology. Many have echoed him. Thus propaganda is subsumed Into the form and structure of social control' (Robins el al. 1987). Propaganda Is seen as a key element in the ability of advanced industrial and post-Industrial societies to organise and integrate themselves and exert some sort of authority over their individualistic publics: otherwise how can we have a public body but not a public mind? Defining what and rrru„„ 50 S"r,|"«^ . fhis is Dccaust- COtldon hU bW delegitimised' (Robins el«/. , 9h onVof the great arts to bi Cultivated Propaganda ,s the cheaper ^ doing this ILasswell 19711. Social change Change entails uncertainty, and it is to the insecuril.es created by maj0r social upheavals that propaganda has often, in the past, appealed. Such uncertainty can be extreme enough to constitute a national mood - the classic study by Canlril 119(> II, which examined perverse social/national movements such as Nazism, illuminated the evolution of pan-national moods. In such moods of nervous pessimism we yearn for the security we have lost and the emotional anchors that have been taken from us; there is a huge market in nostalgia, exploited by politicians, and by advertising: social change in particular is emotional because there can be no non-users' (O'Shaughnessv and OShaughnessy. 2003). The propagandist will thus contrast the turbulent or inadequate present with some imagined Golden Age - this was true not least in the case of the Romans themselves, whose literature and political rhetoric often sought to contrast the degeneracy of the empire with the imaginary austere and stoical virtues of the ancestral republic embodied in figures like Cincinnalus: their habit, the strategic mobilisation of the past to critique the present, found many subsequent imitators. The mood is one of fear as social values cnxle. the familiar disintegrates, the old loyalties are betrayed, the old truths falsified and people grasp for simple certainties and reassurance, with persuasion by authoritarian figures and didactic assertion rather than logical argument. The question Why propagandas may thus be partially answered by reference to the prevailing level of social insecurity: Nazi propaganda, for ZZl^ " u r!blC leVd °f rCSP°nSc umi1 *« «» ^ million unemployed Germans. While a soctety may in general feel secure particu-ar subgroups may not. In the early 199()s. for example, the previous level of job security enjoyed by middle managers d.saooe-.r.V . !u the mutual loyalty they received from, and gave to ZZ «"57 , they were being delayered and downsized, and a ncwkZ^ I " agerial literature, often anecdotal and anti-empiricist ■oiwh.Jl?! man" to their insecurities. "PP^rcd io minister Information overload Another reason for the rise of propagandists forms o| persuasion society lies in the very complexity of life today - the pressure <>f mult0^ Explaining information sconced to digest information-fort h. The trend of the cation of inform vision and their The offer of prq cognitive misers. We sumer decision : on the advice of (1997) says, a r< fact that people ■ the pronouncement* of minor decision, had to be tion for a single day: 'it the possibility of and the consequent environment is esrtSSl e-mail, direct mail and v> was towards the multipft. ~ - I 1 channel satellite tele - 'Ctnablc new height - U e become, of necess of issues, from our c>r. of other countries, todeper. I be impossible. As May hew w orks cannot ignore the independent verification on every issue, if every T.euV we could not fun' -- f'. s of others thai offer i Ambivalent opinion The opportunity for the propaganda! fees essennaliy in the confusion, the tentativeness of pubuc optraon are seldom without opinions, bat. mostly, they are weakly held, Tbat b why the minority church of strong believers in anything from die right to bear arms VRA» in the United States to the pro- and anu-iosixmting lobbies in the United Kingdom fight the polemical war so vigorously Pa haps we seek to avoid the intellectual labour of reason and the moral labour of keeping an open mind. Moreover communication has to penetrate noise and contextual density and this in itself is a rea/,' V ■-;/..-.< ■■ ■-. -: propaganda, since they guarantee us a more ..*e»y hearing. For ste haw become Toquevillean ■ to excess - only the lurid bestirs us from mtroivrsion and petty cares. We also exhibit a latent want (or variety, away from that familiar which reassures but also bore*, ui Today political acuon. poJsncaJ partkyanon of every kind, becomes a part of the leisure market and conspetes lor money and consumers with other kinds of leisure activities. The demise of parties and In particular the class structures which #a.e \:.n automatic corpus of support has led. in electoral terms, to a new i niwasMfsssi so which the loyalty of voters is rented. The coalescence of spendmg power and Sew Media creates choices, mar, partisanship, of every kmd. becomes enfeebled and the inherited wisdom and mythological structures of communities expire with their decline. Persuasion territory fj up kx v<** The nesjjtiaooo of multiple pressures make* People vulnerable. htA v.t,.* local sflsnom represented one possible defend Definma what and reoso 52 "S^ i. H^narture from traditional ways of knowing «*,«.«. propaganda^depariur "V V m°re , rl emic s the space vacated by tradition. S a> ""I ule le ty f social integrating mechanisms ,„ > for propaganda i the^pover y ^ rf commu * * ,.,,„„, market-plac emocrcy I ^ ^ ^ ^ rf ^ oul and a decline of social h'erarc > traditional au(rZ inherited loyalties: P«^^heC°c0ercl0n 0f community and 5, ^SlSSS-- AO authority is tentative, and ^ :,llth„r„v ,s negotiated, persuasion becomes central. Single-ivsuc groups Another manifestation arising out of the fragmentation of the old monolithic certainties and the social organisations that were their expression are single-issue groups, and their ubiquity is a driving force behind propaganda (set- Chapter 5). They were the political phenomenon of the late twentieth century. It is through propaganda that they are created and sustained and impact the legislative agenda. Single-issue groups arise as an organised response to an emotional call to action: a consequence of propaganda therefore further becomes a manufactory of it. for it would be difficult to describe the literature and generated imagery of single-issue groups in any other terms. Some of them are now actually bigger than the political parlies, as animal rights, abortion and so forth intrude on to mainstream agendas and usurp them (Richardson 1995). The emotional satisfactions of adherence to a single-issue group are stronger than party activism for many because there are fewer ideological compromises. They exert an immediate emotional appeal. For an issue can be personalised in the way a political party cannot be. the issue becomes our' issue, and participation becomes a hedonistic consumer activity, and also an act of social display. There is thus a symbolic aspect to single issue membership, it becomes part of our identity, one of the ways in which we articulate our social self News manufacture A further reason for the pervasive extent of modern propagand 1* press's need for a condensed story with a hero and villain and ^ that the press is enlisted, though perhaps unintentionally, as d r m°ra' S0 a propaganda battle. This demand for a story is inherent in the organ^"* *° and culture of the press itself, and derives from both the imperative'5311011 sity of news 'production' and humanity's deep-seated need for myths*? S~ give structure and meaning to the fluid, amorphous events of hfe. The lo /•x/'/<»»'".'//,r"'""'"'"/" Si nf a t<)«>dernIsto^ aganda is a creative process thai Incuses nn tK« r since prop and symbol. " the confectionery of image Explaining propaganda: insights from the social sciences n nrnnauanda could sensibly ignore the insights generated by the No work on prop* remains ■ condensed and random summation, social science- wn it • f possibilities for the analysts of the and is speculative, it docss jw ^ ^ Qf the prindpal ways m whlch ^^^^ can offer explanatory depth, since propaganda la j,, a social phenomenon experienced In social contort* i m phenomenon, 'ending credibility to the incredible "-rational i Kplanatlon In psychology Hcluivioieism (see O'Shaughnasy 1 y r«CtC€S that condi- the to con-of inces- —---- i ■ • win uvai kji iiitta- sanl repetition may contribute to propagandas conditioning effects Napoleon and Hitler used pseudo-classical symbols, but there are also commercial symbols such as the Marlboro cowboy, and such svmbols may be said to evoke, on occasion, a conditioned response. For the notion of conditioning Is surely plausible in certain circumstances where the weight of previous association is strong, symbols of ethnic and national stereotypes such as. for example, the symbol of John Bull and the range of associations attributed to him. Classical conditioning also has a place in rhetoric, where the loaded rhetorical term creates compelling associations, as when we refer to Dickensian conditions. Rachmanite landlords and so on. Operant conditioning. Operant conditioning represents a more liberal idea of conditioning. The core notion is that all living organisms are spontaneously enacting behaviour and whenever this action is reinforced it Increases the possibility of recurrence; unless the response is reinforced it faces extinction. Operant conditioning implicitly assumes that people behave not so much out of any conscious deliberation or anticipated outcomes but because of the consequences that have followed similar behaviour in the past. Operant conditioning is more useful than classical conditioning as an explanation of the working of propaganda. Advertising often seeks reinforcement by showing social approval of use of the product such as a Particular make of car. and the social disapproval of non-use such as a brand of deodorant, and similarly with propaganda. Propaganda films chronicle how desired behaviours (loyalty, heroism, etc.) are rewarded and undesired ones punished, they feature idealised behaviour patterns engaged in by ideal Individuals and denigrate others. The function of propaganda is often to remind - of past pleasures, and also of old resentments - and thereby to reinvigorate. The rites of Protestant and Catholic in Northern Ireland, their songs, myths and the marches, are a ritual of reinforcement as they seek to implant sectarian sentiment in each successor generation. Adolf Hitler . > have subscribed to an entirely behaviouristic theory of propaganda. einsii 56 Ih-lhiinu what ,„„/ „.„ Social psychology (see Webber 1992) SodalcognitionsOj the self: self-awareness. When sell awareness e, tf.^ we are less likely to act in accord with our values. I he si;atc ol reducfj awareness is known as dcindividuation. which can be created by ittnn, conditions, including immersion in a group, physical or so< ,al anonyn or by arousing and distracting conditions. These are I he , ond.hor.s whl.fi we are less likely to be Influenced by personal Integl Ity.Thll Immersion ir,, group can be achieved when the propagandist has organisations at hisd,s. posal such as the Young Pioneers in Soviet Russia lor even the immensely successful Young Conservatives in 1950s Britain). All these conditions of group emotion, physical and social anonymity and distracting conditions were present at the Nuremberg rallies. Jacques Lllul stressed how critical for propaganda was enrolment in this type of proselytising organisation: propaganda needs a membership list. The success of some types of propaganda such as telcvangelism stems from precisely this sense ol the presence of the crowd. People commit acts after joining organisations such as the Irish Republican Army which they would never contemplate as individuals. The German Nazis in particular focused on the group, and there were membership organisations for everybody (including university professors, on whom punishing demands for physical fitness were indicted! Grunberger 1991). Self-motivation. Self-motivation covers the desire for self-consistency. A particularly strong appeal in propaganda is to sell iiistdu ation (to retain our social prerogatives and deny them to others, for example), and there is often much to justify Advertising, for example, often seeks to give permission to our extravagance and hedonism, so that post-purchase justification is its critical object. Ronald Reagan provided rhetorical justification for inequality and free-market fundamentalists told the United Slates that high unemployment was good for it. Another major self-mot.vat ion is the protection of self-esteem, which is also serviced by propaganda and this applies not only to individuals but also to nations. Propaganda is a distorting mirror. Reaganite propaganda flattered, and drew attention away from its civic profligacy. Even Churchillian rhetoric could on occasion ingratiate and assuage national complacency. Social information. We seem particularly hungry for Information about others and rely heavily on several forms of social Information Thu ttODS of traits, or generalisations about behaviour are u.o., S ,,u iii iiversiii even though the attachment of a trail as a descriptive label involves the error f ignoring exceptions. Propagandists deploy the Ureal header traits °* medium through which all Leader actions are to be interpreted- such asceticism (Adolf Hitler), virility (Mao), grandfather of i|,c ...„, t**s "•iiioji (oe Valera). matriarchy (Golda Meir). and other enunciated trails Include thi like the family man (Blair), the tough Leader (Thatcher), the patriot (Bueh £xp/rtin'"4 propaganda ^ junior), the war hero (Bush senior), the holy man (Gandhi), the intellectual (Sena Ceausescu). the virile (Mussolini half naked in the fields) Ordinary individuals are also chosen to represent the traits desired by the regime Traits are also seized on by antagonistic propagandas such as the sybaritic Churchill of Nazi propaganda or the physical disability of Goebbels. Stereotypes are generalisations, particularly the attribution to an individual of characteristics ascribed as universal to a group from which that individual is drawn. Stereotypes are much deprecated, but they are also inevitable, since they are heuristics or cognitive short cuts that simplify complexity and ambiguity and absolve us from the intellectual labour of forming balanced judgements. Thus it was an invariable principle for Alexander Korda that his films showed the English not with subtlety but in accordance with the preconceptions foreigners had of them, so that they frequently appear in his films as self-parodic. The manufacture of stereotypes is the definitive act of the propagandist (socialist worker hero. Thatcherite entrepreneur, etc.). It is particularly important that political and national enemies are caricatured. Nazi propaganda relished the stereotype in its images of the English - the cruelty of British imperialism, the effeminacy of the ruling class (Soldiers of To-Morrowy. they enjoyed crude satires of what they called the English plutocracy, which they inevitably presented as in league with the Jews. In the film The Rothschilds a Star of David is superimposed on a map of England. The English loved to depict the Germans as automata: one British propaganda film forwarded/reversed footage of goose-stepping storm troopers to the tune of The Lambeth Walk'. Psychoanalytical psychology (see O'Shaughnessy 1992) The focus here is on explaining the covert and non-conscious aspects of psychology, and particularly neurosis. The claim is that unconscious motivations are causal mechanisms. The id. ego and super-ego become unbalanced and repression takes place, and neurosis is an attempt lo reconcile them. Stability is attained via better understanding. The attraction of psychoanalytical theory over behaviourism lies in the insights into the complexity of motivation that it claims to offer. Psychoanalysts would have a field day when it came to propaganda. They would be especially fascinated by the propaganda creation of a synthetic family, and the father figure has in particular been the Ullmoiifot totalitarianism - the ostensible avuncularity projected by Stalin with his pipe, and so forth. Such an all-powerful patriarch is projected as a reassunng figure to the people in times of trouble and anxiety. The patriarch enunciates a fatherhood role celebrated by his propaganda, and a necessary part of this role is that the people feel and act as children. The dictator cares for the minute details of their life in a stern but loving way. as a patriarch '•"mi "9^ would: thus, for example. Adoll Hitler gave workers killed l„ a„ ,(. during the building of tiM Win metro a state funeral (f ,ror.berKl'r \S stressing thereby both the enhanced status of the worker under also his own role as a cat lug lather figure. It is not merely Um- «Ii« i;it()r^' - ides the paternity, lot father surrogates can also be retrieved? history and perforin the paternalistic role from beyond their graves.^ dims did this very frequently with Führer surrogates such as BismarckatJ Frederick the Great. Another way, of course, in which totalitarian propil ganda expressed the patriarchal order was in the many instances whert dictators were Aimed or photographed with children. The propaganda creation of the political family' extends beyond building up of father liguiev Sometimes there are also son figures, and this is particularly popular with revolutionaries - Castro and (iuevara. for exam pie. or perhaps the role given to BtJdur von Schirach as leader of the Hitler Youth, or indeed in some senses (he relation between Ixmin and Stahnas propaganda protected it (although Stalin implicitly conceptualised the relationship as Messiah Apostle* the locus of propaganda remains to enunciate elements of paternity: the idea is of an all-knowing authority under whose benevolent gaze people regress to childhood and the pain of decision making is taken from them. Of course, there are mother figures as well. Propaganda has often conceived of the nation state itself as mother, as fertile provider. Indeed, in war propaganda women often seem to assume the roles of mother to their menfolk rather than the role of lover and wife. Then again, war films made with propaganda intent often seem to create groups of Individuals, typically an army unit, who are socially involved with each other but replicate again family roles in a kind of alternative military domesticity. Thus there is the mother role, the baby role. etc. The army Is the larger family. Such films even mirror (he family life cycle as the babies" grow up and rebel and eventually lake over the leadership of the family. In IIS Ulms In particular, such groups ol soldiers have often represented different ethnicities and national subgroups, implicitly giving the idea of the nation as family. Another variant of the family idea which suffuses propaganda Is to depiet subject or 'inferior' peoples as children, the colonial ran- ihen assumes the Pataer,na,u0,C• AS l'hiUir0U' SU^*tl.peoP,es are innocent and enthusiastic and babble in a slrange way. but have a need for discipline and tutelage These traits are all visible, for example, in a film like Sanders of the River '1935) with Paul Robeson, though Alexander Korda. as former lllm commissar in the short-lived communist government of Mela Kuu In II (Kulik 1990). would probably have denied he was making propuKundn'for British imperialism. Others would be less sure. A psychoanalyst would be particularly intrigued by llu- sulinn-e of N • uality in propaganda, both as an inducement but more partieularK ^gg^L ***** p-oplcs and races are seen as a sexual m~. - - - '•:''•! f i at c t hi' purity of tin1 d< >m i r •;; ■ • . . . " ' W^ZTmP ° ^ COnStrucUon ^ a subject peo^e thai ?he?£ " ':' Promiscuous- *™ Propaganda - , ....... the terrible dangers of racial contamination: Prance, for examnL — ---------—■ '»>!«.. M7i example .rttji Ms African soldiers, was depicted as the racial poisoner of EurrL —'- 1978» ft Is not merely the sexual attractiveness of enemies we must be warned santaaL It has often been integral to the social construction of the enemy that he It seen as a sexual violator too. and the theme of sexual violation. BO atrocity propaganda, is particularly strong. The enemy is and sometimes explicitly a rapist (for example the 1918 Hotty- '" r."iwr lieust of Berlin) War and SB I.....Kg/allied and da of World War 1. (ierman atrocities were often depicted as against women, while the reaction of British soldiers to the of Nurse Ixlilh Cavell surfaced the same kind of anger 'see Chap-ter 4 The enemy as sexual violator does indeed seem the common cur-rency of afl 1tn propaganda, for example the Italian fascist poster of a Mack. - - d flghl. that Is. The World War I song We've watched you playing CTfcfcet I i don't want to lose you. but we think you ought to go" is an Imaar e/ >,v d many limes in propaganda posters and productions with slo-«rne,Mdl a* Women Of Britain say Go' or Is your best boy in khaki? Thus ........... m, i he definition of malenes* not to be ■ otter ■ Um ease Z be a S«*V......• „nasrulated. ('What did you do ,n the war. Daddy, , %mm*mt». thai for the British such modes of persuas.on were of cr.i, ......,„ .ance because conscription was not Introduced untihte . .i,, ,,„,, War.Appeals In recruitment propaganda ^retotraoV 2« , ,1 M,a.eness. IV genders are alloca^ .........M„ bravely, the women to look after the home here is sug ' ' o/hni ,ko the virginity <)f the motherland itself-tr*viit 'A ih« if /obrnily, hul also me vufci»»j 60 1 hll"l"H whui the two are equated. Women me ah.» m. mim» abstract Co ^ as liberty (Madeleine). ,ncew«t^ There is also an overt erotic sir alum m Ihr muigeol propaganda lions, for example, connect wilhi.lea.nl mil liberation' - theearl l'J of the Bolshevik Revolution 01 I he evenln ul ľm h In l968.RevohjS^ often accompanied by proclamalions.il Im- love and a sense that thejwj been taken off all repressions'. Nol .u.lv n ruling < lass but an inter-moral order is overthrown and in I lie pn lod before new authority iSe^ lished or bourgeois revenge lakes pla.. 11... r |N ., Ilowering of the avant garde and the bohemian. Sexual appeals nie nl course the thing in Con sumer advertising, but they are cle-aily BfHtHl Ifl every form of pr0pa. ganda. The Nazis, for instance, used (lei many s Marilyn Monroe. Christina Soderbaum. extensively in their films ľinpiigmida lilms often succeedbj foregrounding the story of attractive women ami their romantic relations with men - the propaganda message Is .<•. reled in the background and in the story line. Indeed, it is a tribute to the potential of propaganda and.at its best, its resonance as an art form, thai Cotablanca, probably the most famous film ever made, is also a supreme example of the propaganda genre (though it is seldom analysed as such). Dictators themselves may be framed In an overtly sexual style, from the circulation of rumours as to their alleged potency to Mussolini parading bare-chested to his people, something which shocked the more bourgeois Adolf Hitler as vulgar. Eroticism can be a itrong element in propaganda. The Breughel-like peasants and earth -mother women who clumsily adorn Nazi art are hardly likely to tickle the leniUOUl fancy, but Nazi iconography also abounds with images of naked women and athletic nudes. Indeed, the male body as a power symbol (physical and temporal) features prominently in Nazi art and propagando .is in the denim and cosmetics advertising of later generations: Haagen Dazi and Calvin Klein today would understand those associations There Is an obvious equation between the dominance of the master race end sexual virility. But there is also an overtly pornographic element In propaganda, from the ravings of Julius Streichers Der Stunner to the hind talee of Rasputin and the Czarina's court printed and circulated alter the April 1917 revolution (Orlando Figes 1997). Another characteristic of propaganda which could be of interest to psychoanalysts is its obsession with regaining the purity of some ideal, unsullied by the world. Totalitarianism itself could be represented as the wish for regression to some womb-like state of succour. Propaganda constantly assures us that a perfect world is just around the corner, from the myriad Utopias of the totalitarian to the sanitised world of material satiety projected by the advertising industry. jPxphini'iii 61 Explanation in sociology | see OShaughnessy 1992) Social anthropology Astute propagandists are best advised to make ■ m conceptual universe rather than seek to undermine a,uuhers comforting set of private truths. Today thi mucuv propaganda programme which is delicient in any of these even though the Individual propaganda text may be. Great rhetoric never retires. To work effectively rhetoric moat resonate with attitudes and feelings within the target (Tony Schwartz h»~ \\ vireat rhetoric is substantially a co-production between sender and receiver Rhetoric is a cheap way of reaching the target, since it is relayed b\ the press. In this chapter we argue that the power of rhetoric resides principally in the power of metaphor. But we will also discuss the arrival of new rhetorical forms such as spin, and we discuss in particular the rhetorical IS presidency of Ronald Reagan Symbols are another component in this trinity. Ultimately we argue that a symbol can be defined as condensed meaning and as such is an economical form of propaganda, for symbols are universally understood in ways that language can never be: a symbol eludes precise scrutiny and can be read' in many ways, endowed with multiple meanings Old symbols can also be re-used, for symbols have inherent plasticity The power of myth is the power of narrative. Propaganda rejects intellectual challenge, and it seeks refuge in the structures of nwths Old myths can be re-created, but new myths can also be invented - that is to say. myth cntrepreneurship. Myths are a culture's self explanation, and thev are a key part of propaganda (stereotype, for example, is a kind of myth). Rhetoric and propaganda Seldom does mere logic alone frame our perceptions; it is emotion thalfe the pathway to conviction. Rhetoric is emotional persuasion and its core is therefore emotion. Rhetoric is a subset of propa^nda. but . is onfu ed with it. and the two words carrv many of *e same cor*** probes, for rhetoric is also sometimes a term of abuse, and i m refer to anv argument we disagree w.th. Along with symbohsm ^ mvths rhetoric performs a key role in propaganda and the three are inlerd twined rhetoric may be strewn with symbolic appeab that make reference to myths. The trinity of rhetoric-symbolism-myths is the conceptual anatomy of all propaganda. Thus the relationship of rhetoric to propaganda is tricky to nuance, since an intelligent case could also be made for the notion that aO rhetoric is also propaganda. Much depends on how precisely we define rhetoric and the conceptual domain that they both share, especial!;, f ':/pand the idea of rhetoric to embrace the visual and physical as wefl as the verbal. Rhetoric was once the basis of European education At Eton College, for example, one of the great events of the schoc - -.till Speeches', where students dress up to declaim the great perorations of the past (King George III being apparently moved to tears by a recitative of the Earl of Strafford's speech on the scaffold. Fickle is the love of princes'). Rhetoric today is as important as ever, and its prime function, to pinpoint. illuminate and showcase the nub of the issue, is unchanged. But the forms axe different. For example, the key focus of rhetoric UxJay i% the soundbite, its form has become condensed and the art of rhet/jric now is one of compression. Rhetoric, verbal and indeed visual, has been a critical part of the propagandist's armoury since the beginning of recorded history In Athens the participation of all adult male citizens in the av*mbfc and judicial process made eloquence highly desirable, and rhetorical \,m< hen - sophists -could teach you. write speeches, and so forth. IU, ,n „, verbal persuasion was the core of sophists training, it was central to I h> i<-/al - vstem and in the drama of Greek tragic theatre. Persuasion ^to"or e were the symbol of high culture (as in the Or^tWal J£r,l- r i oration 'celebrated Athenian willingness to • u , " fUn6ral discussion' (Emlyn-Jones 1991). The w k j * been feared. The theme of rhetoric itscTpi • Z'" "' haS ^ ^Ule^tostudyand practice uounn;^; 1^! Greeks were fascinated by and feared the now.-, , t i C'The which delights and persuades a large crowd b:,,;, ' * but not spoken with truth'(Emlyn Jones 1^ j, ,,„, , " Wlih ski11 gias depicts Helen as helpless under verbal per,,/;, ,.,„', 7"m«"" Gor- drug: this was the earliest attempt at the.......^iK? chology of verbal persuasion . "ie psy- /In rwmlliil ninilu 67 Rhetor* had Its CI Hi. s from the earliest times; for the ancients there was an to* pendent truth, and rhetoric was seen as powerful and dangerous Many at il,. < .«11 ...... argumenti are repeated today, with their proponents perhaps u-Moni aware ..I their ancient pedigree, that the rhetorical privileging u\ b, h. I .....I reeling over fact finds earlier echoes. The art of persuasion b& amecontn rvei flal, il was recognised that eloquence was not invariably an illumm.Mi of the truth: Aristophanes in The Clouds depicts the sophists as COW erned 'to te« h pupils the manipulation of situations by means of ille-;.ii„r,.i. verbal perfuaalon' (Pmlyn-Jones 199D.Thucydides employed pairs of ■■[*•'•< he. lo enable jindiences to choose either interpretation, and his Cleon ' " ' '"'ihly of being the victim of eloquence. Thus, according to Enilyu Jon*-.. Athenian speech represented a persuasive force independent of the if"1'' 1 'I".>si medical force which acts irresistibly on the psyche. Mythot whi< h means word, also means argument; peithmei means lam persuaded' bul alto I obey', denies means marvellous and persuasive speaker. I hill Pel.' I' kind ol persuasion lived on his lips. He cast a spell on us. He wa-, the only 01 .'lor who left his sting behind in his audience.' Rhetorli wa\ pseudo-reason, it invented reasons for the sentimental l.iii' y to •>< In' v. ,c|| justification. Rhetoric was seen as the employment of the symbols Ol rationality to bypass the scrutiny of reason. Plato attacked oraloi foi possessing beliefs rather than knowledge, a criticism that rings true "I Memberi of Parliament today: he thought that truth had a persuasive powei 11 respective of exposition. As regards late fifth-century Athens, 'nevei again were the psychological and epistemological premises upon wh« 1.1" i u.r.i.111 techniques are based so thoroughly questioned' (Emlyn-(ones I 99 11 Another reason for the attack on rhetoric was that it had I).-, omc partially detached from the search for objectivity and had degenerated Into men advocacy. Hence Plato differentiated strongly between philosophical thought and its specious counterpart, rhetoric. Plato disdained il.. ,,dl..ie,| claims made by Gorgias and the sophists for rhetoric, seeing il a-, I lie ,ir I form of the fawning manipulator. Certainly it could not be .. braru h Ol knowledge, making no distinction between truth and false-food, analysing no received wisdom nor testing some assertion. Persuasion WU •imply,. means and an end with no higher goal. When , 9n ij baaed on the use of questioning, rhetoric ceases to be a form ol reasoning, All reasoning implies questions to be addressed, not '-"Iv.d. ,.i I. ,,j u„ y are answered. Logic works only with answers and their link-, whil. , i,,.,,,, |, focuses on the relation between questions and answers. For AriMoile. ,„, .amslon is in large measure rhetorical, and he saw rhetoric- a*. •.yiiiln-.hiiiK emotion and reason, since both were relevant. For him. ■hnui opinion idoxa), nol the- knowledge ol which w,c,nL "ZZX SU persuasion compnsec. ,,.........,,^ Mil the persuader ,,,, „ -credibility (reputation, technical experttoe, trusrworthtna,), incl ' !nrHu- sjns of credibiiiiy such as Intelligence ,„ argument choiCeo, lanauaBe, force, eye contact etc I Seans the rational content of the message and Its appeal. ; Shos is the emotions and appeals based on them. lh, daims of the postmodernists would appear to be the lineal descendant Of such approaches, as in Poucaulfs 11975) claim thai any distinction between rhetoric and logic is false, since all communication 19 rhetorical. rhose educated up to and even beyond the nineteenth century were Often rigorously schooled In classical precepts of rhetoric. I he content of their ideas could never be entirely separated from their rhetorical methods. For example, the impact of the theories of Marx and Freud is partly a consequence of their education in persuasion. Freud was an able orator, though occasions of Freudian oratory were rare. Freud's background and education provided a thorough grounding in classical literature - including schooling in Quintilian and Cicero: unlike Marx. Freud left no youthful translation of Aristotle's Rhetoric as a testament to his interest tn rhetoric. Nevertheless there is good reason to believe that Freud was familiar with the classical notion of rhetoric that Aristotle defined as the study of the means of persuasion in any subject' (Patterson 1 S9bl. Freud was educated in rhetoric in his German and Latin classes: the emphasis \\ as on rhetorical declamation. The best students - including Freud - were selected to perform before parents and the school. Freud reciting the speech of Brutus (Patterson 19961 W hy rhetoric? I. has been claimed that today rhetoric- is undergoing a revival. As the range ofchofces and opportunities, in products, politics, leisure and entertain-mem. expands for the individual, communication becomes much more crmca. m society with the emergence of a persuasion' culture AnoTe factor ,s the dechne in the authority of Authority, of churches and govern' ^Institutions, and the movement from inherited cultural practice! - w ..ally tied to rigid class systems - ,„ individualistic iLice from a supermarket of stylistic and behavioural alternatives. For Meyer (I :^:e This is not to deny th^ niii \iwM} of liberal/left excess, merely mat the left's opponents' surr „ fivntial trinity 75 v InHVMMg a label and getting liberals to use it was •, tri„mnK r lh« s.mu- ival.tv but.embody divergent judgements .bout tha rea, ' •vvhl„, prostitute . harlot and 'courtesan' reference the same aetivity but |N " 'l d5!M? B^^15*Um' heroin and morphine are refinements of tbfl same drug but their cultural signification is entirely different Words get us to see something in a new light. Or they may be combined inll, a metaphor which catches on. even if there is little logic behind the uanstereiue. The idea of a trickle-down effect' became so popular because it was such an excellent riposte to socialist confiscation, not because it was I particularly true description of economic reality. Another (shopworn) example of the power of labels lies in the rhetorical terms 'terrorist' and ■freedom tighter' and guerrilla', since they illustrate the extent to which words describing the same reality can contain contrary judgements. Words thus do duty as sensitising concepts, such that if we have no word for something we are often actually blind to the existence of the phenomenon. An important function of rhetoric today is the seeking to replace the old culture of rhetorical denigration with a new one of rhetorical uplift: the spasDCS and cripples of yesteryear, along with the mendicant plastic figurines that dramatised their claimed enfeeblement. are banished to rhetorical Siberia. New terms emerge in their place, so that backward' children become special needs', with the hope that we will see them as such in a new way And terms may be deliberately chosen to limit our vision, language systems are a way of seeing but also of not seeing, and in modern warfare the importance of persuasion has given rise to a miasma of pseudo-technicalia (collateral damage', 'target-rich environment) to veil the reality of what is being done: so different from the reply allegedly given in World War II by Air Marshal Harris to a policeman enquiring about the nature of his profession (killing people'). We have become masters of duplicitous rhetoric' -or hypocrisy. Rhetorical tactics1 One rhetorical device traditionally employed has been the vox populi method, to find a particularly striking phrase or dramatic moment to express what all are thinking. Thus Leo Amerys cry in the House of Commons to Arthur Greenwood, in 1939 'Speak for England. Arthur', achieved this criterion ol • These well known sayings and aphorisms of the eminent can be gleaned from their numerous biographies and other historical worts as well as from such ^^^"f^^ Dicnonary of Literary Quotations (ed. Peter Kemp). The Oxford Dictionary Partington.. The Oxford Dictionary of Twentieth Century Quotations (ed. Ehzaheth Knowles,. The •Bloomsbury) Biographical Dictionary of Quotations led. John Dalntlin). nuMUoniblli. v I n**U i^vinrned: a silent, angry witness, l.fi,, llv, ,.|(^ devices iMin be OS* *.....fi up by Alexander Pope: What <>lt waMl..,,,.^ bill ui ii ■.<> w < II > r\cf ' ''■ Greal phn.......king nade possible by the great historical moment. H Uses lo thai liltlurlfItv a b exalted language. At such momenis Koom-v,,, uiwdih, di I ICI - I pel ballon: 'We have nothing to fear but fear'. K,n deivmii wtili.l.iiUiy', A day that shall live in infamy'. Others chose satire, tiswliln I.hi.i.iII in 'brings statement that Britain was Kfksja i nil fa n Ihttl I I man i i old strangle by the neck. 'Some chicken, some no k \.....ogy Ii inother Important device in rhetorical propaganda, as when toi i ki.....ill I loydl -oree told his audience that an English duke cost .is ion. h ut a ii. •/ I,,, idnfl ; • I satisfying piece of class Invective. Sonwiiin. rhatork I Ave* repositioning some literary or classical OjUOtl llWUhCiWnberi • ■■■ Munich quoting Henri//V Part K'Outof this nettld dingaj WS oh« i thai flower safety) or Mao letting a hundred Boweri blossom snd S hui dred schools of thought contend'. Sometimes rhetorical rlln i |i gained 1 . Ighlly perverting a quotation, as with Margaret ih..i.l... n,< not tor turning". Brutality is of course fre-v|nciiil\ .i. 11iii.i* i< m■ • i' -,; rhetoric - the brilliant insult, as James Maxton MPtoPrlmi Mmr 1.1 l'.i»fi . fy,nald (Sit down. man. You're a bloody trageib i ... < linn lull to the %ame -.ictim i When I was a child . . . have waited lili\ v-.i • ..... '. Wonder sitting on the Treasury bench > .......1 iIjHom' ha- . /real merit, of course, of being recyclable: PMC* With honOUf •/,..• fir-.i u*ed by Disraeli at the Congress of Berlin, tluwr griiiliiiiii-fl via'-vill< .berlain to Richard Nixon 'One nation' is unolhei |.lii..-i. .,| I Harnett's which ended on many lips, included Nixon's. imagOl v ii hoOSlng Of the most vivid and appropriate image is crit-ual tO nil Mi. i.ml ..I \,> r >. <,>, 'Jr.. Maynard Keynes's description of D*vM Unv»l.....»i" ' I hr ''/inordinary figure of our time, this siren, this goal i....I.,i Imnl ih|| hall human ....tor to our age from the hag-ridden miflc ind Ml hauled wx*l>. Of < efek antiquity') is memorable for the associations ii glvej U) thl dominant feature of his protagonist's personality, his Welsh oloquom I 11 ytU < OfmeCtl it with an ancient and darkly brooding aiorid Imagoicinbt pai kmau The workers have nothing to low but then chains 11„ y l„.v. „ w,„|,j ,„ ...uu Workers of the world, unite', or banal, as Mao'l GrOII Liep forward (with la 20 million dead), derisive (Lenin's garbage I.in ol lil-.iory , 01 ooler 1 f'asmarck's 'iron and blood'), liven an essentinllv luimil Umtu, lil< Vrnn- Minister Harold Ivtacmllhm's 'wind ol , hange'. inn mium'Iiow > ah h on a. for example with Labourite Aiieurln Bevan's nuked Inlo lb»- 'onf'-rence chamber'. Frequently In political v ommunli iillou lie ini.ij" ,' hosan are perhaps necessarily those of rmbal tlcincnl 111111 < In ilh- 1 Ii* lor i' 7.1 .aiurated with aggressive Imagery, and L>r- leadei Hugh iwtltxkells famous Tight and light and fight again1 JgBlnii unilateral disarmament) shows liberals arc hardly Unmunlied ,,sl such linages Sticrttk lal tmagv»1 \ is another alternative - All I havt r v«»n Is Mood i«'il sweat ami tears'etc. l|ui h greel • hetOI H ll In HM I I simple Idea simply expressed but elevated l. foe grendeui ol Its context (hut martyrdom Is a particularly frequent Kiting for slu n ,m,,,uu 1%S m1' ,s Perhaps the primary context and here xiimplc> aic legion whcihei General retains lis ne passeront pas' al . ,,,, 01 I ail Halfs l4,IS Without backs ti> a wall, and believing In the ,l( ,• ol * unse we w ill light on to the end", the rhetoric of stubborn ii, sii I'dw aid Cav> s plangent I1'I-I ' I he lamps are going out all over . „ ('.real moments in the life ol a democracy can propel even the more mediocre lot isc lo I he iVt tislon iluis an otherwise dull Speaker of the House ommonfl lo Ihe captain of King Charles's guard: 1 have neither eyes to v nor hps to speak cvvpt as this House gives me leave.' And Jawaharlal \, hrual Indian iudc|vndciwv \i the sii oka ol the midnight hour, while the J,,rid sleeps India w ill awake to life and freedom.' Great events are remetn ....,( b) language unramai kablc .»s language but exalted by the occasion it articulated I hUl Nut SS Bdtth Cavil on the eve of her execution in 191 S: I realise that patriotism Is nol enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone lite p»mri ol rhetoric is hence often contextual, it might bana| Q| , |dk uloua In mother setting: l am just going outside and may be iWtt I.m some lime ,s Mmplc. vet the words of Captain Oates las he left the tenl foi i at tain death m the nope thai his colleagues on Scott's polar a pediUon (ould llvrt Inspired a generation of Englishmen. Rhetoric creates meaning Rhetorical devices Induce the reader to apply particular interpretative bematS to the icvt the grain of the rhetoric will invite the reader to adopt aceriam si.im q md altitude from which the world looks different from how n did before, Language is nol ineieb the \ chicle for articulating our thoughts, it does •Ml create moaning, an active agent for the creation of perception. II language was meivh a vehicle for communication, there would be less " i In ll. bin m the words ol Culberson and Henderson (1992). lan->■■■>;•' d,,e- inot e than meivh express reality; il actively structuresexparl ence . . . language and linguistic devices structure how we think about "V M language i> ismcr. then the control of language is the key lo that ' I bus ihe h\|vthosis holds thai language does not reflect reality but rather cronies it uocvixtmg 10the structures and limits permitted by the ' ol a guon » ullure touaVea(1983) claimed that 'the rejection ol 7b ".....i llur;l| hero can produce a re)* tlon .,1 thi i i the lndian-k.ller U i Names and words are no, neutr&| J in Vietnam as nation. ^ ^ ^ gome Impkcli i,!,,? tools: they may con an * and (wilhin limits, the more ^> and their use help. • potcnlial,y the bias Introdia ed resonant the word i lu grean i ________8_..i...»....... sonani. nu <.....^ , The current stock ol words In common circulation tnlluences ,IU| {) ing Signilican.lv. and when words cease to circulate, people may ,,,,„ J think less .n certain Ways (though what is cause here and what ll HI,,,,. uncles 11 For example, when Dickens was writing, the English language pa sessed a word enterpriser (see Little Dorril) which was the equivalent of ,h(. French enlrepreneu, (an earlier generation had used the word 'projector1. bu, that was more with connotations of speculation). In the 1970s and ait(r when a newly minted image of the risk-taking businessman re-entered pop ular currency, the language had to turn to the French for a single word to express that concept, since the English equivalent had atrophied: the social reality it signified had again come to be esteemed. For Foulkes í 198 i) even the dictionary may function as propaganda - it may be part of a dominant group's attempt to control recorded knowledge and prescribe linguistic behaviour'; he is concerned that language in its social context reflects and transmits Ideology without seeming to do so'. He adds that: an obvious example is the way in which modern English is pervaded by the buried metaphon of capitalism: we exploit opportunities, prolit Írom experiences, cush in on situations once we have assessed the debit and credit side: we sell good ideas and refuse to buy the opinions of those with whom we disagree: pop singers and |>olllicians may become hot properties once they have been taught to capitalise on their talents. Power Language is ol COUISC .i weapon of thought control, the great theme of George Orwell's Nineteen eighty-four. Nor were his fears without foundation. One of the disturbing curiosities of the Third Reich, which Grunberger (1991) described and Kletnperer (1998) reports in his Diaries, is how ways of looking at reality as embodied in particular words and phrases became general currency. The Reich propagated a linguistic style which condensed elements of Its world, thus making formal persuasion less necessary: I new rhetoric of the everyday permeated the Nazi vocabulary and even that of the Nazis' opponents. Hitler himself was a convinced believer in the raw power of the spoken word over literary exposition, criticising academic emphasis on the written word: 'the power which has always started the greatest religious and political avalanches In history rolling has from time immemorial been the magfe of :-■ ' ' • li(,lshcvik literature.............i „.,,„„, ' !,"r'">'- heaven which Ihousandi of Bgltaton I ■ ■ the service of an idea, talked int., people' (Blfltn H*SU«e* »9MW*froopto identify with us. it isessenllal lhal we speak lo6Ěm'm+ĚĚt :■'.■;,>■■ Rhetoric, as has been already suggi .1« .1 ■ •. •' ' '• ' •' • cultural paradigms that an ilhtTtd With thi :. '--'•'* " .mique was to appropriale I he vocabulary ol gorítĚtmmá-Wxaof propagandist -draw from the Cultural ItOCk hank í - • - bxms and images: thus Hitler 'concocted 111 Itlfldil c.< ' irres familiar to his German audienci (Blalf) 198* I mákom aŠprx\ m particular. Burke (Blain 19KK) argued that '.''.">■ rm represented a politic ;il perverilOIl "I ih< ■ ' -ol gi)od against evil rhetoric owes much to the recognition that '': information processors, embody ELxsd and oral perspectives, so that the skills ol persuasion imerit is to be achieved. Certainly it cannot be Successful persuasive advocacy thus occurs outside it. and the 'correct' perceptions follow ■ '■ fxerts its own tyranny, il is a set of values to :al adherence, so that our decisions must tdl -.' 1 pective. The consequence is that advix all ,are r cause in line with the audience's existing by rhetoric; sometimes by lillle else, and Ihc ■' ■ . y as brought with it a new respectability lor thestndyci rfattorte i m work of Chaim Perclman (19H21 and Brian ^UTiiXHt^Omtlkvrr^.r.r in changing perspectives is gelling our pari! -' - . - (iiliural mainstream, i.e. I he Ideological is I not conclusively claimed thai the moil ait* ttva co-productions. In this view in argument If all w 4 die audience Is led to draw the conclusion I'm iisell. a «**r persuasive when it is a co-production iind the met +recth with the freedom left lo the addressed mdi vkUi .1 Ihose thai seem to be imposed seldom .-onvl.uv. urs when ibo addressee is free... ,v„v. II I >„s could ^ v stronger wiicn ««. ..-------- -:inmw characteristic of sophisticated forms of propaganda^"^i atescftcvtivclv between autonomy and didacticism, and meaning ls not imposed All this is true, of course, if the mullence is "ajielaV, tifj!^ mg the right conclusions: the problem is that (ho propaganda \alue sometimes be lost in layers of subtlety, such as the Ion bleedlri8 ^ posm untie 1997 British general election campaign (Its meaning dcl> understood.) Vhe co-production of the argument is helped b\ the wry ambival of language uself. The problcmatologic.il \ ion assumes language's :ial and unequivocally so. whereas in practice language is ambigu [he extent that most terms can receive multiple meanings according It* context (Meyer 1994). Ambiguity is often deliberate and you extras your o\\ n understandings: was Tony Blair's tough on crime and toueh on the causes of crime' actually a phrase without .. meaning, and similarly with his education, education, education'.- Simply asking what thev mean :\:vses iheir vacuity. Vhe mechanism of rhetoric Rhetorical tropes (figures of style, analogies, metaphors) are necessary for am significant act of persuasion. The importance of rhetoric is that it persuades because it gives vivid definition - to lluid situations, to what would . inerwise be vague or abstract, since on so many matters individual opinion i> tentative or confused. Rhetoric provides something for thought to get hold of. something concrete, an image, a scrap of language or feeling Mason 19S9). The power of rhetoric in a democracy lies, essentially, in the hands of others: for rhetoric is an unguided missile whose creators have no necessary control of how it is conscripted and duplicated. The press and media are of course supreme among these powerful others, and the primary target for modern oratory, hopefully circulating and amplifying the rhetorical imagery we have persuaded them to project for our selfish ends. To achieve this degree of circulation and memorability, the rhetoric might be a simple and easily remembered phrase such as Cicero's Delenda est Carthagine.' Great rhetoric - or at least, that which seeks duplication - resides laimanly in the choice of an especially appropriate image. The idea of resonance' (Schwartz 1973) is particularly apposite here, for good rhetoric fizzes, it smoulders in the mind', since often such imagery is open-ended and its plasticity invites curiosity and review: we turn it over in our minds, perhaps many times. Words are never neutral. They are assiviation-rich. There is. for example, no such thing as choosing a brand name that has no association. 79 » y .• ... 01 written discourse carrier a tone as we as a content and s . ,nl ivrsuasivc power can be as much a function ol tone ax of ......- OShaughnessy and OShaughnexN : . ; remark the . . «ouls conjures up a fresh perspective but the choice of words may , v. v .VMgntxl to give a certain tone. say. of prole- . -alism by the use of LaOR or MmWMfc jargon as occurs in advertisinc medicines to establish cr*AM»* I hcv add: . vonie words that are essentia I Iv v. •...-.> ^ amvuxl-. -%mmmd\ 'crushed', distraught', exasperated', fearful', hurt', pressured'. ... ined. worried' and so ,,n - —.....•-:< th.it have i-\ ;\wai\v connotations like 'progress', new vw.r :\ cw-calorie" . v. ami some words with negative connotation like oU-fashk»ed'. artifi-.. .c.vdients'. non-user friendly', gas guzzJer' and » on. Even ostensibly v es> \\ ords have some kind of meaning: they may lack a concrete refer-. vr but still cml\\l\ a sense-meaning. Invented literary words and names, such *> IV*:'. S\\ irt s Yahoos in Gulliver's Trawls, do precisely this. . .. v perhaps, to see rhetoric as - -rr.-^.r.:::^ :v p.casing the exploding image, the cascade : v. - .-.-.d r. :t< colloquial <-s.- :> >o. Rhetoric is the strategic and tactical use of language to per-. s s.-.ch far from language being la.. : ". • c::"ec::\e persua- - ae in deracinated language. According to Boardman 1197SL the .. i muddy issues under the preier.re I..* Bg Bafonnsdon. the ...... o: obscurity and deviation '! h> - -..:\a'?:c and .: c apparent content, associated with bureaucracy and jargon. . i vample is ol words 'so care:.;..;. ..-. *.r. :. r.r.> ir.cre by what lt.....say than by what they do sa) :.:: -" ■v a denial : . > c.; -.[ Nixon: none of these [liicga: BCflMOBaj tec In place with my jok^c approval or knowledge' - note the rhetorical activity of that word . lv\irdman also gives the example I NaejJI BB O.nVrvdia - he ac\ ice of dividing and defining What AaBBriBBBl waoM choose to aV>nothing when he could go to the heart of the trouble?' Rhetoric can be -ki. c: even bureaucratic', with ide^s Gr.j ;i.rs naturalised' as :r.'j»> .speech. I'.veryday speech is not H M—nira :r. .: arc buried the ::r: of the culture. There is no one formula for effective rhetoric - different practitioners hear mastered different aspects of the art. and different parts of it suit dif-rrr-.: evasions and different audiencei I> ::: :>.c.t.: r Hat audience some •Basra! public, or is it segmented in some important way - a professional ; se. perhaps? With general audiences such ai fa t example a jury, the •■■factiooery of image counts. A good image has an adhesive quality and cannot forget it. a dweller in our half-consciousness flitting in and out of • aaand s twilight zone. Framing and anchoring also matter - the way a Mil A(™n**l*rraj^ ,,...... ,„ decision Brimtd DM InUllellCt thi way it M interpr^ ,„,,,., ,i for example: voters are worrttd iboul versus voters haV* i„,worried about . We might properlv suggest that ihneexlsl ••Irrm-nlal appea|Sln r^ ,,,„, |Mvr been made bv ihetot wians llllCt the my teginningsofpuj? Mr||umenl lor example. loss (oi sltilus. . ulliiral totems, material , ,, ,„,(• «.l the most etUvtive iliemes in the hiMory of rhetonc. ........,1m ,1 in the ver> word consoi vuilve". and it is this that Hirschrnao , uplurei in Tht Rhetoric of Reaction (1991), focusing on three fallacy „ hi, h an h a rhetoric is seen loemhml) 1 Mi, perversity thesis: improvement' will make things worse, not better 2 The futility thesis: it will change nothing, hut will waste money \ ihe jeopardy thesis the COtt ll too high In relation to the benefits, or*t 11 I. ihe loss of what we already have I ll,, live rhetoric has also frequent Iv been grounded in a ppea Is to authority mnines American rhetoricians loi example, have often been at their IflOfl •He, live when referring lo the words ol the I ou riding Fathers. HanrfbXL |, | in a i and soon. Other cultures have sought rhetorical homage to other, in. .1 • |m-, uliar figures. Thus Ma.uui t h> ni has shown the influences both of iIm . I.i.i. . .md of Marx on Mrican |h>htu .iI discourse. Pcrsl-independence Alt ti mi politics saw the transition from a rhetoric with shades of Kipfing ,iii,I other luerary figures to thai of Lenin and other leftist thinkers. The .....limitation between the Kiplmgescjue and Irmnist traditions contmues. ----.. .«.■>■■ n->i udUIUOT. with unpl\ to coininiitm ate. as Austin points out i Musi hi I 'tH^y. there are statements that can be Hue or false I constatrve • I,,ii 11 in •• are also what he calls perfoi inaiives or performance utterances to ivhii h tht Question of truth or falsehood is irrelevant because they aredra- ......in gll When Disraeli called Gladstone a sophisticated rhetorician, ine- l„ i.iiiid with the sheer exuberance of his own verbosity' he was enacting a |,,i main e utterance, not asserting something that was true or false. Ii hoi , nurse important to rememlvr thai a lu m 11, „, o| rhetoric has been in l.ii Ultati iht killing of man by man people one has never rn"t and with U|M......ne has no personal quarrel. limtvrson and Henderson <1992> ,.....In, ml ii very timely content analvsis of war related stones in the New \„d liims lor the durauon of the first Gutf Wnr. giving special attention ,,, ,n, n i in id Indirect references to death and killing I he. analysis reseated lUttfmtJ*' trinity Ml ,,„„ mtJOl themes: 11) the existence of rhetohr-,1 a™. o, n •s.H.nMhhiv for war-related deaths and reassurance oh ,h',,K 'V mm:ma,: ^ rhetorics that prepared the Pu. Ior ttllin -bout he ac.ual death toll. Certain memorable phrases cameabou.as , result ol Urn war - collateral damage" famously being one: war was feci Ibed a, .he new pseudo-science argot of the military. And shaking ol OP*™1 U'UV 1 reedom and >ts secondary label. Shock and Awe. Kamplon Bnd Slaubci I 2003) argue that this sub-brand enables its users to svmboli-enlh ' .voncile I wo contradictory ideas. On the one hand, its theorists nse the term to plan massive uses of deadly force. On the other hand, its focus on the psychological effect of that force makes it possible to use the lerm while distancing audiences from direct contemplation of the human suffering which that force creates'. \ new rhetoric \ imi.iI i hetoric is the telegraphy of meaning via a significant background or foreground, I las visual rhetoric replaced verbal rhetoric? This is an age where 'visual literac] is often described as replacing the articulative skills Reagan's use v'l visual assertion accorded well with this new lingua franca ol popular culture For vlsuality is a universal language. In Eloquence In flic EkctronU U i 1988) Kathleen Hall Jamieson discusses how the nature of rhetoric has changed under the impact of television. In television eloquence, visual moments have replaced words: such visualities bypass the critical (acuity and we should not in fact look to television for much by way of explanation. Reagan, of course, gave a good example of this in his (1980) inaugural address, which he turned into a travelogue of Washington ami its great monuments, the cameras following as his words directed. Symbolic forms of discourse have particular value for a general audience, they resonate and they avoid the kind of categoric articulation of values which In heterogeneous society can alienate. In Reaganite rhetoric, these symbolic devices took the form of visual parables, or moral stories, and more generally .. visual rhetoric which would use the actual imagery around him say. the Normandy beaches, or images common to him and h.s audience lamieson describes Reagan as being the pastmaster of electronic lorms o rhetoric, and she provides a close and sustained analysis ol his rhetorical style. Thus frequently he employed physical props to signify and symbolise. H.s communication strategies engaged the use of ordinary citizens who would purvey some form of parabolic function - a youth, for example, who had shown conspicuous initiative in the tight against homclessncss g2 Aamc^mitmt Reagan wc-uW commandeer shared visual memory, he would bUlld ( Sscenes chat he and the nation had recently experienced, but. l0s^ "such ievtees must represent some larger universe of meaning pelaM.n « le therefore used a great deal of non-verbal commun,Cail0 The verbal components were essentially collc^uiaJ Md conversaUonal.Tw were often framed b> a dramatic narrative, a favourite Reagantte de£ w.th RonaW Reagan casl ... Un- role of storyteller In this, of course. he, close to rhetor,urns throughout h.s.ory. for narrative is the primord,d| mode of communication, which Reagan simply adapted and efTemimsed f0r politica.pe>;;a with earlier forms lor rhetoric - Aristotle's enthymemes. for example, achieved their power from reliance on unexpressed beliefs and information But. with a decline in shared cultural information, the ability to Cj :.-..> rcascs ]crr..r> : i.sv argues lot the leniinisation of rhetoric. According to jamieson. ;:\;.:c has been personalised, as for example with Ronald Reagan s self-disclosive moments Traditional rhetoric, in contrast, depended for its force on the physical aspo is of performance - the drama, more than content; on the use ol von <• ihe mesmeric interplay of facial expres' and gcstuic. It v\.r. a |»h\ u.il rhetoric, demanding the rigorous, choreographed gesture. Rhetoric was physical articulation and seldom linguistic content alone, though powetfu] rhetoric could transcend this: Lincoln s Gettysburg address w.ts in fact inaudible to his immediate audience ar.i max even have had more impac t m World War II. Leathers (1986. gives a hit of non-verbal channels for conveying messages. Facial expression: example, include smiles. Irowns. eyebrows raised or lowered, eyes closed or widened, nose curled, lip pursed, teeth bared, jaw dropped, forehead knitted or relaxed Not all media with srxvllic rhetorical appllc ations are new. and nor are the old 'manly rhetorical forms extinguished. Far from it. One of the phenomena of L'S politics over the 199(K was Ihe invention of radio as a polii- h 0U| in?NV le*Pre£ drives 0n 1988, '""nes. for ^efs and the ability ording i0 dundant aniy sryK toricians :>yed and Ronald ontrasi. drama. >f facial ng the ion and inscend nediate a filers Facia' low- rare phr- ^essential trinity SI ,ca| medium - reinvention in tact since Charles Coughlin was the first and most spectacular exponent seventy years ago. Talk-radio hosts, along with single-issue groups, have become among the most important politicians in (he fnited States today What they offer is pure propaganda. This is a medium of reinforcement, not gaming new recruits but speaking to the provincial white male (he has the highest voter registration of all) in his own language, ariicuiaung his anger and ministering to his self-pity: there arc 1.000 talk radio programmes, and Rush Limbaugh himself had an audience of 20 million. In Kurti's words. Tmus. Howard Stern and other loudmouths reflect a high-decibel society in which journalists insult each other on talk shows, pathetic souls denounce their relatives on daytime TV and politicians slam each other in attack ads' (Thomas Install. .\V\v York Review. 6 October 1994». Every day Limbaugh took events in the day's news and misinterpreted them as part of his larger indignation over the state of American culture, individual and group rights, sexual mores, and the ground rules of capitalism i-.: lerr.-vracy He presented the discussions over each of these issues as part of a continuing partisan struggle between a demonised democratic liberalism and ar. idealised Republican conservatism ... he look it as an obligation and higher duty to examine every action or pronouncement to show its deceptive purpose........ "I'm sick and tired of turning on my TV and being told that the Aids crisis is my fault too. because : : - : ;i_-e enough— In this 500 anniversary year of Columbus s voyage. I'm tired of hearing him trashed. I don t give a hoot that he gave some Indians a disease that they didn't have immunity against. We can't change that, we're here. I'm sick and tired of hearing Western culture constantly disparaged. Hey ho. Hey ho. Western cultures got to go. is the chant at Stanford Unr*eraM> What would Stanford be if the pioneers that are so reviled todav as impenahsc racists, sexists, bigots and homophobes hadn't fought their way across a continent to California?" While segmenting radio audiences by ideology is a gift to the propagandist, such channels represent a rejecuon of pluralism and the idea of political exchange. The United States may be a democracy but its airwaves became a one-party state? Impact of rhetoric Rhetoric is power. Conawercial rhetoric can make the difference between success and failure for a company. Branding, for example: the right name can easily justify a 20 per cent, or even 50 per cent, price premium. Thus in business the power o( rhetoric can be measured in monetary terms. The power of rhetoric is illustrated by the extent to which a well chosen image, possessing traits of vividness and appropriateness, not merely sticks . but S4 ► Turkey as the sick hangs around for generatkaw-»■«■-» sick man of Uc also rtwmrwr the past lht«Bp>tiAe' rhu> the warn,,,., despite the qualifications \luth of the B/ifr (1991». are to fighting on the beaches, in the continues to do its duty in a Historically the power and IfBfl scholar) has been -they have lain in the c ps the greatest en\ cf metaphor gave her wort a IrweJ of never could have found. caJfcog, far preservation and insect coal success lay principally as a military strategist). What we aaaaa his moral character, but also to has rvrsonilication: thus on bayonets in her Arc:., starved lips her phil< -. v as V,1KUs C.,U(','r"7 Churchill present^ ih turrendehng: the rhet of any author, preacher Hitler exclusively rhetorics tor example m the case i»i p,r Carson w hose mastery that mere rational exposition the chemicals used for wood of death (Krvtes 1994) Churchill (certainly not for example as a refers certainly to of articulation, metaphor and sharpens her through self-s 1985). Rhetoric and ideas For one writer. Geoff Masoo I1909)1 realms of opinion, for the acor Only if certainty is dema cannot be reached, rhetorical .Mien defined as the endeawaor to do not follow on from each other wttfc Cfcr eaving room for possible mg people disputing the ngoor of . urse in practice is concerned wfc absolutely critical in the pr the intellectual ideologies thai because their sponsors were the a the need for rhetorical devices lo an intuitive feel for the pumu of mankind and burn its Rachel Carson was one Silent Spring, did more t rrr. ronmental movernoal lption of her writing forms of propaganda tkxinsh in the permanently a final conclusion we. .argumentation is onh because reasons of mathematics. * raining prevent-proof, so every dav of rhetoric has been ine twentieth century l hear (arguably) done so • - - jvnents understood attention, they had the introversion of Thoughts. 1994. Her great polemic. The to bring about the modern by taerary powr. Carson's of the more sophisti-combinailon of .1» m0ttnl*ltrW, 8S hfiiwl knowledge and deeply fell en.......„;,l r.-.poi.sc In such propaganda |hc.|.,.i siheiiiNeKevarfh,,!!,,.,,,.,..,,,,!,, ,,,.„,„,..... '..•..„_.,,,., „ ls ,„„ Ji>honesl writing, hut it remains .....,.....„,lv,, smcc facls afe , (ljlllg t(, the guidance <>l .... inl,rp,h„l.ve Irarnework. and decorated |MHgcr> .ind metaphor thai iY.m! i|„. rr}l,,t.r ,r, lhc ngm emotlona| ror. mm IhiMsnol mere polemi. hul neither r. it rational anal\ m> One such device was persomlu tit Ion She writes of her realization that, jpvpitt our own utter dependence on the earth, this same earth and sea have no need of us'. In this way she pa soullies nature, and nature becomes ,, real person whom we need hul who doesn't need us. Thus both our dependence and our littleness are emphasised, an important part of the Carson project: she left government service increasingly despairing over the future of nature'. Carson often auihmpomorphised nature, attributing human leelings to fish and animals m order to explain their behaviour to peaders who know little about than: we must not depart too far from analogy vvilh human conduct if a lish. shrimp, comb jelly, or bird is to seem real to us' or 'I have spoken of a lish baring" his enemies, for example, not bet ause I suppose a fish experiences bar in the same way that we do. but bet ause I think he behaves as though he were frightened". Any form of communication involves some rhetoric - there is a rhetoric of science (Prelll 1989). though il is much IflH overt than political rhetoric, since scieiu e has a deep- embedded Ideology of truth seeking and objectivity in which persuasion should lie irrelevant. This, of course, assumes that there is only one single interprelallon of lhc facts: where multiple views are possible, persuasion and therefore rhetoric creep in. Even more is this the case on the fringes of science or in those areas which claim to be science while embracing a much more subjective methodology. This is true, for example, of socio-biology and true, in particular, of psychoanalytical psychology The neo-scientist can avoid the rigours of the scientific demand for evidence and analysis by the employment of rhetorical devices, just as the politician does. Context and audience make it a more discreet and circumlocutory form, as with Sigmund Ireud. lor example in his 1909 Clark lectures I Patterson 1990). Behind his discourse lies the concept of the unconscious, but he does not explain it. merely oilers analogy. Freud treated as proven the premises on which the analogy is based'. Thus the main rhetorical form Freud used in these lectures was the device of analogy. His aim was to present an all-inclusive theory of the mind.' He began with the case of F.mma ().. claiming it typified hysterical patients': the woman's symptoms vanished when she traced their origin to the distant past. . . . Symptoms originate In experiences that occur in the past and are forgotten.' Freud describes the analogy of Charing Cross. This is an ingenious story that is told and elaborated at length, with descriptions „ * ,i monument In the IManiaafn— oT London s. cm' »"^fftl||t, Preod. is the correctuS^* h«n -h... modern ■ f«nf •lh'"" "ju2-.to,«Tf the vouthful queen of hbow. demand or .n>t." JW» f unpractical Londoner Patterson comment M „, ,.v,lhllsh , from symMu J,-dm ^Wishing a direct M ship with the ^tafJ^Zmw» .rjues that by u*» between p.iM and present »__,__ . .T. . 2 Freud spared himsHf ihe resf»omibdMv for presenting a logical □on'. There Is also tWs analogy to describe rrrx^lon-thai of a pws* trvlng to Interrupi the lecture «The anarchht F/nma Gorman was preaaa in the ..udtaneea. wnew* the analog) intense dmmalic reievance, hi ** analogy the person ts taken out and people have to hold the door aw*, aw then there Is hanging on ihe door The chairman ulks to haw and he is persuaded 10 resume he Attendance at the lecture analogy describes the rnevhannm and the treatment and H wan accident that he chose an analogy that alrmrd him to portrny" his audience as being one Freud was very cumtined to protect an Image of his own non-creduut> \krtv\rr h< portrays himself as a tant convert 10 p>\vrx\*rta|ynk lor example to the notion of ality He "began by OnOnai img' Then he flatters rus compliment> thewaiaewaieeocai He uses the metaphor of a| grate the lectunrs and to present hmwll as an equal -tual fellow traveller other* doubling could also follow the he did. a scientific gufcsr who merrh dev. nho his private icurney to pay-choanah it is mHh rvnH and hew iklenng feelings that I ■>■' *■ the New World before an euoVnce of expectant enquirers'. Haw and ostensible rquakrt rmvnr am v.u i>! didactici\m intellectual hulKing They aboestahli>h Fund a diMnterested truth, not status vMeaagranon b another device by which he this II had no share ai «s earnest beginnings i and the denial that he actually trying to persuade - - *tener> lime and again he objection to his ideas, then awswrr> it it i> not always easy to tell the L especially when one was to hr concise: and I am thus today obngrd to correct the wrong statesmen* that I made in the last lectures' Patten remarks. In fact he strengthened rus case. First, his willingness io enters objections mruorooahw ewrtVnrr*ialih m his openness Second, in the objf. i»on N gas* hwasest the opportunity to present more evidence in support <>l h- K7 • •■ • •'•••■'••"n mmtcss in the Clark Uvtuvs t> , lnbmc lo th(. •• v;'MU were extensixrh described m newspaper e.v « • • ^■ttwn.huslasm: ihus the Fc<:.- ..... described him gltflWf tfW Miulh l.u e i hat age would never suffer Vhe Tnm^npt claimed that the Ws lurvs had won the adherence of mam of the scientists there. TV lectures market an Important element in the historv of psychoanalyse 4txl arpr.mxi In English within a year: by l^n pswhoanalysis had • • iV ng a lopli whose merit was acre-tec. S an!\ a handful of v cfvan intellectuals to a subject that was discussed m Qmd Housekeeping t*d other populai magazines. After the Clarke lectures Freud was awarded .; • " • v '.cgree. which, he noted, was the first official recognition of oweixVaxvuis (Patterson 1990). Thus rhetoric also playi a crucial role in academic discourse. For one £nr£ H is rich in metaphors, and even scientists are forced to use imagistic rbrtxwvas then public language, since the.: pre. ate language of mathemat-o > ... ^ a . onh to the lew. Scientific metaa v: .> not merely a way ol ■ . . -y. ill external constituencies it aflaetl the MTJ that scientists -. ■• v .v> ;vi. e:\ e then realities: in faci a metaphor created lor the purpose of pubbc commuuu alion can. perversely, spnng back and affect the think-"C a :> creators as well. Metaphors help structure and limit disciplines, and fjnr uVrr a unity the astrophysicist, for example, speaking of black holes' -Kh ihey can also illuminate the values of their creators and influence their . - ......-f.ons lii the social sciences ::v.s > particularly true - is man tribal a herd animal, a robot, etc.:- Different metaphors underpin different scv . ^ = cc paradigms, Kconomists in partial', a: have traditionally conceived of man as I sell-seeking, rational decision maker with a clear, hierar- . -.....on ol Ins needs and pn. r.:.e> arc. rvach of their language k that embodies this, and as McC'.oskex \**\>> has shown, econ s:> . ...... |> use rhetoric to persuade ever, the:: professional peers. Myth and propaganda ■ - - s n* niav not be pall 0< an;. DI re ■ theoretic Jetinition of propa pata. but most propaganda is concerned among other things with the "■ - «o! .ml lis: mythology is thus almosl a part ol us working del. eata. A mvth is a paradigm and shorthand. It surfaces the human Inter est and narrative quality that make it memorable in the sense that the afcattact lecture or mere eloquence could never be. Propaganda makes l~ use of myths: they are always a point of reference, implicit or cafe*, in the propaganda texts. Myths provide a common cultural vocal, atarr tbex unite, they Hatter, they elevate the argument or group that , h.im ..■ ■ v.iation with them. They avoid the nr«| for < ompi, M..... an be incorporated by minimal p.< ion.,1 |,, ,„ J''> l, ,.r..|. r"lv. symbol: in simple terms, mylh is »h« »..ir,.,i,„ lj(V'-Idea* whereas ntual is the acting out. the ertU illation of m/»b s/f((^y ilir building blocks of myth and the acccptani e or vrmer ail/,,, of tym^ .. jlffllfcMl aspect of ntual. A ritual generally oh.* r .}„ ,/(.th A myih rr,a> v: described as a story or event that lllumuM''*; ih<: key values "' or association: the events ran !>«• fa) or imaginary, but. 'dirioat cena;r.y. imagination will have embroidered thitt It* propagandu! ihu* draws from the existing stock of soda I myihotogica a* well as witling to them. These core myths of a sociel y an- its Imju'LiIimi iďoh such ••• '.•!■/« r nor .v.hrcp's City on a Hill" and fh'ir ur»dlh alxait Itself to ptTpftllagg ttaetf. the sound of a culture's inter rial diah/gnr I h« y/*h of the ' Irafkj and Kornans. for example, were just like us horn.we. m |fl our weak-m ..r.d triviality, they are a commentary on our foihl, „ u [Any (A emo-UOflf »nd petty jealousies. Myth" in popular language mtrnm invention or •mir.iih hut that is not the academic meaning of the i« rrn l ho' nUter'iTn* Mj/t/l 0 elw Wte(iyi»is not claiming that (he hist/*,/ .,1 r/n n** / si the Will ' untrue, merely that there are important qualifl* ,,ii/„,s m, I* made. Thl iVi. for example, that looting took place after the \*,iui,m% of the Café mil/. V.-: ::cs not alter the core li mil ol r.obllliy . ,„,,„, onity and ••crl/U^fandiieitherdoesCalder claim that it dtflfj Myth* are exhortaiory. exemplars of approved p.,n,of Uhaviour: llľ' lo*y [jr'ÁAcw ídt the myth maker 'is to tiud l he set ol v..i.,. ,,.„ .,di/m ->ce-mirio.or > ■/ i/nences that have wide appeal among if,*-uuw , , r„je wny io do this b to look at the changing values of a m,I»om ,„ «uU oliurc m • online! i/^ira^iuonaJ\-ahies. and beliefs...' (O'ShaughiM /I < '.hau^h-»wy Por Schópfiin (19971 culture itself may !«< oVIIim*! n symrm /in essential trinity of collectively heWnodoos bebefc. prenuses. ideas, dispositions, and unoer-standings. to which myth *es a structure We have argued that what thev share is the attempt to identity a basic level of cultural experience maruieaed in words and deeds throughout history, and concerned principals * - -articulation of the core concerns and preoccupations of their hc*t r - -(O'Shaughnessy and OShaughnessy 200 31. For Overing (1997) the myth b an exemplar of the work of unconscious logical processes: it serves as a symbolic statement about the social order, and as such it rem-forces social cohesion and functional unity by presenting and justifying *■ traditional order Mythic Discourse reminds a community of its own idenorr through the public process of specifying and denning for that commur.tv .-_t distinctive social norms Whether or not people believe in the irrational content of myth is irrelevant, for the symbols of myth have metaphonc value and serve a crucial social function in maintaining the given social order Eliade (1991) defines myth as an account of the events which took place In principle, that is. in the beginning, in a primordial and non-temporal instant, a moment of sacred time He says an important property of myths has been that they can change people, that is. they have a redempuve function: 'we may even wonder whether the accessibility of Chrisuamty may not be attributable in great measure to its symbolism, whether the universal images that it takes up in its turn have not considerably facihtated the diffusion of its message'. Culture may be defined as a system of colkumij held notions, beliefs, premises, ideas, dispositions and understandings to which myth gives a structure. Social myths are perpetuated by propaganda, celebrated in film, ritual and print, and this has been a ceaseless activity. A myth can be manifested as a non-specific image perpetuated through time - that, for example, big business is amoral, or government is incompetent. (Nor. of course, do such myths have - as the vernacular sense would imply - to be untrue! i Or it can be a highly specific idea (as Keynes said. Practical men. who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air. are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few-years back'). Or it can be a generic myth, recurrent throughout many societies and periods of history, such as myths of a Golden Age or of an ascetic and uncorrupted past. Romans imagined an earlier and virtuous polity that was well embodied in the figure of Cincinnatus. the farmer called from his plough to serve as consul to save the republic from its enemies who. having done so. returned to his plough. ffl A(0nrfP'Ua'arr°n9rr>w Why wo have myths i„ The Marketing Rmwi oj foitoUon (200 \) 0*Sheughneesy and(ySh. ,„-.sy argue that every culture is a storehouse of myths which, J?J questionably accurate, suggest the origins of the culture's prcfcren *f Certain beliefs and values and In the prvH ess reafhrm a set of preference l„r Schopflin (1997) myths air about the ways in which communis regard certain propositions .is ium m.il .on! natural and others as perv, Uld alien'. In Athenian Myths and Irisfirwi - W Blake Tyrrell (Tyrrell a^ BrOWD 1991) examines how myth makcis retlect define and defendfj* ftatUJ quo. For Tyrrell. mytnJ ielci bQ tclations inherent in the culture-value system, they depict in linaglnai n lot in a model to be emulated, as well as the destructive forces active In sen let) which, left unattended, couldrur> lure the social bond. By telling whai happens when core values are lo . inythf teach what is culturally valued thc\ act to assert the status quo-in the case of Greece. I warlike imperialistic society of aristocrats. They become a kind of universal perceptual lens in Schopflin's words (1997) 'myth creates an intellectual and cognitive monopoly in that it seeks to establish the sole way of ordering the world and defining world views'. According to Tyrrell, heroes arc particularly important in myths and establish model behaviours. Those who would expose mythologies should do so with care. Any society needs its myths, and if we aggressively and systematically demolish i hem we may be doing real damage, for m\ ihs are intimately bound up with a society's identity, its ability to transmit a coherent culture and moral code lo cadet generations and lo inspire pride and a sense of community. Moreover a society whose government cavalierly neglects its core myths faces trouble. One reason for the terrible alienation of youth during the Vietnam War was that US actions contradicted the myths of stainless American decency that had been projected bv film and popular culture in the Ideological cocoon of the 19 50$. It is necessary for a regime to keep myths in being lo guarantee its survival the Roman emperors, for example, having to sustain the pretence that Rome was still ruled by people and Senate, perpetu-aled In the slogan 'Senutus Populusque Romanus'. the SPQR of the legionnaires' banner. Much of the intellectual and artistic energy of the ' 1960s generation' has lain subsequently in the gleeful demolition of myths lor example, a British television series. Real Lives, concerned itself with hiking famous national figures and posthumously outing them as gay (Baden-Powell, on no real evidence. Vkiily Telegraph. 7 December 1996). bastards (Group Captain Douglas Baderi and so forth. The pantheon of national heroica was serially assaulted on its plinths. News, especially, deals in myth. As Bird and Dardenne (1988) explain news narratives are constructed not through neutral techniques but via symbolic deuces and the confection of myths and manifest in simple gjplanahons. reassurance and so forth; in fact the myths endemic in a culture constitute a form of selective perception of the world. Selective perco tion. commcr. :; rr.er-.rer> of d given culture, has the effect of importing .1 characteristic mterpretanon to phenomena. Myth and story Myths work because integrate mean.retu. and Hasne (199 3 »sb ber numer- if - ; could make sense of ti plate to eva.uétt the rejection of advocacy rative. We identify pa succeeded noc throoj ethos and belief sysu reader through from TheProdiga:S:r. ihe the Vineyard ar.i sc :'; nised in any culture, accords pnmacy to s system that can tfaer Aztec. The figures of C theon of :;^r n.'..-the fpregr.ir.: Virzu deity, or where the a with the Celtic am they are structured as stories, as elided stories that facts into a persuasive framework. Thus Pennington • a urors dealt with their inability to remerr.-.-• rr.ro < r.g a story framework through which the". Ik facts, and they used this master narrative as a tem-r.arrauve of prosecution and defence: acceptance or • - determined by its cohesion with the master r.ir-ipie's perspectives by the stories they tell. Christianity ih the exposition of abstract ethical rules alone: its m gained inspiration from stories which carried the a beginning to a middle and an end and a message. :•: >amantan. Dives and Lazarus, the Labourers .r .•. ere simple talcs which could be instantly re.vg-The narrative superstructure of the Gospels, which i;-..-;e ir.l rebirth, constitutes a primorc:-. tby usurp other sacrifice-based systems such as the hrisdan scripture and tradition could absorb the pan-; via a manufactured resemblance, as when in Mexico i of Guadalupe replaced a (pregnant) Aztec fe xjss bes within a circle representing the sun god. The impact of mylht Myths have had a real impact on the course of history, and since the creanoc of myths is a permanent activity, myths continue to be important even though some die oul They are merely replaced. The progress of our lives is festooned with myths. There are myths round every corner. Myths, their tissues of truth. Miffr**** and fantasy, are the context we inhabit and the atmosphere we breathe. Shopping behaviour is inspired by mythoiogical structures - diamra*** for example, are a rather common little rock, bat they are also a gai s best friend, and the success of the de Beers cartel in pouring meaning a^eaefcosrviry into this stone ranks as one of the greaies: myth-malong enterprises of all time. 92 "cwioeju^j Mvth rs thus impactful I he exculpatory myth Fabricated bv lheľ .eneral staff in 191H - (he «yth 0Í the stab in the back - had horre> consequenceaasaresulioi Iff acceptance by German public opinion r1- , n^ w.u* so powerful has been the 'log cabin to White House rny^ one candidate. Benjamin I lar. .so... oruereu uu.e tvoooen model cabins bJl supporters to carry around (Mclder 1992). even though he com*] of an English lord Politically- created myths have performed sterfol service for their manufacturers, for example the myth of the winter of J cor i as endlessly promulgated by the Conservative Party through0ui the 1980s, and it served them well. Myths can bedestrutti .< I hev can affirm our current sense of inferiority by reference to a more glorious past. They can perpetuate untruths, and the social mjquities which flow from this, such as the mythology of the Indian martial races' which grew up under the Moghul dynasties and was inherited by the Bntish. It took World War II to make people realise that all Indians, not merely the splendid tribes. Jats. Dogras. Hazaras and so on. could fight well (Cohen 1990> Military myths are extremely important, establishing a powerful masculine identity for a nation or fortifying its wish to hold and conquer. I ranee, tor example, had the myth of la gloirt. the belief that military success was a function solely of elan or spirit, fix." pantalon rouge, e'est La France.') And myths endure. I heir long shelf life illustrates both their convenience as a shorthand for talking about ones culture and our failure to interrogate them I hat Britain is 'strangled by the old school tie' is still a widely believed myth even though the social reality that underpinned it has faded. Such myths -fit they save us from new learning and thinking. The press deal :r,U> in one particular type of myth, stereotype, and one should never .r.:< r<- tirnale the after-life of a long^lefunct stereotype: professor remain mad', colonels Wimpish", long after the age of such characters has .<,m<-i.mes in persuasion we attempt to confront myth stereotypes bead-on Bfl in an army recruitment advertisement entitled Spot the cofor,<:l ehcre DU tures of real' - i.e. modern-looking - colonels were placed alongside a pukka silver-moustached actor representing the presumed anaCDTOftam Myths can endure and have powerful impact even though they are fv.wally wrong. The belief long persisted in Ireland that the practice of foornan Catholicism had once been illegal: 0. Paddy dear, did you hear The news trtat s yj.,w/, round.' The Sharn/osk is r,y l.iv, lorhid To Krov/ on fr.sh /round In Kevin Myers's words. To enter a modern conspiracy against British rule merely repeats th<- earlier albeit mythical - conspiracy required simply to practise ore- o h;oon (\f>rdalor, 18 March 1995». To Schopflin (1997) Mjitppicvi trinity ^5 {articular strategies \h - V'^.^ering - it can be probed no further d falsehood ► aaccessful a propaganda i spread by the Chinese c sad No dogs or Chinese it. believe it of the British that myth cannot be some relationship iaacdit iSchopllin 1997] ieted. The charge of the Luh: .enth century a key ■rtafased by the diverse epic: tamable only if we a i a prerequisite of the charge : -n researchers claim that 22 makes the myth and its ^o*n/c/ch/charge_of_the_l oy historians because of For example, did soldiers - it a Labour Party rnytbJ aj modern historical en One example would be the BSe aege of the Alcazar of Toledo. \M9kV. the leading British authority ffteaay. on 2 3 July. Candido C .<■-■: Moscardo to say tha: 1 anaan ten minutes, he would shoot -. .m he had captured Baal to you.' added Cabefkx "V* Nothing." answered the s.:c does not surrender.' If u be God. shout Viva Espaha Goodbye. Father." answered la iy distinguished Profesaor lhty: the in Hong - re could, a underpins the i material: it that has ■ . : A what . zttr. >ince the gjonous failure. But the of the soldiers were z. '■ and blun-: rr.tri sur\ ived. i www. fact-fact often dis-: ; actually at Tony-«20011 it is. demytholo-:c«cunencement of Hugh Thomas K m Toledo, tele-the Alcazar s 24-year-old lethal s true, he boy? asked the shoot me if the commend your my son. a last «19951 is. however, curtly aaaarver. the resistance of the Akaia ■ ■! ataajawairifcninthe great symbol of Nationalist heroism. Subsequent rre raaaa/af oar aege would be embroidered beyond recognition, in partcaaar aaraaajh the famous, and almost certtilU) tpOCryphll, llory thai Moscardo was telephoned and told unless he surrendered, his son would be shot. lhlM)s (Robert Block 1994). Some race myths are almost too well known to merit discussion. The notion of a pure northern Aryan' race, uniquely superior, had been propagated by the Count de Gobineau in the nineteenth century and popularised in Wilhelmine Germany by Huston Stewart Chamberlain and sundry pamphleteers iSnyder 1976). From such sources the party ideologue Alfred Rosenberg constructed his glmcrack Ah/i/to.v. These formative influences on the young Hitler and subsequently on Hess. Himmler and others were strong. They sanctified instinctual bigotry with the liturgies of scientism. The race myth was not only handed to the Nazis through the nineteenth-century pseudo-intelligentsia, there were also artistic sources, preeminently Wagner, whose Nibelungs. the dark and scavenger race, were deliberately likened by him to the Jewish people. In the twentieth century the ancient libels against the Jews that they had. for example, engaged in the ntual murder of children - were supplemented by freshly manufactured libels such as the French forgery the Protocols of the Elders of Zion' elaborated and propagated by the Tsarist secret police. Thenar had sought to combat Bolshevism by fomenting Russian nationalism, and this demanded the fabrication of an alien threat - as ever, the Jews. The 'protocols were found among Nicholas's last few possessions (Figes 1997). but their influence upon European fascism, on characters like Archibald Maule Ramsay MP and his Right Club', were considerable (R. Griffiths 1983). IS myths Now most propaganda Is deeply embedded in myth. Propaganda creates new myths, of course (Horst Wessel). but more often it draws from or reinterprets old ones. Both sides in a dispute can. and do. pick from the same stock of myths and give them a different interpretation, thus 'Log cabin to a common integrating myth of US culture which all parties of US myths - the frontier, cowboys versus Indians, etc. in its cultural products. The family farm is another, viewers saw images of a deserted farm and the t tost a farm. It was a family. Vote Democrat i Webster 1988) were tapping into a key myth of the American heart-: imagine how a culture could exist without the myths and give it meaning. So myths celebrate the key The very language of a culture carries its core mytholo-: reals are used extensively in advertising. Thus Andy i Tyrrell 1991) cited the ten most common words Such words evoke the dreams and aspirations promised myth. Discover", "fresh", new and Light that is. promise and opportunity: natural and real" what the extra', rich" and "save" what accrues from initiative, -c.more (1975) argues that a role of advertising is to . something that it is constantly doing, ons various cultural myths that affect what Ameri-the power of emotional resonance, such as the which was even (according to Barbara Stem 1988) r commercial. Myths are the stuff of the United DNA. How many Hollywood movies, for example, tell of the little guy battling the system or the big corpora-such as Elia Kazan's On the Waterfront. 19 54. • These are 1 fabrics and fibres of Hollywood, yet they are also myths. Other redeployed myths include the damaged Casablanca, Rambo and many others authority figures ■cetors. lawyers, policemen rebelling against authority. Harry persona (reflecting Americans' ambivalence ■Bfj the officious). - such as the notion of Americans as benevolent which .ndation of the republic itself - endure (the British by lerery satisfied that they were just.'). Myths retail the story historical conflicts. Our image, for example, of the founda-States is that of the Mayflower and its austere cargo of Fathers; yet this is essentially a post-CrviJ War image, for was of course Virginia, the heart of the Confederacy. .American War of Independence, as set forth in such films as - ! th Al Pacinoor The Patriot ... r. ". ■. v .-. . c r-arra-Most Americans would be bemused to learn that the rev-theatres and caused actors such as the American • milUins lo emigrate (A.J. OShaughncssr jnjj Compan> o> 101 'he .UIS1.S of the revolution were resessaBjIj* S numbered among in ^ ^ Oltholics of Quebe: _ ,, extension ol v u k ^ lhe attempts bv King Oeor^ ^ ^rumer anexpanding westward into the terras Native Vmencans with whose leaders it had signed treaties. uZi.^** vwuctot imths those ol the vanquished either J:-lerraneen evisteiue V( myths have remained critical v «-L ^'^n lvw they inteipc: :bc ptoctu. throughout their hi<: ^\ ^**Pe> v •• x v.\ strategies has heen the mobilization of bnaanrj ^ \\ťS:;: '.°ss- \et in lies nut Teacher told Me James 1 rasám >c; | aatoates lust boat false the history we are taught so often is Vi— ninl^ bdkft - thev haw been told so often enough by the National Rale Assoc*, tion - thai the\ possess a constitutionally enshrined nght to bear anas' They- haw no such thing, otherwise of course cities like New York conkj ■ .' ... i'ii gun ownership. The cor.>:.:^:.cr -r.i.* a right to bear arms only as members of a legally constituted nasnia. yet mis myth continues to exert a baleful influence on the pne*»nl beskfts'of ervans to the extent that the battle against the gun in rxibar Isfchas emigrated beai the political arena, where the NRA has effectnerv i v rx^.ential opposition (Anderson 1996). to the courts of M\th and mam rdom LVaths and mart> txiom have always been fecund sources of myth I Christ was the ultimate martyr, and all martyrdom has therefore the nnc- . .. - Republican martyrology. for exarr.r r ~- it. subject in itself Bobby Sands was the last of a great assemblage of* Irish ---ryrs stretching way back in history well beyond Cat prints, books murals and. especially, song and ballad Ian such as Kevin Barry, the university student who [mum sjiaiiil in a tact on his way to a lecture in 1920 and was subsequently executed by the British iBennett 1995). rtyrdom is a particularly persuasive way of inflating a sense of moral r. and has been critical in the establishment of religious faaths and es. Foxes Bookol Martyrs (Ridley 2001), published in the reign of Queen Elisabeth 1. gave the Anglican church the ethical r~*Z'~ nrt^rf Elizabeth herself ordained that a copy should be chained to paspiL and the book was carried on the ships fighting the Spanish Ar Tbe death by hunger strike of Terence MacSwiney. Mayor of Cork, i ^aaral propaganda blow against British rule in a Ibe suicide bomber, of course, kills many others in the p '"to 8W Of. cot Ik:, 1. iv 1 nor,*' ,U"0n'en<|s U,ed ,n P"Wic IfcC 31 law. myth making efore the tine-is an intricaic blage of Irish nai Plunkeii. 'e celebrated icipated ifl a t/y execute se of moral faitns and , the rei*fl pedig** J /re/a^ 4rt essentml trinity 99 himself- Bu' the act may still impress those who need most to be impressed, the tentative and the weakly partisan. ^11 nations, and -ill causes, seek and attain their martyrs. The martyr docs not have to die. but death of course is desirable. The more gory the death, the better. The death of the heroine of French independence. Joan of Arc. by llame. created a permanent nation-building myth to be used by French patriots for all time, including de Gaulle. Events such as the death of Nelson and the assassination of Lincoln and Kennedy gave those men a martvr\ crown: the manner of their death added retrospectively a sacerdotal glow to their high triumphs, and they became, as it were. Saints of the Nation. In some cases nations and groups have consciously sought to create a cult of death, and this was particularly powerful in all European fascist movements. Spanish nationalism, for example (Preston 2000). Nazi culture was permeated by a kind of death Fixation: a movement which was responsible for the deaths of countless millions was itself animated by a bizarre death cult. Triumph of the Will is dominated by memorialist enactments, the rising to hail the memory of Field Marshal Hindenberg. the salutation to the dead of the First World War and the recitation of its battlefields, the solemn march of the Führer to the flaming plinths. This funereal quality of Nazi propaganda is one of its many curious aspects, but is made intelligible both in terms of the need for reconciliation with the enormous losses of the First World War and the need for preparation and acceptance of the great blood sacrilices that Hitler would now demand. One successful fabricator of myths was Ronald Reagan. His achievement was to make the problems of the present disappear by flanking them with a reassuring vision of the past and a dream of a benign future' (Lule 1990). He did this by creating new myths that had resonance with the past, such as his production' of the Challenger disaster, where old myths (the conquest of the west) were used to manufacture new ones (the conquest of space). So the creation of myths has continued throughout history. They are simply too useful, to the advocate and to the propagandist. Kenneth Burke (Lule 1990) asks 'whether human societies could possible cohere without symbolic victims which the individual members of the group share in common'. The question is not how the sacrificial motives revealed in the institutions of magic and religion might be eliminated 'but what new forms they take'. In the Challenger disaster Ronald Reagan deployed effective rhetorical strategies, using these reference points, to turn disaster into a heroic endeavour. Even a seemingly decisive event with an ostensibly unambiguous message - such as the poor leadership and mismanagement which disasters reveal - has plasticity, the territory of its meaning open to contest, and the function of rhetoric is to affix an Interpretation which future discussion . Lulr ' '' • quite possibly the ChafU7l$irH\m ********* failed policy and iswed lesalerefi* ******** « shuttle and renewed V%ci*Mr#**** ^^^TH^ mrnt of lh* df>.r < ' ' consolation and ptarfSSJotiyaVJap However, he referred to the / • ■• •"• And these questions of nafgflal l.ule quotes \h / "M, Ml ....."'"".J/l,, '•"•lAiiirri, 'I,., | .....| U Propagindi in tracing the metaphors that ere a**aJtj/»v " w«y people In that society experience things , tap* aaad a%r mtU#v* % lo »a*e aaaj the /.....>i. .Ir.iili and life everlasting; Reagan iessJaaJ AVeS oW savant* errw wm» rilendlBf America's boundary into ^+<> tar ''**-htWm **»r-»> i"'Vr directly to the dead and he lmp-.< lions of blame or respire.;o.;.4 / lips <|ltis the astronaut', had #vr, Jay** U* tU* t.I'mfQmm bickering over their loss, as if tr.<-,r 'I'vK, • . ■ « \wi1tkI bu» • h«*rlble mistake, wcjuld rob the death* of (MptHf tm4 nm*6*l U$ 0a* w«y Kragen'l eulofts used the victims to effectively #Smtxmt44\9p4it*r*y*n >4 re%r*mtfhilii\ Hy placing the -.p*".- p,ro?/.trr,rr./ „ ■>. e, UiJUtwA Amthtmn ptorterr liadl tlon. debatcon the proyyamov % tt*r > *,+ < -A\ >m h/nMed V> dl* ii^lon a| when and hw the proy/arr.nv » . , - 3 1^ profnSv !«• Iiilllllnl Propaganda and symboJtan If myths are the heart of pro;,. , ^Awm I* 11» out* ynimeni indeed, to speak of a prop..^./,-: >7/,y1 ft WfWk&m 1» rmlly to be spanking about some other ph< now oo-. P* « f*'/|/*ga»ide bereft of symbol structures would be unini/dhioM* h% i^>t\^iu\H symbols telegraph meaning, and life is a cacophony //f *ymhA§, +w* fhay are tlta mental heuristli 1 or short cuts through y/hc h o'.ut/ hf* kj k>i* t\n*)n\ .,,,.1 .„ y(IM,.,, ,| ^ ^rv function of propa#mda r. >'» ii%nuu\*t hit* a$t h n , t^%\\\ttu ,|,V|,, Propaganda texU are tyrrii/a* i. Ir. . Haiti, \,\v i;,i,inkhi ihr Ihinu ol Ihe ship's j',00. ui f ;/ -»f<' f* *t> |U*lap , s, r> Napolcon. Mussolin| J especially the Nazis. Ihe propaganda of the Keich was encrusted with Roman imagery: it became, in the Roman salute, an adjunct to every day communication. I he Nuremberg relies themselves were gimcrack Roman triumphs, with llames Hop cohaaaas. gftaannc eagles, temple-like structures: the very word fast* H of course derived from the Roman fasces. sj mhol of magisterial authont> Commercial advertising alsoactiKmledgessymbol.sm. Much commercial signihcat.on celebrate, the idea that material things are not an end in themselves but a means of expression, signifying affection, status. Gift cuing is symbolic drama symbols represent social meaning rather than point to something concrete. Products are means to social ends such as admiration, and the thrust of much adwrusmg is that these things are attainahle through the agency of same purchased symbol, that is. a commercial product. When this is understood we come finally to the view that the briefest, most comprehensive definition of a product is simply as meaning'. The symbol has been described as a sago that incorporates something in addition to its direct references A >ymboi. unlike an idea, is something visible, something into which corrimuniotioo has poured meaning, it is a dynamic referent that refers not itself but to the myriad associations that have been packed into it. For Douglas 119821 symbols are the only means of communication. They are the only means of expressing value: the main instruments of thought, the onh regulators of experience." For any communication to take place, the symbols must be structured. Symbols, often considered the most powerful and complex forms of comparison, are thus a class of representatives which stand for other things (Firth, in Stern 1988). without the explicit expression of comparison. They are commonly regarded as metaphors from which the first term has been omitted (Beeks and Warren, in Stern 1988». Symbols act as heuristics or cognitive short cuts: when relative choices are confusing and ambiguous we fall back on symbolism. The value of symbolism Symbols are effective because they save cognitive energy, but also because much appraisal is first emotional and only latterly a cognitive evaluation. Persuasion can resort to mere syinboaana alone, rejecting any kind of rationale or rational construction of a case, and this has been described by sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssWncpp,u°'°r^ "*ll M in hew 11997) IS the rhetoric of presentation. A statue, for examDl photograph without explanatory text can be doing simply this. 0r' Sj mhols ire in important aspect of propaganda and one which the Literature on propaganda has tended to devalue. First, they ^ extar -tre Inimenseh cheap form of propaganda: they attract public notice, they * reinemberad (or decades or even centuries afterwards. A symbol speake d.revtb to the heart and does not tax the critical intellect. Commercial organisations have long grasped the importance of symbols. (Some service examples ,,re Prudential Bach's rock, the Travellers' Insurance Company umbrella and Merrill Lynch's bull: Stern 1988). A brand is also a symbol, and branding is now B commercial science: corporate investment in brand designs brand building and brand identity is really testimony to the endur-Ing pew ec of symbols. Brands resonate in ways that ultimately defy analysis. Advertising Itself has been described as 'pouring meaning into the brand'. \ symbol is shorthand. Its essence is compression. For a symbol expresses, often m visible form, what might take ages to write down or debate. The French revolutionaries were 'great believers in the use of symbols as a means of transmitting complicated ideas in a simple form' (Taylor 1990). such as t he Phrygian cap denoting equality, the fasces for fraternity and Marianne as the symbol of liberty. It is also economic. A memorable symbol such as the wartime Y lor Victory' campaign in occupied Europe is an extraordinary u capon, since it can be brief, ubiquitous and costless. In this case the V signature was daubed all over the lands the Nazis occupied and incessantly broadcast by the BBC as the opening bars of Beethoven's Ninth. S\ mbols are attractive also to those with less capacity for abstract thought. To Pope Gregory the Great, for example, statues were 'books for the illiterate' (Taylor 1990). It is a paradox that, the more educated people seem to become, the less symbol-conscious they appear to be. Often what we mean by saying, for example, that academics are 'out of touch' is that they are unaware of symbolic values and the charge they carry, for reason is myopic when it confronts symbols, and the process of education is one of editing out symbolic awareness. This, perhaps, is why intellectuals become so perplexed when they look at situations where the issues are, or are in the main, symbolic. Northern Ireland in particular baffled them because everything was organised around symbolic issues where the core of political debate comprised such arcane matters as the kind of cap badge that police officers should wear. The symbol speaks, essentially, to simpler folk: academics are often so trained that they are immunised to the power symbols hold for ordinary people, and thus too often their analyses ignore them The fact that the highly academically educated tend to be insensitive to nonverbal symbols and dull their meaning is central to the difficulties of Christianity today. For example, the Catholic church hierarchy failed to see the fsseniial trinity lOJ ^ufieance of Friday's abstinence to the Insh labourer to London. For him it symbolised allegiance to a humble home in Ireland ar.i k c B1—*rrni tra-jUonin Rome (Douglas 1982). A ntual is an enacted symbol, and any ritual is propaf^mbn of an authoritarian and inherited kind. Rituals act as a social adhesive, prescribing and proscribing the key concerns and values of a coaayaaufce. Recognising this, propagandists in times past, from the French re-. -ar.es :: the Nazis and Stalin, have sought to create new rituals, ones pfcaparised from the ritualistic performance of religious and monarchist ntimtions but celebrating new state ideologies. During the French resolution, ceremonies. Festivals of Freedom and Statues of Liberty helped "to consolidate the Republican idea in a society familiar only with monarchical government' Taylor 1990). Today there is an attack on ritual and we speak often of empty symbols and meaningless' ritual. Yet rituals are seldom rneamogfess and the astute propagandist will recognise their value. Douglas 19821 argues that one of the greatest problems of our day is our lack of coaanataaent to common rituals, while more mysterious is a widespread, explicit rejection of rituals as such. Ritual has become a bad word signifying empty ' '■^■■■■n She also suggests that many sociologists, following Merlon, use the term ritual' of one who performs gestures without inner commitment to the ideas and values expressed. This is a distractingly partisan use of the term, since anthropologists use 'ritual' to mean action and beliefs :r the symbolic order without reference to the commitment or non upon an historical •ourncy. but symbols are also powerful in the cause of peace, as we speak of , j.-.c of peace, an olive branch, an angel ol mere] a peace pipe \nd win-rw> can continue as symbols long after the reality of the content they represented has changed. Hardly any prisoners were left in the Bastille in 1 789 bat. for the French revolutionaries, it was the most powerful of the symbols of the anclen regime, massive and darkly brooding. Since political control of symbols is a crucial feature of political power, failures in political control of symbols are therefore political failures. Symbols can appear to take over and even usurp political authority and one of the physical props in a situation can become its embodiment Under appeasement Neville Chamberlain's umbrella seemed to assume a life of its own as a symbol of supine British policy. The political intent underlying the creation of a symbol may not be 'read' by the audience: they may wilfully misconstrue, and a propaganda symbol can be conscripted into becoming a counter-symbol. Thus. Prince Trubetskoy's statue of Tsar Alexander was read' by the enemies of the regime as a satire on it (and that might actually have been Trubetskoy's intent in making it so huge and menacing: Figes 1997). Indeed, it was subsequently conserved by the Bolsheviks, thus servicing the propaganda apparatus of both the Tsarist and the Soviet states. Sj mbolism and the social sciences V\ "hat has characterised human advance has been the reliance on ever more sophisticated symbols - language, art. myths, rituals - for understanding the world, communication and social organisation. For Mircea Eiiade (1991). all that essential and indescribable part of man that is called imagination dwells in realms of symbolism and still lives on in archaic myths and theologies. To have imagination is to enjoy ■ richness of interior We. an uninterrupted and spontaneous flow of images. He believes that the most commonplace existence swarms with images, the most realistic man kves by them. Margaret Mead (Taylor 1990) spoke of the significance of visual s culture, the more of post -Wo: : of une than b> lor BOH Of and what :he> have no They are bleached Symbob social and meaning. A branding tn the ism. Such area: interpretaucc meant r. entertaining realm, and c gandist is to Talcott and not n relations: the man on s\ mbols in political al events in the Camcr'j'jr. ulture are discussed in id a specific policy of substance (Start \\. Lance Bennett 1996). by iii ill*1" wherein the d disintegrates. There ren or nuance beyond their rr*er* & from the things signified fr/rjua meanings of signs, meaning, and many of the man that it is the meaning of tbm&tLr,at >\mbols organiv: ':/..: >.'. ■ :\^mple. is a symbol < - y. al world is a test am':' . ' : y. . _ anthropology a:/; . . > focus t'hermeneutics) and see people a r.al calculation, Geertz . y models through which H ;r.'r/r all a system of symbols; the tad the symbol systems of a cult -. an advocate of the Impofta^oe'/ \. ■ in meeting people's r^AfTH infants began by iueutifjing objects and extending the ai matured. This stress oo symbolic, status-directed reward* c) activities of many propagandists, from the inventor* of the of the Soviet Lcuon to the Nazi presentation of the ceremoaft German ptmpf at the age of ten (Grunberger J V> J todbel of the title vice-president in American corporations* TMk convey status and ewery social order producci 'hem. mi i enterprise could be seen as a status exercise: one wmmmim proletariat, the international brotherhood of mmlun ml more alluring. Another approach to the role of vymfeuk m via behaviounsni (based on the concept of the v/.-; Chapter 2 >. that continuous exposure to repeated slamm m and these Iniwr both inevitable and predlctaMf '"jeem* lions have been made. Certainly propaganda u*ei tytmdmU (the Bnush rwilrtng. deftly leased from the iconography^ m by Tony Blair so hts 1997 campaign?). Indeed. M>**ca* hj when a familiar symbol M dropped, as the Ueo.v.rau »rnm their donkey 4- -sn- 109 toiviusiofi i 19971 goes further than other authorities in perceiving myth. " ritual as constituting a language that he* deeper than language c grammar which mulct girds and transcends mere verbal 1 foievs thai what is not symbolised i> either very difficult to communicate or — .■..nu ated at all. because it is not a part of the fund of knowl-- of the community The language ol >\mhols. rituals myths and so on is. a part of the web of communication shared by any community accidentally, more sigullicant than language uself Members of the shared symbols can continue to recognise one another and communication even after thev haw abandoned thetr language in sense. propositions true, then myth and symbol would not represent _ a number of creative possibilities for the propagandist. In fact ©choice strategies based on their use are not just useful, they are and no propaganda can truly aspire to work that ignores them Integuments of propaganda Key foundations of propaganda This chapter explores key ideas which are generally associated with the concept of propaganda though they may not be integral to its definition. Propaganda, it argues, represents hyperbolic possibility and multiple exaggeration: it is emotional, deceitful and irrational: it does not ask for belief, rather it represents an invitation to share a fantasy. Above all. we identify the creation of enemies as a fundamental activity of propaganda (the Man-Douglas notion of how we structure our universe by knowing what we are against rather than what we are for). Since propaganda as the rhetoric of enmity aims to persuade people to kill other people, others must be demonised in a denial that we share a common humanity (atrocity propaganda). Emotion Propaganda has a highly emotional foundation to its appeal. For Aristotle, emotion is central to persuasion: Pathos, distinguished from Ethos and Logos, relied on putting the audience in a state of mind that stirred the emotions, for our judgements where we are pleased and friendly are not the same as when we are pained and hostile' (O'Shaughnessy 1995). The aim and content of Hitlerite rhetoric were pure emotion, logic could safely be ignored, reason simply jettisoned, thus contradictions were no problem, the Jew could be both capitalist and communist, and this was just further proof of Jewish cunning. For Hitler was a theorist on rhetoric and propaganda, and all his persuasion was constructed round the idea of the supremacy of the emotional appeal: 'the people in the overwhelming majority are so feminine by nature and attitude that sober reasoning determines their thoughts and actions far less than emotion or feeling". Changing behaviour that has a basis in emotion involves changing an interpretation, and for this to be done the communication must relate to thc values of the ■udlenca, .....I avoid the son of emotional experiences that led 10 'he values in (he lii si place. 1 \\hat then is the long lei in unpad ,,| ||,e emotionally driven messages characteristic of propaganda, Kiev would tend, according to the Pctty-Cacioppo Elaboration Likelihood Model, to lead only to superlicial acceptance of the message via I he peripheral route to persuasion (Petty and Cacioppu 19791. I'he central route, which supposedly involves the recipient of thc message in intellectual engagement, is claimed to lead to long-lasting and rational attitude change To accept I his model would mean that we believe the consequences ol propaganda lo be short-term, but the model has been much criticised on the grounds that it devalues the power and significance of emotion, the deepest inllueiueson behaviour - personal attitudes, religion, morality - are inlegiallv linked to emotion. In contrast, other theoretical models have downgraded the significance of rational persuasion. Zajonc and Markus t 1l)9 I). by way of contrast to Petty and Cacioppo. have argued that attitudes may have a strong emotional base, developed before an v cognitive elaboration. Such altitudes, they claim, can be changed only bv exercising emotional influence that bypasses the cognitive. There are certainly many differences in the kinds of emotion propaganda exploits - for example, social propaganda under the auspices of non-profit organisations and government often seeks to exploit feelings of guilt. Many 'safe driving' appeals would lit into I Ins category as well as some of the most famous social advertisements of all time, such as the Saatchi pregnant man - Wouldn't vou be more careful if it was you that got pregnant?' - and the Salvation Army's grainy black-and-white images with the refrain For Gods sake. care. Give us a pound.' Behind the guilt is cognitive dissonance, (in Festingers 1957 theory this arises when a person holds at the same time inconsistent beliefs: people try to reduce the discomfort by reducing the conflict. I Ideology It is difficult to imagine propaganda without ideology. For ideology lends to propaganda both its structure and its clarity. A propaganda for a vague and timidly defended belief may still be classified as propaganda but it would be scarcely recognisable as such. Propaganda feeds off ideology. At one level, of course, everything, all discourse and every text, can be viewed as ideological' but that perspective may not be particularly helpful In Ihe analysis of propaganda. There are degrees. For example, some might even argue that all journalism is ideological and therefore propagandist, though journalists themselves frequently claim to represent free opinion or information rather than ideology base. According to Bird and Pardenne t lSS8> v mugs to new realities - this is how the ideolog^?^ e prevailing maps of meaning haw come to he acCe ^ blinding us to the fact that ever . otr.mon sense -P' ^ne example would be the frequent description hich can be solved via some technical typ of quick lix that is the source of toreign-policv which can be solved' via some technical tvne of°!!!flhl^ * 7, sol^tion - blunder- ut propaganda is that it is not mere!\ ideological but '■' • > .uions.emrh. * "•• ' * •> :hat for the genera' guish a propaganda text from other forms of persuasiv y such as. indeed, consumer marketing, where the attitudes of th ant the producer, deterrrune ideology. Ir. 0: her words it is not the >gy alone, but that the ec\ is both producer-driven felt, that distinguishes the propaganda text The public image is thus of an explicitly ideological media communication, in lies on the surface: it does not court the viewer or lis-and even berates and assaults them. An example of this a would be the ami-cokmialist dim The Batde of Algiers or n example - the Michael Mcvre .:ecumentaries Roger and for Columbine. however, see such a iiii^wgaaiili style as anachronistic. m. an. age of sophisticated media consumers, of visual literacy in viewing of media ;rr.a_r > :>c 2:-. education in the :f media imagery, such a blatant style may not be as effective propaganda forms: but it is not made thereby less ideolog-n. merely more subtle. For example, there is the printed -e sixteenth- ::.r Trci: >e 2ca:nst the Mutter- ■ me Papists in Corners (Foulkes 198 31. or the laudatory manifrnn .-•: -■ iustavus \ ^J^^TJ£^^ virtue would get nowhere. On the W rcvj of the m0S, powerful ap^*« 1^ more gener'a, enioymen, 1 nance not merely in Cnnstianuy. uu expressions of group solidarity. vaiuc-drenched ('Give me liberty Political rhetoric, verbal and visual is ^ ^ be or give me death* (Patrick Henry), n tyrants' (Thomas from time to time with the blood of patriots Jefferson). This clement of appeal to values is especially ^ enlisted in controversy. Mussolf s (1991) analysis of congress*^*** illuminates the role of \ ulue-referenced rhetorics. Opponents of giant businesses invoke free enterprise, and. fearing this appeal, sup?0* counter bv defending their regard for this value and by asserting its^1 relationship to the policy proposal: the same values are conscripted the purposes of the rival partisans. Hence propagandists seek message J* resonate with values. Persuasion should speak to values, it should tefej! and reaftirm and revisit those emotional experiences that first gav« birth. Hyperbole An important function of propaganda is to stimulate, another is preachment to the converted. Propaganda is not dialogue but monologue. Hyperbole is another characteristic, and a technique (often associated with advertising) which carries the potential for self-parody. Hyperbole does not make the mistake of asking for belief, it is an illusion which we are exhorted to share, explicit and even paranoid. Our pet bigotries are dramatised and enlarged to surreal proportions, but the fantasy does nevertheless afTect perceptions of the reality. Thompson (1979) claims that the media merely exploit prejudices, and this absolves our leaders. Others argue that propaganda is often a co-production and that people lend to it a suspension of their disbelief, and they have a need to see what they recognise as their own fantasies reflected in an equally fabulistic media, their own lies to themselves reflected and sustained by the larger lies of the public space. When critics claim that propaganda is manipulative', they perhaps envisage a passive recipient. While some propaganda exchanges may resemble this stimulus-response form, what is often going on in the propaganda process may be more subtle. The idea of people willingly misled strikes at the root of concepts of man as a rational decision maker, yet surely this is what occurred in Serbia. Rwanda and elsewhere. While the relation of journalism to propaganda is a complex and elusive one. there are certainly hyperbolic moments in the history of journalism whose status as propaganda few would dispute. The determination of the British press to package opposition Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock as an ignorant boor and an alarming leftist is an illustration of this. Tabloids instructed reporters to discover all manner of blunders committed by Kinnock on overseas trips, and the indiscretions were duly produced. The Sun capped this process with one of the most lurid fantasies in the history of journalism, the eight-page pre-election spread 'Nightmare on Kinnock Street'. The contents can be listed at some length (McKie 199 5): 'Unions will expect lni'*""" ■nls of propaganda 115 'labour's lukewarm start ,^1 to cough up . -—. .-aim Mun on immigrate,, VM| for.... r.irh«-r S"" claim that he had never held down a v, -"J on planning applications (even loft conversions and ejragei wbe.ippr»v d h\ g.e. and lesbian groups). 'Baby Carl would not haw for Tors HHS reforms'. Lest we forget" (pictures and story on the HU •/ gj> content). Alan Sugar of Amstrad blasts Labourscon trick'. lory doc barred as Kinnock visits hospital It's Mao or never, swore Nell'. Allegedly a i etced some famous dead people how they would vote in the election vatives were Churchill. Montgomery. Elvis Presley. Sid fames. Queen Labour supporters were Marx. Stalin. Trotsky. Robert Maxwell, etc ip. 7|.*Ihe Sum also claimed that the first day of a Labour government would see alien drop billions in value Uncommitted voters were more likely to choaee the Tories if they read a conservative paper, and in the year up to the 1987 election there was a 5 per cent overall swing to the Conscrvauve* brrrx^ persistent reader-, of Tory tabloids it was 12 percent (McKie 199 5 The emotion driven hyperbolical propaganda text is exemplified by a two-page advertisement placed in The Times (17 February 1992)by the International Fund for Animal Welfare. The caption - large white letters in an 8 in. red box nad. I o show you what kind of animal your MP is. we're i ,,,,„„.s Chi ii ■ oi tf.'.- v. ord animal' is a rather laboured doub>-pro-huntmg MPs are animals and in the advertisement their names marked with red dots This may be contrasted with another, scarcely beoer-manncred id* rtisement (pro-hunting) that pictured a screarning thug with the I ..pi.on I fee voice of reason?* {Daily Telegraph. 10 February 1992>. Clearly an advertisement which is configured in such a way does not. as social and commercial advertising so often does, invite several mterpreu-lions M. ..rung fare is not a matter of negotiation between text andReader-It ,s a lixed and highly poliud meaning where all dissent comes***** ciated with an iconic representation of mindless proletarian vicJecceAjt instantly surfaces other civic fears about out-of-control youths: imphcah cry represent the same phenomenon. Their aim is to motivate = ; , anon and to identify hunting as part of conservative, property- owning values The partisan propaganda approach may fail on several criteria get opponents to question the vehemence of their resolve, does it pc. neutrals? The task of inciting core loyalists to action should not be sought at the cost ol alienating rither constituencies whose support or neutrality ccedi be solicited more ambivalence permits supporters, the neutral and even the opposition a limited degree of latitude in affixing their own meanings. Propaganda has a popular image, that of the polem.cal rant, an ^ 1 shameless diatribe fomenting war and revolution in exotic places Tk n<1 rency of this idea of propaganda does certainly anaesthet.se petjpkT^ more ubiquitous and less visible or more sophisticated forms, but it ls in* tant to remember th*i jrude propaganda, propaganda in its popuiar ^ standing, is sriB offering its benediction for the indulgence of manfand.; mostrruserabfeitmmcts. The cootinuity of classic propaganda of agitation (in Ellul s terminology, remains not Basely a political force but also a social threat. Tribal and ethnic tensions, successors to the dying imperialisms of the twentieth cen-tury are uriiated by a propaganda that galvanises hatred into violence Events in Rwanda were precipitated and orchestrated via polemical radio broadcasts which stigmatised the Tutsis much as the Nazis did the lews those broadcasts, their content, number and impact, are a criucal explanatory factor in the genocide of the 1 million Tutsis. Serb and Bosnian Serb television adopted much the same role in ex-Yugoslavia - chauvinist hyperbole which demonised the Bosnian Muslims as 'Turks and so forth, nightly decanting the noxious bile of sectarian propaganda. I nfortunatetr the role of classic' propaganda in precipitating and sustaining modern conflict tends to be under-reported. News reportage is resrx)nsrveamlcrtsn>4rwen: causation and antecedent events are analysed only retrc^rjectwety. often superficially, with the focus on personaUues and moments of crtucal evolution but not on phenomena of persuasion. Communications tend to be neglected because analysis and objective measures of impact aredifficult Iwe ignore what we can't measure) or they are seen as manifestation*of discontent rather than causes. Depth research or long residence is thus beyond the opportunity of the average portable newsman, and. when frr^**—finally come to excavate the significance of communications, the Jssuwtiy is no longer newsworthy. Time has marched on. The signature of propaganda on events is missed. Subversion Much of ra-opasaoda works, essentially, by subversion. Never in fact was that word more appropriate, since propaganda will rarely succeed by directly chafcngaag a deeply held belief or value, but rather proceeds by misrepresent?**1" that insinuates the individuals ideological defences. Gaining agreement with a certain definition and the ideological perspective it illuminate* is the key. then perfectly logical arguments can then be deployed (and dm essentially is what the activity of spin-doctoring 117 mi to achieve these shifts .........„,„,,....... VTr r reedom °f th°icc;"""<• > a way of getting people to rethink ,xis.,„„ ,„., swhy many propaganda slogans are frarnH , .....JlIllls WHeath).'Whose finger on ,h<: in,(,,„,,,, i aspect of Hitlers rhetorical technique wan to fZ of critics at the beginning hi- -.pen hf.flilaln )nsts argue that this is a highly effective method, ion is when the persuader ha-, arr.were.l all i lie y the audience, or those the audience had in mind to reposition in the mind of the tanjal VidkXU <• v>me -nguage had made problematic -.oihai ih«->\A>I ihu- emphasise than the health consequences of smoking, drugs and rehaviour. To show endorsement by someone s social firm of persuasion, and advertising doe-, ibis all the be talked into an emotional state, talked Into I men state but also talked out of an emotional state* and O'Shaughnessy 200 3) real or manufactured, in the m<>:i fgtaiintk way Pbr _on that 10 percent of the population .ire in a state ol I more emotionally charged and th-M,,,, persuasive - mpressive claim that 90 percent of if..- population are matter. People svill st.ll frel ri,.,t I, . I M-i 7^pcr s »operior to that labelled 25 per cent fat. even after they las*d it The model of utility-maxim, in;......minlc man /nng up alternative chou-, u-yW'V. .he impact ol the way these choices are presented. involves seeing events or feature -.m.....d when ihev a is constantly creating BtaWJ corrcla.ion. In ptrtfc-for example between the product and '„< ial success. 2. un ca k „mi.ntt.A hv an advo« ;■•< who does not .:;;;::r:::r,'..........- would be an alternative expo-.......I -I 11,11 |amle*m » 118 AconcWualQrt feminisation of rhetoric thesis.) Hence the persuasive (per| act uses indirect means. °Cuiionir It may be necessary to position a message away from its true. obje , tion. Thus the 1997 Hyde Park rally in favour of country. i.e blooT1**1" was ingeniously positioned as a 'countryside' rally and we were tolrf0^ some of those attending had. in fact, no special fondness for hunun°„ ^ there is 'political correctness'. An important distinction between mod propaganda and that of earlier historical epochs is that propaganda often has to be more indirect and therefore relies on devices such as coded language and the subtext. People cannot today be addressed directly in the language of their prejudices, even if accessed in the specific media appropriated by their group. This is because the collective consciousness has become progressively more sensitive to the agenda of every kind of non-mainstream group. Governor George Wallace of Alabama, for example, offered, especially after he had formally eschewed his earlier racism, many of the same populist sentiments as Reagan. It was greater urbanity, not a different ideology, that made Reagan electable. Deceit in propaganda Forgery While much propaganda can be said to involve exaggeration - that, almost, is its definition - and indeed active misrepresentation, undeniably it sometimes involves the manufacture of falsehood, even forgery. Here we are in the realms of active fabrication and deceit. Thus Bush's spring 2003 State of the Union speech 'cited alleged documents stating that Iraq had attempted to buy 500 tons of uranium from the country of Niger. However, officials of the International Atomic Energy Agency looked at the documents and concluded they were counterfeits' (Rampton and Stauber 2003). Deception, it should be added, is one of the constituents the Pentagon includes in its definition of 'perception management'. Propagandists can do this almost openly with the audience even conscious of the falsehood being perpetrated, becoming willing co-conspirators in an act wherein they themselves are in a sense the victims. Once again, the explanation is that they are really being invited to share a mutual charade of anger, a point missed by critics who too easily reach for words like gullible' and 'naive', assuming the audiences have no recognition of the techniques being used. The fabrication may not be obvious at all and the audience really deceived, an increasing criticism of certain television productions. This is nothing new. March of Time used real footage but also staged scenes when describing the rising Nazi menace (with some footage being banned in Britain: Taylor 1990). Such methods, of course, always carry the risk of nulling a^ rr"r., -the relationship is not v- "-■ relieve the images they issue groups have -■lir: propaganda, their ».*:•.«■.:■_ raw and autheri' Chapter 7). - - an image, a symbol a r m t process of denial, by 120 *""'CrP"M,°'^ opposition text from ever emerging or by rinsing out any n sped ive thtil might contaminate the mainstream media. In apart* !>r. Africa (Tomasclli 1987) one form of censorship was of course lnpS nhvsical intimidation of film makers: with arrests and confiscations 1 > ,„, ,„i thfl ^se of Sven Peterson's Land Apart) intimidating MCM'sT office in California. Control of distribution, specifying who precisely watch the film, is a significant form of counter-propaganda. Whites^!? trusted with more subversive material, since the state operated in lhe Interest* and about one in three films passed for whites was banned Z blacks, the most ridiculous example being the ban on black viewers seeing the Urn Zulu I IVohl.The Minister of the Interior said 'there are some films which can be exhibited much more safely to the white child of fourteen wars than to an adult Bantu', but much depended on who the audience was. Negative and even socialist views could be allowed. Nor historically has gi iv<'t omen! censorship been the exclusive province of reactionary regimes, lor example. Gillo Pontecorvo's The Battle of Algiers (1966) was banned by Prance until 1971 {New York Times. 4 January 2004). I hus propaganda can be made through creative use of the censor's scissors as well ;is specifically commissioned propaganda films. Tomaselli (1987) points oul that film 'may have the meaning inverted through censorship directives' I )ne example is where the South African directorate ordered cuts and conditions so that according to the Appeal Court, 'the emphasis is thus changed from a successful to an unsuccessful terrorist attack'. (In another Incident the Minister of Information said that no African had asked to be included on the censorship committee.) Decisions in a commercial environment made under political pressure (though not direct government diktat) can have the same impact. The effectiveness as propaganda of Susumi I lams Prophecy and Terry Nash's // you Love this Planet was emasculated by the reluctance of distribution agencies to show them (Papademus 1989). ( ensorshlp is not the prerogative of governments alone. During the 2003 I raq war Al-Ja^eera 'became a target of hacker attacks that kept its English-language site unavailable throughout most of the war and kept down its Arabic language site for nearly a week' (Rampton and Stauber 2003). And the most effective form of control remains the intellectual self-policing of the media themselves. Peace groups were denied the purchase of air space by all major networks, including MTV: anti-war demonstrations in European capitals were ignored. Rampton and Stauber claim that 'the rest of the world did not experience the war as the clean, surgical operation that was presented on US television, where major media outlets cited reasons such as taste, news judgment or concern about offending viewers to explain why I hey are rarely showed images of dead and injured civilians'. They add that during the entire war the Chicago Tribune's front page had 'fewer than six' plCtures of dead , r 'n*™"°*»' »*Ue l.uropcan and Australian publl-5,0ns were ten limes more fcter, 0, mention cluster bomb, ,ha„ ,,„ ir ^erican equivalents, ' propaganda n^jTjsIs© > ' •"» the political iiilomui,,,,, . y. and hence the political An example of this is the lnlor„,;„ion research Department of the Forctgri Office, the focus of l.ashmar md Olivers Britain s Secret Prapammáu War. 1V4X-1977 (1998). We cannot really know the truth here vntM after 2020, when the relevant documents are declassified, but themnpactof thfe pDUp, bonded In 1948 to expose the realities of communism SildlBeljIng communist propaganda'. was .ippar-ently malign. It engaged. a§ II never ihould have done, in domestk < am-paigns. for example to dtecredfc left-wing churchmen or anti-Common Market campaigners fa 'awnmiinlst-m-.pired plot'). It supplied ina<< urate information to diplomats anC <■ \/.\\U< a\ decision makers: according to Adams (199 3) 'one report '/ample alleging the Cubans were in Ouinea training Africans in guerrilla warfare, was questioned by King and eventually tracked down to a :.(.'' fir | Of ;T.'/M'f«»l(i to look and eel intimidated: the key is separateness from the social mainstream. lo Ovenng (1997) myths of al.eritv are not usually subtle- for they dwell upon the exaggerated excesses of the despised and threatening other . Merely to be Afghan could have been enough, as in the case of the taxi driver paralysed in London, even though Afghans were themselves the first victims of the Taliban. The social construction of an enemy fultils several important functions. We define ourselves by reference to what we are not. This clarifies our values or where we stand, and gives us a coherent sense of sellhood. Second, it is only by reference to enemies that we became united, and the greater the internal discord within societies the more powerful will our need for enemies be: the propaganda construction of enemies is a source of social integration. Schopflin (19971 argues that this process will frequently go together with the construction of mythic enemies who are attempting to destroy the collectivity in a demonic conspiracy'. According to Blain (19S8). 'just as people can be talked into buying things they do not need, so the political leader can talk the desire for revenge into people---- The rhetoric of enemies is a potent means of gaining and sustaining social Integration in modern society." And Blain believes that political agents concoct a rhetoric of motives that they use to incite their followers to fight their enemies': he claims that the main effect of war rhetoric is social integration through the constitution of common enemies: a victim-villain hierarchy is necessary to the production of political incitement'. Politicians, especially governments in trouble, look about for new enemies U) manufacture. Hence in Britain New Labour's search for a reactionary' enemy (Blair's 'forces of conservatism) against which to define itself. It thought it had found one in the ancient universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and their failure to admit an undeniably bright state school student to Study medicine (Stevens 2001). This served several purposes, including diverting attention from low state expenditure on education and the quality Of state schooling. In totalitarian regimes, the creation of enemies is an important part of state activity. In Khomeinis Iran, for example, the hgure of the author Salman Rushdie was a useful enemy because he could be Presented as a blasphemer, thereby subject to a death sentence even though o«m« hi? translators were in fact murdered, he lived in a Western country: some ol nis iranMln cvxkTtodefcaaSJSSSisraw enemy, it is necessary to put into circulation stereotypes mh*h deay^a autonomy as an individual i h.ir.n ler In /c\e .Suv\ i the of the Third Reich iancw Jewish sterc. a\ |v in, teated one ghetto Jew of other Nazi prop.., .ml., i, i suv\t ippenhcuntsacourt, the ugly message is that vmie |ews have a \ nicer of civilisation, and they STt the most dangerous l llerz\t« in I *# 7H > \ mA ondarv tnent of this stereotvpr Is that it mobilises the l.itenl envy ••) ihe have nots lor the pirhfh*** SSSStt and successful. George Orwell s novel \m, i,, n , (.dm, w depicted a mytfcfc' cal dictator. Big Brother and his la minus encniv I inmanuel Goldstein, is a focus for populist rage, with .tiolvlcs roaring at Goldstein in uuoudian hate session , The enemy will more usually be a real one. but the purpose of propaganda will I*- to motivate us by making us really hate. In Rwanda. Hutu propaganda mi< Ii a Hadio Intel ahamwe |>ortfaVed Iutsis as homicidal aliens who had to be liquidated, even I hough they had been in Rwanda since An aim., phere <»l extreme paranoia arose in which as civic duty. As Bl.*k . 1994» explains. 0 the lifteenfh " lu,sl """Iral tenet of Hum p • Kad.o ^erahamwe was owned by their henchmen, it was hate-tilled . « , igh virulent and singled out pohtieians who deserved to die In ten mvk> the militia killed hall .1 million people, helped by Hutu civilians lluxHiahoul the slaughter the radio continued to encourage Rwandans to fill the ha* empty Kr',u's \\ hen vou kill the rats do not let the pregnant one e*\ .v \\;-made ihe mistake ihirh years ago of letting them tlee into exile ihis time none will escape iBKvk \W4). The parallels between Hutu pRpiganda and the Nazis racist ideology, the enemy as a rat 1a scene m ]e\\>). their threat to a mperlor civilisation, the need to eliminate them entirely are almost loo obvious to merit comment. The language of contempt In the process ol dehumanising, it is particularly important to manufacture a new language to separate us from the victim group and to render them contemptible Such language may contain a distinct image of interwrtt* such as Charles Murray's 'underclass', thus performing its . . calduty ot devaluing them or since words accumulate new meanings. MM 00« originally intended as vindictive, such as 'Sambo', acquire derogatory retereixv Name calling, one of the methods of propaganda cued by the Institute far Propaganda \nalysis in the 19 3()s (Alfred Lee 1986: Elizabeth Lee I9S6K is a way of instantly positioning and stereotyping an adversan by highlighting the key features which mark them out as other than us and nYrcsents the essence of their debasement The Croats referred to the Serbs as trcronsts. but the Serbs themselves exhibited a particular fondness for name calling: all Croats were Itasha iC.erman allies in World War II). while Bosnian Muslims became Turks a particularly inllammatory term, given the kxig hftSftSTJ of the Balkans under Turkish occupation (Zimmerman I WSJ Bm Laden exhorts his followers against Zionists and crusaders It the enemy is not reallv an alien, we can still tind the ways of making them appear to so. Language is used to divide us from others in our own oountrv Foulkes (198} l for example, making comparisons between the concept ot un-American and Brecht s reference to the prevalence of the term unAVrmao in Nazi Germanv. The dianes of Victor Klemperer (1998) are in part a study o< thec\>ioal-sation of language by ideology intent on severing the bonds of tvmmon humanity with another segment of the community: the lews bewme (or example a hyphenated entity. Jewish-Bolshevik. r>mocracies at war have also found it necessary to manufacture a nomenclature of derogation. often with racial overtones: Huns. Nips. Wops, feg preceded in an earlier generation l»v the («athei ^nlerlfa^TNlw icans needed a rtietoric of r-riiully as well aller Nme-eie^^S; Rivera of the Few network. Al-Qm-dii were nlwa» tert« ito^.S** always heroes 'and the network audience was ^hvrvYmh^ber^V previous yean. CNN was thus forced to 'burnish its IMuxxkcit^JJ?^ had ordered ^correspondents in rclei to the 1 I ih s*t»emkexi^J time footage is shov.r. of t ivilianiasii.lilies in Ugluiv.sun ' 11 November 2001). Olhemess and the media A good story needs a villain. Narrative structure in no\rland< film often arises from polarity, rsprcialh ihc primordial ten good and eft, more particularly so since the c\ il personalty erosest^ debased energy whose arousal ami ulliin.itc siihui momentum. Partly, too. this is because In literary tray evil than grxxl Villains test the hero's coni|\ :. narrative dnve and create opportunities lor rich characti merely saintly cannot oder (liven Dickens found it d\itDcuJtloi interesting, b: Oscar Wilde said, one would have to have a not to laugh at the death of I.idle Nell.) This structural villain in the production of media texts creates a need to targets and therefore the debased causes with which vuM associate. The Mafia cannol. of course, sustain this role there is villain fatigue, and political correctness V and it is this which makes I lolly wood, not insliluuonaaS'cci on occasion, a propaganda machine. An example of this is populai niliuivM'nc;;.. \ Big Tobacco iSunduu Vintes. 2 \ March 19^~i Assaults on this prwk opportunities for exposing tin- corruption of power and the* ness while avoiding accusations of being anti-bu Frank Freudberg (J 990). a dying smoker seeks \i less corporate monoliths who fed off his addict (John Grisham I 996), anonymous corporate e\< cancer lawsuit: in ihr I'ratthr, a I IS teleusio: lawyer fights her old law professor in another court «ieü victims. The far t that these works stand pnmanS d> aaan that good entertainment ollen ilemands a \ illain. need : status as propaganda. They stand squarely with the tr populism as diseased hy M. Kii/ln in his r\v4. Tar ftp (1995). Oshmsky has argued (New Vor! Times, 12 Feerua its rhetoric had always stressed the light between ^x\: 113 *iu 0/ propaqamb W"* *-*"m™ tended to P<>rlrl,v „„,, ........ £H™5 „„„ (fc, example. WlUlami Icnning.s Hry„„ ;„„|,,,„„., , h;i(|,k. ," JU in, ^ subsequently Rush L.mbaugh). |oe McCarthy de< lalmed a deep l^ral ^,,shment conspiracy lo advaiu,. ^ ™ sample would be Charles Coughlins claimed conspiracy of the Jewish plutocracy-Warren 1996). ' " The need for narrative structures also domlna.es .In-.nanular.ure of our news -B.rd and Dardenne 1988). The essence of news is -.lory telling and again, stones demand, often if not usually, a villa... to tf.ve .hern narrative O/tve and ethical meaning. The Daily Mail, for example, playi to the prejudices of the tnglish middle class like a Stradivarli.s: a daily prr*cssion of jrn seekers, thugs, illicit social securily rla.manls. 1.1, excesses worker Malinists and politically cornel lunaclff parade, menacingly outrageously, through its pages. The reader is invariably left in a state of repressed rage. The editor of the Daily Mail knows what he 11 doing. The -:ia's need for stories with villains also coalesces will, our need lo blame someone when things go wrong. With the Atlanta bombing, the only evi-'l1 if ' against Richard Jewel was that he fitted a profile drawn up by a police 11jis demonstrates aptly how our need lor villains and instant ■iir wen ' an contaminate the process of public judgement IW>hn M992) discusses Nimmo and Coombs' view ol television as pv-udo reality. iThey claim the 'romantic quest slruc lure' has been particular!', important in television news, while Met ice called the quest a 'uni-.' r ,;.J iructure' that gives meaning to political practices and rituals.) Dobkm also quotes CBS news reader l-'red Graham news slones on CBS tended to become two-minute morality pb«ys will, heroes, villains and a h'ly moral to be summoned up at the end. Graham added thai despite the Gat I thai many important events did not present clear < ui heroes, villains, moral-,, the correspondents became experts al pointing them Jewel was no terrorist, and real terrorists are the ultimate oilier'. How-< r .he language of denigration confuses, nol clurllles. Il.e Issues In the Bm place, governments can be terrorists yet are seldom described as such rihal of apartheid South Africa, for example). Instead, oppressive govern- „,,,.-. are ,ccn as maintaining order', conducting ope.......ns . etc r.nuier 1990). Second, the international media's .en. lion lo groups such .... If(, ,;,rn.f, is seldom uniform and may change m,-, lime, theU etnlcnl judgments calibrated by a language which gradual™ fro,,, terrorists to ;, ,11;,., lo freedom fighters: the choice of these terms Is Il.e formulating ol out social judgement rather than the description..! a-,-! ol phenomena r.i, „,,-, 1990). Thirdly, there is a rationale lo. I.no. win. I. Il.e language of « conceptual QrrQn^ 134 hvDhenauon. while entirely iusUnedasav m adfi**** ">P l0 some bloody outrage, serves to den^r^nn ^ r,;. p,,nsc phors such as p\ague rtrn^ CtOOtiOO* " ,(: „| biological ^ moUvcsrf rorism from » • hkc game or when lhe moUva^ triviaUsedw. A \\C ^.^alional. policy makersare\ed^; po 'communi o.u>veemtnis that is* Socio/ integration The creation '.I <-r,< rr, < is easy. The right inflammatory rhetoric, judicious selection of tftCtl >nd malicious parodies of custom can successfully demonise v;. >thes of the human race: 'there are many situations where the society in question lacks the cognitive instruments to see the message that is hidden behind the myth and will accept the causation that is being offered as proper explanation for its fate. The use of xenophobic narrative and s< apegoatmg is an easy next step' (Schopflin 1997).Thereis a particular < all lor the media to pioneer the responsible role. A climate of contempt is I reeled lor the enemy's culture, with even the more sophisticated member-, of the media competing in parody, for example the assertion in the Daily Telegraph (12 September 2001) and elsewhere in the British media that Islamic martyr-warriors believe they will be awarded seventy-two virgins as brides in heaven (with no authority from the Koran, which along with ih<- other laiths of the book'. Judaism and Christianity, explicitly forbid, -amide). 'I hose stigmatised as hostile 'begin to accept the demonic role assigned to them and behave in accordance with it' (Schopflin 1997). Jewel's caif nrai a moral tale of our times that illuminates our need for heroes and villains feted by the Olympics' business sponsors, he himself did not seek publicity but was soon its victim. Finally the Atlanta Journal announced, 'Hero guard may have planted a bomb', and offered a full profile of the lonei as publicity-seeking drifter hero wannabe: he was the unabubba'. investigated exhaustively by the FBI. followed on motor cycles. Yet lilting the profile was the only 'evidence' about him. (www.augu-.tar hronicle.com/headlines/102996/jewel.html) Thus tlo- activities of the news media compromise in large measure the search lor villains, and the press thus creates whole categories of social enemies. Yet in Britain the .Sum newspaper, once notorious for its social insensilivlly, now lakes a lead, with two pages devoted to the defence of ordinary Muslims. I< aiuring profiles of five British Muslims (www.thesun. co.uk). I lollywood i ould be a powerful force, for if its media products today have a common Ideological denominator it is the importance of social 'ons i is ^ration: w* can inspire inclusion.just as we can incite exclusion, feto rj* * symbols - for President Bush to visit a mosque after Nine' * abiljty of Nazism to project superb villains. The need for enemies is inherently political, since in choosing our enemies we define what we are and also what we are not: our values are illuminated and defined by their obverse, and this process has a political character, since it involves choice over ultimate ends and means, what we as | community stand for or against. We understand ourselves by our selection of enemies. Thus drama needs binary opposition to create those attributes that are key in dramatic suspense: fear (there can be no dramatically effective enemy of whom we are unafraid: we desire their demise because of their unfathomable wickedness and coldheartcdness). and identification - the our' (good) side stresses the best of our values and character. Changing values do not result in a sophisticated and mature vision in which complexities of perspective and character are taken on board. I hey simply create new sorts of villain to replace the Red Indians. Nazis. Matiosi and gangsters, complete with all the traditional attributes of villains, and Big Tobacco fits the bill admirably: rich, amoral, deceitful, powerful, it has no redemptive virtue. In Feds a mephistophelian pseudo-militia. CigSoc. attempts to besmirch the good name of an anti-tobacco prosecutor by secreting cocaine in his home, one character remarking, obscene profits and the fear of losing them are turning otherwise decent people into lying, deceitful manipulators' {Sunday Times. 2 5 March 1997). Political correctness and global harmony are. it is claimed, playing havoc with traditional sources of treacherv. These workings can be seen, for example, in I he farm film. It is the manichean good-evil universe that has been a staple of Hollywood from its first beginnings. On the side of virtue are the family and its farm and the role of agricultural labour, a synonym for honest toil. The villains are the banks, which foreclose on farms after having been promiscuous in their lending, and. beyond them, the big business which pressures them, masking their complicity with the allusions to the free market (Webster 1988). _ „ . . , . Hollywood has always needed villains. The little guy or girl against the rotten system a decent man badly wronged who needs to be avenged are classic Hollywood down through its history. It is when the enemy is given some sort of political-social character, and often this Is necessary both to the conllic. meaning and because- social political ideol^ „ Inrce for difference, lhat considerations of propaganda arise. N, Y,t enemies are not necessarMy conce.ved as either human T«SSSTSSSi Uar I, In Jjch the appear and the real .heme . man s mastery of hosule na,uri. ; X'bv solidarity and team work. I he war talm F.rw «W . oTht.answer .he question By whom, Thus the enemy came s,m-) „ reoresem all that man must battle agums. to be a man. connect!,,,,,,,, warume public with all the natural oPPress,ons that their ancient a„c«u„ had endured. Enmity in action: Slobodans propaganda war There was nothing inevitable about the genocidal 'ethnic' tension of former Yugoslavia. People had intermarried and lived together for years, and countries, as with Czechoslovakia, can and do sunder peacefully. That, for ten years, they had been killing each other in an orgy of fratricidal butchery not seen in Europe since World War II owed everything to the determination of Slobodan Milosevic and his henchmen to sustain dominance through the toxic agency of propaganda and their understanding of its power to mobilise the emotions of fear, rage and hatred. Through propaganda they created a rhetoric of alien threat lhat is always the necessary preamble to mass murder, and they vjught to synthesise ancient and modern fears, the old terror of the Turk neatly elided with modern fear of Islamic fundamentalism. The crisis thus arose also out ol the propaganda tradition of communism. Marxism-Leninism, the post-war Ideology of the Yugoslav state, was never a mere' belief system alone but a proselytising creed whose evangelism was an integral part of its ideology. This supplied a ready-made methodology for attaining and sustaining power. Nationalism was just a way for Milosevic's henchmen to retain control by reviving ancient and long dormant tensions: yesterday they were communists, today fascists. Power, not ideology, was what mattered to them, lor the French theoretician on propaganda. Jacques Ellul (1973). 'ideology and doctrine an- mere accessories used by propaganda to mobilise individuals. The aim K the power ...'. This was abetted by some structural similarities between < ommunism and ethnocentric nationalism. Both, for example, diminish He individual, making the substitution of one ideology for the other relatively easy. This propaganda assault was contrived round four principal themes the Muslim as social and cultural >Ure aN 0f former andcoUn. for ten butchery termina-o^inarice ng of its ^ propa-cessary nt and fear of unism. lever a m was jgy for evic's sions: was ques -opa- dby rjofl-tion w& inn' ,;ll"'U mls0) propaganda I 1/ , Lhreal ol in Islamic super-state, the Internátu ,s,, i- ■...........W« of Serbia's eneW*""" fig" ......i .1........ ,.r v:..rK .........._ i Mi v rhc „, s, j. i ,mi theme of Serb propaganda was the foreigi 111 clím 111 • 11.11 hi .i i ■ -i- <\„.i_____..... seldom enough I Ik . -of then Muslim neighbours. Orders to kill i^™'"^" musl 'I11'1' 1,11,1 *™k* Hte bestowal of social ,„„,„„, muJ murdei obtalm .is alibi through this rhetoric of otherness ^on ol ihc alien la nol natural but socially constructed, it hassomci h ,1 |iu basis m rmclenl differences, but mostly it is a fabrication. In Rwand , genocide m ai pi ©ceded In several years of anti-Tutsi radio polemics itrei • m fettls' rorelgnnan even though they had been in the country fo. HOO ftm i " s•,m,'VVi,s" «■ ol Nazi Germany, ilk-fore then, the extinction the lews faced was rati enough via Intermarriage.) For Saiecl (Zimmerman 1995) ..ii nationalism, national Identification with the nation is based on the fantasy ol I lie enemy, an alien who has insinuated himself Into QUI locletj and constantly threatens us with habits, discourse and rituals thai are not our kind'. In Bosnia thll was achieved by sarcasm, by such devices as merging ;i Muslim newSCaSter'l VOloa with film of chattering chimpanzees, or Serb newscasters mumbling phrases from Muslim burial rites with sjiliri. ;illy bowed head; I he stress on Muslim racial pollution, however, comes itralghl nut of the ImaglSUC lexicon of (he Third Reich: 'it was genetically deformed material thai embraced Islam. And now. of course, with each successive generation this gene simply gels more concentrated.' To Radavan K.ir;idzic. Muslims were an urban population with no attachment to the soil' i/immet in.in I 995)i Another theme dear to the Serbs was the vision they had pedalled .it V8I ions times of a (iiealer Albania', or of a muscular Islamic fundamentalist state digging deep into the heart of Europe and embracing Bosnia. Kosovo. Albania, TUrkey and Iran. They spoke of a threatened Serbdom and the extinction of Serb Identity. Serbs were the guardians of Christendom who had merely been defending themselves and European civilisation from Islamic fundamentalism. Serbs, then, were the defenders of the West, and the West was too craven, myopic and ungrateful to realise it. S< hopllln 11997) in his taxonomy Of mythl speaks of myths of redemption and suffering, where II is clear thai the nation, by reason of its particularly 101 rowful history, is undergoing or has undergone a process of expiating ii sins and will be redeemed or, indeed, may itself redeem the world I'.aM European myths posit a bleeding to near extinction so that Europe could llourish These myths should he understood as myths of powerlessness and compensation lor thai powerlessness.' Then there were tin* iilnu Hies of Serbia's enemies. For the Serb InoV I the bellevablllty of this was crucial to their programme of ethnic < \v.uv.\uv Serbs claimed lo have found proof that Muslims were planning cise all Serb boys and kill all males over the age of three and sVV^ between the ages of lilteen and twenty-6ve into a harem to produ saries1 (Zimmerman L995J Of course this is ridiculous, but prote^ does not have to ask for belief to be effective, people (as We ha*8** become co-conspirators in magnified fantasies of their own biJ** and fears. Similar at counts also appeared about the activities of kl^ Kosovo even as the Serbs mutilated that nation. Projecting your oJ! crimes on to your enrmy is a familiar propaganda technique (as in the film featuring llriiish concentration camps of the Boer War. Ohm Kru^ in Herzstein I97K). Zimmerman (I also discusses Natos great anti-Serb conspiracy ifr/ no propaganda is complete without a conspiracy). After the Daytcr. accords. Serb anti-NA'IO propaganda shifted into hyperbolic mode, and the psychological prologue lor the Kosovo war was strenuously prepared. NATO with their military transporters and tanks ... are running over children and mothers on your Serb roads, arresting our best and braves warriors who fought in the war only to save their people and Serbdom.Thej-are bombarding us. poisoning us with radioactive bombs, destroying our homes and bridges, taking us to court... they want to exterminate our seed.' According to Zimmerman the Serb media manufactured the ultimate fiction, that NATO had used low-intensity nuclear weapons in Bosnia, and people were contaminated by radiation. One historical parallel was thus irresistible: lilms of NATO peacekeepers merged with archive footage of German soldiers, and television maintained a sentimental diet of World War 11 partisan lilms. I he international community had betrayed the Serbs. The International War Crimes Tribunal was cast as a partisan body with no further aim than lo criminalise Serbs. These themes were articulated through techniques of rhetoric, myth making and information control. Control - of Information, of images - was the core of Serb propaganda methodology. Zimmerman discusses how Milosevic had long learned to muffle internal critical voices almost to the point of silence by such devices as manipulating the cost ol newsprint. By banishing all Western media from Kosovo he denied the West that which would most galvanise it into military action, visual images of massacred civilians, of which we could see the merest peep. The images and information the West got from Belgrade were also controlled: journalists could be expelled, telephones cut. pictures censored. The effect of Information control on Milosevic's own people was. however, incalculable, and. as journalists such as lohn Simpson reported, most of them simply could not understand why the West was attacking them or assumed II was some malevolent international conspiracy against Serbia. ^nmis of propaganda M9 arv. for Turks'. Mus,im and Croat ^L^^ „,M/;Ifcaa>rn ,*W warnors, M,Orr Mus|lmhodes butchers. All Muslims became fundarr*mtalists\ and comrade' ^ did not matter, the Muslim was the terrible terrorist but he was also ^ultaneously the smiling dull-witted bahje irude peasant. .Zimmerman 1995). Such words direct thinking, they are sensitising concepts, in that a „ord or phrase is seldom value-neutral but embodies a picture, an image or an ethical judgement. To get our opponents to use our cho.ee of words is the greatest propaganda triumph, though in the case of the term ethnic dcansing' - so reminiscent of Judenrein - this rebounded on the Serbs and ::.T.:£anda became counter-propaganda There were, of course, the myths. Montgpnaery has argued, 'if Yugoslavia is to teach us anything, surely it is about the malleability of historical memory, myth and identity' (Zimmerman 1995 A mythic, folkloric Serbia had been created, with Kosovo as a kind of hory land, its sacrosanc-tity in no way diminished by the fact that for well over 500 years it had ceased to be Serb. Schópflin (1997» speaks of myths of territory, a land where purity was safeguarded, where folk virtues were best preserved before contact with aliens. These interlocked with other Utopian self-sustaining myths, such as that of the Serbs as gallant warnors. the image of martial prowess defined by a nightly television advertisement. Schópflin further argues that: The Serbian myth of Kosovo essentially begins w*h eke redempuve dement, in that the defeat of Kosovo Polje is explained by the choice of heavenly glory over earthly power. Self-evidently. this is an ex potí kxtm rahnnalisaoon of the military defeat of the Serbian forces by the Ouottan annas in 1J89 and the subsequent conquest of Serbia: today die A tiammi are reconfigured as Turks, the ancient enemy. Myth, he adds, makes communication difTkuk. ance mythical language is »»> in. ne auus. muK.ei hhuuuuimhhh for intra-, not inter-community communication'. Murder is a deeply unnatural act. We have no inherited predisposition kill. We do it because we have been persuaded to. because our deepest err hons have been colonised by somebody etae. The murderers going abou 'heir work in Kosovo were not monsters but normal men Vet their barbarism is incomprehensible unless it is placed in the context that explains it. years of saturation propaganda at once sentimental, self-pitying, vindictive and xenophobic. The real culprits in this long list of executant Miaan mon. drownings, burnings, massacres and atrocities furnished by our report, are not. we 140 cone ft* repeat, the Balkan peoples. . . The true culprits are those vvh public opinion and take advantage of the people's ignorance to • misll',Kl ihř ing rumours and sound the alarm bell, exciting their country intuiT ' real culprits are those who. by interest or inclination, declare co nmi,y'^ war is inevitable, and by making it so. assert that they are powerless to it. The real culprits are those who sacrifice the general interest to personal interest... And who held up to their country a sterile polic ^'f ^ flirt and reprisals. (Prom the report of the International Commissi ^ inquire into the Course and Conduct of the Balkan Wars of 1912 and \V° Zimmerman 199Si «1