by Propaganda
ness. Religious beliefs may postpone happiness to another life aft er death, but happi-
ness is still the ultimate goal. For example, an Arabic language document, some pages
of which were reportedly found in a suitcase of a September 11 hijacker, Mohamed
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Atta, advised hijackers: “You’re doing a job which is loved by God, and you will end your day in heavens where you will join the virgins.”2The word “happiness” may
suggest a state of blissed-out withdrawal from the world or a total immersion in a
sensual Valhalla, neither of which everybody wants. Some people are happy bearing
the burdens of life, taking care of others regardless of their own desires, knowing that
they are at least bringing happiness in some sense to these others. People tend to be
concerned in a general way about better living conditions. For example, they do not
want the environment destroyed or to find traffic at a standstill on their way to work.
The propagandist will argue or suggest that whatever it is he or she is pushing will
prevent destruction of the environment, help to reduce traffic congestion, or what-
ever else relates to the special concerns of the audience. The formula is simple, and
the complexity comes only in knowing, first, what it is that a given audience holds
near and dear to their hearts and, secondly, how to convince them that the persons or
policies presented for their vote will succeed in bringing about their wish.
Knowing the mind of an audience comes in modern times largely through opin-
ion polls. Money gives a great advantage to a modern propagandist, since polls are
not cheap. Even so, polls have their limitations, and people can change their minds.
But, assuming that the pre-existing beliefs and attitudes of an audience are known, the
problem becomes one of convincing people that the program, measure, person, politi-
cal party, commercial object, or whatever the propagandist is pushing is desirable. This
is where a great number of different methods and considerations come into play.
Attention
Whether we deal with legitimate persuasion or ethically dubious propaganda, the
first problem has always been to secure the attention of an audience. Merely putting
something in someone’s field of vision does not ensure getting their attention. We tend
to filter out of our perceptive field what does not interest us. If it does not pertain to
our interests, we are likely to ignore it, unless it suddenly barks or screams or hits us
over the head. It is interesting how advertisements on some Internet provider pages
are sometimes so jumbled that we don’t notice them until they start to move; then we
find our attention drawn to them, even against our will. Since those who wish to get
our attention for propaganda purposes want to secure our compliance, they will not
be well-advised to use irritating means. Much ingenuity has been exercised in the past
to find an acceptable way of gaining and holding people’s attention. George Orwell,
when he was only 11, once stood on his head near a fence bordering a neighbour’s
garden where three children were playing cricket. One of them asked, politely but
with curiosity, why he was standing on his head. The young Orwell replied, “You are
noticed more if you stand on your head than if you are right way up.”3 Orwell knew
something about gaining attention, which is to present novelty. We may recall that the
rise to power of the Nazis in Germany during the 1920s and early 1930s was assisted by
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Goebbels’s clever, attention-getting posters, such as one in blood-red ink announcing that “The Kaiser of America Speaks in Berlin,”4 and through the use of violence. It
seems an unfortunate truth that the unscrupulous have an easier time getting press
coverage.
However, attention is affected by more than just the unusual. Pictures of scantily
clad, beautiful women and men are hardly unusual today, yet they are still eye-catch-
ing. We notice things that already preoccupy us in some way or other. Our own name
will jump out at us from a list. Our professional concerns will cause our attention to
fasten on key words related to our work as we scan a newspaper. Skillful advertising
depends partly on knowing what kinds of things will capture the attention of the
relevant market audience without causing offence in doing so.
Totalitarian states exact the attention of people by force. In a free society, the
right of a person to choose what messages to see and hear will place limits on the right
of others to communicate with him or her. In democratic states today, attention is
often sought by producing good visuals for television. People of the Cree First Nation
brought war canoes to Central Park in New York, successfully getting press attention
for their cause of opposition to further Hydro-Quebec damming of their lands. More
recently, anti-tobacco campaigners dressed up in costumes to look like cigarettes, in
imitation of the cartoon character drawn by Doonesbury. Such public relations gim-
micks are risky, because the desire of the media for good pictures is counterbalanced
by their resentment against being used. In the “Who is using whom?” assessment, it
is hard to predict the outcome. Either way, familiarity could breed unconcern. Fresh
stratagems need to be thought up from time to time. Even a sympathetic editor is
likely to recoil from repeat performances.
Emotional Appeals
In a general way, propaganda and persuasion rely to a large extent on emotional levers.
Wartime propaganda fuels hatred and anger against an enemy by turning the enemy
into a non-human creature, unworthy of rights or respect in the eyes of propagandees.
Or it appeals to fear of the consequence of inaction. Recruitment propaganda often
appeals to the sense of belonging, to the fear of being left out and not counting as a
somebody in one’s peer group. Beer and tobacco commercials stress the sense of group
membership, of acceptance in fun-loving crowds when drinking or smoking.
There are many different kinds of emotional appeals, all linked to reigning
ideas of what is thought right or admirable at a given time. Emulation, greed, envy,
and the like are sometimes stimulated by messages and signs that invite the reader,
viewer, or hearer to be like some successful person portrayed in them: “You, too,
can be thin, healthy, if ...”; “You, too, can be a responsible parent, if ...”; “You want
to have beautiful skin? Here’s how....” Of course, there may be rational grounds for
linking a given product with some featured admirable quality, but typically the
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emotional appeal works independently. Perhaps the deepest anxiety in all of us relates to death and the afterlife, and it is not surprising that religions offering pal-liation of such anxieties can also convince people to part with a large part of their
possessions to support their ministries. If the religion is too successful in answering
these anxieties, a hell-fire sermon m
ay be useful for restoring them. A religion that
confronts and answers our deepest anxieties is at least doing the job asked of it. In
modern times, we see language or music previously reserved for the holy and sacred
applied to mundane products pushed by the advertiser. The success of this seemingly
contradictory effort remains to be seen.
One use of emotion is to distract people from evaluating evidence. There is an
old joke about advice given to a novice trial lawyer: “If the law is on your side, pound
it into the judge. If the facts are on your side, pound it into the jury. If neither the law
nor the facts are on your side, pound it into the table.” It helps, in a lawsuit for dam-
ages, if the victim appears before the court bandaged up and looking to be in a piti-
able state. If a newspaper supports a politician, it publishes pleasant pictures, perhaps
showing the politician surrounded by smiling children. If it chooses to undermine a
politician, it prints pictures showing an unsmiling face surrounded by angry people.
In the course of an election campaign, many different expressions and scenes can be
captured, so an editor can exercise a considerable power of selection.
Credibility
As indicated, emotion can sometimes distract an audience from raising questions
about the authority and believability of a given message or spokesperson, but moods
change from day to day, and a more concrete grounding for belief-acceptance may
be needed over time. Repetition can help, but some further anchor is usually
needed. The best anchor is reason, but not everyone can follow and appreciate the
intricate arguments surrounding, say, risks from mishaps in a nuclear reactor. Since
the public cannot always follow the arguments, it looks instead to the credentials of
the person or group making them. This leads to what is perhaps the most important
concern of propagandists, public relations consultants, and the like—namely, how
to impart credibility.
In modern times, the credibility of honest science is very high. That is why a lot
of money is spent on studies to show scientifically whatever it is that the persuader
wishes the public to believe. But the public can be deceived in three ways. First, the
scientists themselves may be corrupted, ignoring those things that count against the
wishes of the funding group and reporting only those things that tend to support
them. Secondly, the scientists may be perfectly honest, but the public may come to
believe that the results have an authority they do not in fact have. For example, in 1995,
the Canadian gold-mining company, Bre-X, had its Indonesian ore samples analyzed
by a prestigious, reputable firm, which found a very high concentration of gold in
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them. The analyzing company noted that the samples were supplied by Bre-X, but this fact received insufficient attention. Later, it was revealed that the samples were “salted”
(i.e., had gold artificially added to them to make them appear richer than they were).
The stock of Bre-X soared, only to drop precipitously when the worthlessness of the
unsalted samples came to light. Thirdly, advertisements can give merely through the
use of imagery the impression that those with relevant scientific knowledge approve
or endorse a product. For decades the tobacco industry would show images of doctors
smoking, conveying the idea that if medical practitioners smoke, the practice (at least
with regard to the portrayed brand of cigarette) is unlikely to be harmful.
In a general way, a major goal of the propagandist is to seek some kind of authori-
tative backing for the belief he or she is propagating. Different devices (to be looked
at later) can be used to achieve that aim.
Analogy and Scope
The propagandist bent on promoting some object seeks in general to link the project,
person, ideology, party, or whatever to some thing or things that are viewed favourably
and not to some thing or things that are viewed unfavourably. Words and pictures are
both well-suited for this activity. Certain favourable buzzwords are applied to features
of the relevant project, etc., or unfavourable buzzwords get applied to things the propa-
gandist wants the public to reject. Cultural icons are readily exploitable for propaganda
purposes. Of course, icons can be toppled, and words can lose their buzz over time.
Different words have different breadths of meaning, and these differences can be
exploited for persuasive purposes. A heinous action may be made to appear innocent
by choosing a word or expression that is applicable but that has broader connotations.
“I merely told the truth about X’s past,” may disguise the simple fact that the destruc-
tion of X’s reputation was involved. Where there is a blameless accidental killing, as
in the case of some car accidents, the blamelessness can be disguised, sometimes inten-
tionally, by the deliberate omission of the qualifier “accidentally.”
Morally Evaluative Language
Words can also be used to convey a moral attitude or a whole moral framework, which
will affect the understanding or appreciation of a given idea, activity, person, group,
etc. Whether we view a protest action as striking a blow for justice, as distinct from
engaging in a despicable, cowardly terrorist act that maims innocent victims, will
depend not only on the individual facts of the episode (the maimings might have
been accidental) but also on one’s overall moral assessment of the justification for the
protest and of the risk involved. The events of September 11, 2001 have rightly been
condemned in world opinion, but it serves neither clarity of thinking nor future world
peace to treat them as if they had no direct or indirect connection with previous US
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“Soldiers All,” Punch, March 10, 1915.
military actions in the Middle East and with innocent victims of this involvement. It
tends to be a feature of warlike situations that opponents’ actions are viewed in the
blackest possible light, with morally loaded language reflecting that interpretation,
while one’s own or one’s al ies’ actions are treated in the most favourable light.
Framing
Walter Lippmann observed many years ago how stereotypes affect our vision of the
world and how they can result in a coded view affecting ethical judgments.5 In war-
time, the soldier operates under a patriotic code and is prepared to sacrifice his life for
his country. For this, a grateful nation is supposed to hold him or her in high esteem
for their courage and valour. The idea of striking for higher pay would be quite out of
place within this frame.
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By contrast, the munitions manufacturer is allowed to make a fortune produc-
ing war material because the patriotic code is not in place for this. Instead, the capi-
talist code of freedom operates to justify wartime profits. One might ask why, if a
war is so necessary to a n
ation’s well-being, the producers of weaponry should not
also make sacrifices, such as operating at cost instead of profiting? Given the bias
in the mass media towards the wealthy, this frame switching never seems to get
much of a hearing. But the framing of the munitions worker in terms related to the
patriotic code was explicitly used by Punch, the British humour magazine, to counteract a move by workers to strike for higher pay in World War I. A cartoon shows
a wounded army officer in uniform confronting a worried striking worker, asking
him what he would think of a soldier who struck for higher pay in the middle of an
action.6
A large part of the battle to persuade involves, whether people are conscious of
this or not, the establishment of the frame within which a given issue is posed. In the
battle to gain acceptance of a bill to prohibit tobacco advertising in the late 1980s in
Canada, those in favour of the bill came to realize that as long as the issue was framed
in terms of freedom of speech, the tobacco industry would win. But if the discus-
sion were framed in terms of health, the supporters of the bill would win. The groups
favouring the bill succeeded in this aim, and the bill was passed.
George Lakoff, a University of California linguist and cognitive scientist, has
related the matter of framing to the way in which the brain is structured and how neu-
ral paths are tied together in ways that we are not conscious of.7 Metaphors resonate
with other metaphors and can bring into play a whole moral universe. For example,
the idea of the family is deeply embedded in our life experience, but how it affects
our moral outlook will vary depending on the kind of experiences the family brings
to mind. Metaphors of the father when applied to the state (the fatherland, founding
fathers, etc.) tend to bring to mind ideas of authority, strict discipline, and punish-
ment. Maternal metaphors, on the other hand, tend to make people think in terms
of nurturing and co-operation. It can become of vital importance for progressives
not to buy into those metaphors that favour neo-conservative values but to replace
them with others that favour a more progressive politics. It is a key contention of
Lakoff ’s that our culture has been over-concerned with rationality when so much of
