Outline of a Discussion on Propaganda

Questions/issues [slightly amended here] re propaganda (primarily American) to be discussed on 2/7/2017 with 15-20 American University undergraduates during a one-hour segment of Professor Daniel Whitman's class, “Intercultural Understanding”; the class segment will be based on the readings cited below (and, most important, on the ideas of the students themselves).

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1. Questions for the class (with partial, tentative answers from its guest)

Why study propaganda?

• Understand communication and its intent; the nature of truth

What is propaganda? What’s its purpose? 

• Persuade an audience (s) for the propaganda sponsor’s benefit

Is propaganda morally acceptable – or morally reprehensible?

• Moralist vs. neutralist

When did/does propaganda “start” -- and is most prevalent -- in history?

• Present since the dawn of history, but surfaces especially in times of  war

Is there an anti-propaganda tradition in the U.S.? If so, when did it start? 

• After WWI, this tradition “blamed” propaganda for: lies; violence to language; germs of hate; advertising; distorting history; being incompatible with democracy 
• Institute for Propaganda Analysis (1937-1942); Fulbright program (1946); Smith-Mundt Act (1948)

Types of propaganda 

• White, grey, black; fast, slow

Who’s the “best” propagandist? A “conscious “or “unconscious” one? 

• Doesn’t appear to be carrying propaganda at all; must hate propaganda to do it well; doesn’t consider him/herself a propagandist

How to detect propaganda 

• Institute for Propaganda Analysis criteria: Name calling, glittering generalities, transfer; testimonial; plain folks; card stacking; bandwagon

What is Public Diplomacy (PD)? Is it propaganda? 

• Best PD: Truthful, factual; encourages international understanding; listens/hears and engages in dialogue; objectively displays national policies/achievements overseas, including in the arts 
• Worst propaganda: Forces its messages on an audience, often by repetition and slogans; demonizes; simplifies; misrepresents the truth/deliberately lies.

Is “intercultural understanding” a form of propaganda?

Propaganda and terrorism

• Propaganda of the deed

What’s the role of propaganda in the social media age?

• Omnipresent?; hard to tell the source; fake news

B) Readings (short articles, not scholarly treatises; please read to deal with specific items raised by the above questions/issues)

1. http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/propaganda.aspx#1-1G2:3402300123-full [a survey of propaganda and its history by one of the foremost experts on the topic]
2. http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Propaganda
3. http://uscpublicdiplomacy.org/blog/060629_two_ways_of_looking_at_propaganda
4. http://www.publicdiplomacy.org/19.htm

5. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-brown/propaganda-public-diplomacy_b_1547214.html

6. http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/article/Subtlety-one-of-the-paradoxes-of-propaganda-The-2598477.php
7. http://www-test.unc.edu/depts/diplomat/item/2008/0709/comm/brown_pudiplprop.html
8. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_of_the_deed

C) For your viewing “pleasure”

9. The most famous classic propaganda film, the Nazi-produced Triumph of the Will; compare it to Casablanca

"Good" Propaganda? (see)

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"Bad" Propaganda? (see)

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