What is Propaganda?
Propaganda is the effort to manipulate other people's beliefs, attitudes, or actions using symbols, words, gestures, articles, banners, etc. Propaganda is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda and encourage certain perceptions of people. This can be found in news, journalism, government, advertising, entertainment, education, and activism. Through various media platforms, people try to imprint and force their beliefs onto others to get others to adopt their beliefs or ideas.
Propaganda has always been around. However, World War I was the first time it had been evoked globally. Propaganda elicited hatred among nations and people to encourage neutral countries to join and support them in their fight.
World War I was a famous era known for the propaganda surrounding the moment in history. During the beginning of World War I, countries used propaganda to shape their nations' views about the war, instilling a strong sense of patriotism in their people to justify their actions and build international support for their sides of the war. World War I had two main sides: the allies and the central powers. The allies powers were Great Britain, France, Russia, Italy, Romania, Canada, Japan, and the United States. While the major powers were Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire. All the countries used propaganda to influence people's minds and build strong support for their sides.
These countries built support for their sides while also building animosity for other countries on the opposing side. During wartime, large and full-formated posters and banners were displayed in schools and public areas depicting an image or message about the wartime efforts or ways to get involved. These posters and banners encouraged participation in the war effort by encouraging men to enlist, make donations, and publicize victories. Overall, propaganda was used to help guide people into adopting specific ideas and forcing people to accept certain beliefs and opinions of wartime to allow the government to further its agenda and push its narratives of stories.
World War II Propaganda
While in World War I, the focus of propaganda was to elicit strong feelings of patriotism in people and side with specific ideals of the war. World War II propaganda was used for the same purpose to produce strong feelings in members of nations; however, as society began to change and new social norms became apparent, propaganda was used to push new ideas and open people's minds to new ideas and opportunities for change. Propaganda also displayed how society was advancing and accepting new ideas through the use and publication of flyers and banners.
For example, Rosie the Riveter was a campaign that encouraged women it was their patriotic duty to their country to enter the workforce on behalf of their country, as half of the men were fighting in the war with troops. This led to women being accepted in the workplace more, eventually leading to society rejecting some of the gender norms that had been set in the past. For the first time in history, women were allowed to be seen as strong and able to do more than take care of their homes and children.
While propaganda does have an agenda to get people to believe one thing over another, propaganda can help societies advance and make the transition of introducing challenging and new norms into society to be accepted.
Although we are no longer in wartimes, propaganda is still used in everyday life, from news and politics to advertisements and everyday television. Today in advertising, companies play on consumers' emotions by appealing to their desire to be rich and live luxurious lives. Through knowing this, advertisers portray products and services in a specific way to encourage them to think they have to have it and ultimately cause them to buy it.
Russian-Ukrainian War Propaganda
Today the world has been divided on the most significant issue: The Russian-Ukranian War. Unfortunately, the media portrayal of the topic has proved biased as countries fail to provide an objective view of coverage on the subject due to their beliefs and specific support for different sides. Countries have skewed readers' opinions on the war by swaying stories to benefit their country or make one side look better than the other without presenting all the facts or the whole story.
Russian and American channels have been accused of using fabricated stories, misleading information, and false narratives in the news regarding the issue and the threat the war poses to the world today. As the case of deceptive and fabricated news continues during this new era of propaganda, it is essential to diversify your news sources and seek out the whole story before coming to a conclusion from one perspective.
How Propaganda Affects Society
While propaganda takes on many new forms today, it impacts how the press informs us, and we must be able to analyze and pick out the facts from opinions to ensure we are getting the full story and truth. In addition, propaganda can alter how we think about topics and situations, inadvertently shaping cultural and societal norms. We, as consumers, must understand and accept the ideas being forced upon us rather than just accepting them because others are saying that this is what we should agree with or believe in.
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