Essay Sample on How Powerful Propaganda Is

It is not easy to classify exactly what propaganda is since the ones person propaganda may appear to be the other persons education. It may be perceived that propaganda can promote both negative and positive attitude towards the individuals; however, it seems like, propaganda is meant as a tool to bring negative effects towards the society. Propaganda induces unnatural thoughts and feelings to the public, influencing the peoples natural thoughts towards a particular topic. Propaganda is powerful in various aspects of society and can alter the perception of the society in different manners; propaganda can lead to hearted hence evoking the spirit of war, it can also make people either like or hate somebody or a particular product. Each day, choices, decision and preferences that are made by people are affected and influenced by the propaganda. Even if a particular piece of propaganda is advocating something positively, still it compels alteration to the mind and coaxes people in a design that it is believed that propaganda is brainwashing these people. Propaganda has shaped the history of the world during the First World War. Throughout, culture and history have proven to be inextricably connected. "Propaganda consists of the planned use of any form of public or mass-produced communication designed to affect the minds and emotions of a given group for a specific purpose, whether military, economic, or political" (Levinson). Propaganda is applied in the situation targeting at gaining the support of its viewers as a matter of either the misleading or false information.

On the daily basis, the people around the world are subjected to some propaganda. This system of controlling the thoughts of the public, not only affects the thoughts of the public, but it also affects the thoughts of the citizens of other countries as well. It is meant to control the thoughts of the public. The term propaganda has been defined as, the information, particularly the one that is misleading or biased, meant to influence the point of view or political cause (Klaehn, 2002). The following research essay will focus on the level of propaganda in the society from the past to the present and how they are perceived powerful in manipulating the people.

Propaganda is considered to be most powerful whereby the meta-narrative that all the small narratives can be included, the past propaganda that is known to be powerful and transformed the people's view. Between the years 1947 to 1991, during the Cold War people were forced to believe that Russia was the bad people (meta-narrative). Therefore, they can think that they are truly the bad guys, now (smaller-narrative). Russia also applied propaganda of blaming the west for the failure of the Soviet Union. Therefore, they can believe that the West is manipulating the Russia.

Power of Nazi Propaganda

The Germany Nazi tyrant, Adolf Hitler used propaganda to gain power over his people during the years of his ruling between the years 1933 to 1945; it was an effective and significant instrument for obtaining and maintains power, as well as implementing the Nazi policies. The unescapably utilization of propaganda by the Nazis had an intensive impact towards the word "propaganda" itself developing its present adverse inferences. During the reign of Hitler, Nazi perceived that to maintain their rule over German they have to prevent any internal unrest by using the strictly regulated popular opinions. The main idea was to keep the public opinion in favor of the Nazis party ideology (Roberts, & Hitler, 1937).

One of the key aspects of their ideology was racial inequality and anti-Semitism. Within years, they were able to influence the whole Germany population with this belief to almost all the people of German by using the heavy influence of propaganda. Hitler was capable of dictating and stabilizing Germany in his favor for many years through propaganda targeted at controlling the lives of the youth, the general public opinion as well as the perception about the war effort together with the countrys well-being (Roberts, & Hitler, 1937).

The Nazi used the youth to influence the opinion of the Germany since they were the future of German and the one they mostly control. Nazi used the Hitler Youth Organization as the force to control the opinion of the youth. Actually, by the mid-1933, the Hitler Youth has already effectively achieved its goals to either "Nazify" or disperse all the competing youth groups within German. The German Youth in the group was taught the Nazi Party ideology (Roberts, & Hitler, 1937).

They do not see in Hitler a statesman with good and bad points; to them, he is more than a demigodIt is this utter lack of any objective or critical attitude on the part of youth, even with university students, that made me fear most for the future of Germany. They are nothing but vessels for State propaganda. (Roberts, 1937, p. 208)

Power of Propaganda during the World War 1

Under the leadership of Hitler, the German participated in the World War 1 and failed; Nazi party used propaganda to blame their defeat on the Jews, whereby, they viewed them as destructive and the power-hungry. The Nazi leader, though propaganda developed a sense of hearted among the Jews, they wanted Jews to be a nation-wide "scapegoat." Prejudice and hearted that erupted against Jewish was referred to as the anti-Semitism. As illustrated by the Breman Museum, the Nazi party was one of the most privileged parties to have the advantage of using the mass communication technologies such as the film, radio, recorded sound as well as the printed word. Through the use of the movies that they released, publishing books together with holding campaigns, all against the Jews, anti-Semitism developed rapidly and spread all over Germany. The propaganda was meant to gain support for the extermination of the Jewish community in Germany. At the end of it all, Hitler increased support for the expulsion of jewfish by the use of propaganda, hence promoting himself to the public, as he accused the non-Aryans, preached illusive lies in the mass-media and interrelated hatred of Jews to German patriotism (Appleby, 2013).

Usually, propaganda is politically biased information that is targeted to educate o to persuade the population, typically with the aim of disseminating the particular ideology. Propaganda can be detailed since the beginning of the world war 1 u to the present military propaganda. Each in their manner they are tools to communicate a specific type of ideas, either by mobilizing the support for the war or by demonizing an enemy within' to combine political power, propaganda is considered as a weapon in winning the hearts and minds of the people (Appleby, 2013).

Corporate Propaganda

Propaganda can be applied to affect the perception of the people towards a particular product or brand, undermining the existing realities to provide the positive brand image that then inspires people to buy a particular, such product. Propaganda is linked to the framework of public relations and advertising, each can be perceived to be the propaganda to boost the commercial product or model the public view towards the person, organization or brand. The journalistic theory basically holds the news items should be impartial, giving the reader a precise analysis and background of the subject at hand. Furthermore, advertisements advanced from the traditional commercial advertisements to incorporate the new kind in the structure of the misleading light, and subjective, basically aimed at persuading instead of informing. Usually, they apply understated propaganda techniques rather than the more common ones applied in the traditional commercial advertisements.

People depend on the propaganda to decide on what to purchase. For instance, the commercial advertainments that are being conducted about Android and iPhone smart =phones are meant to promote the positive aspect of the phones and to convince the people that the phones are the best ever created, with an aim to delude the people into purchasing the phones. The main idea is normally left out in that commercial advertisements are the negative aspect g the product over a period of usage (Dunn, 2015).

Another example, one can reflect in this type of propaganda is the case of BP

In 2000, BP set back on the rebranding exercise. The purpose for this was to present BP as an environmentally aware energy and general services company. As they color on their website:

Since BP' petrol first went on sale in Britain in the 1920s, the brand has grown to become recognized worldwide for quality gasoline, transport fuels, chemicals and alternative sources of energy such as wind and biofuels. We are committed to making a real difference in providing better energy that is needed today and in the changing world of tomorrow.

Always, propaganda has offered a lot of power to the commercial industries. Propaganda is fundamental in the advertising of the music, clothes, as well as TV shows that we tend to purchase. Such types of industries are significant to the economy (Dunn, 2015).

Alec Carey (1997) views propaganda in the commercial world as communications where the form and content are selected with the single-minded purpose of bringing some target audience to adopt attitudes and beliefs chosen in advance By the sponsors of the communications". Noam Chomsky supported this idea when he stated that "three developments of great have characterized the twentieth-century political importance: the growth of democracy, the growth of corporate power, and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy (Dunn, 2015). "

Religious Propaganda

Religious propaganda is also powerful and has immensely influenced the perception of the society; this kind of propaganda influenced the beliefs and the opinions on the religious matters especially during the time between the Protestants churches and the Roman Catholic Church. Propaganda was used as the tool in debating on the new religious movements (NRMs), both sides oppose, and the defendants propagated the matter. The latter critically referred these NRMs cults. Christian counter-cult activists and Anti-cult activists blamed the leaders of what the referred to cults of spreading propaganda widely to enlist followers and retain them. Some of the social scientist like the CESNUR allied scholars together with the late Jeffrey Hadden accused the cults and anti-cult movement ex-members of making these abnormal religious movements look ugly without substantial reasons (Taylor & Struve, 2012).

Power of Social Media Propaganda in Arab Spring

As the internet continues to escalate around the world, the same way propaganda is gaining power. The propaganda has majorly shaped the political world in this new century, the social media has acted as a vessel to spread the propaganda more swiftly and to mobilize people to change their view on a particular aspect of the society. The use of Facebook, Twitter, and many others has many subscribers and it has made things easier to convey propaganda from one corner of the world to the other.

The power of propaganda in media is seen during the Arab Spring which involved the countries like Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Syria. Through the social media, the common message that was spread during the Arab Spring to agitate revolution were, hope, freedom, anger oppression and war. The use of propaganda in the Arab Springs has been made and consumed in a various manner and more questionably compared to any previous revolution since it controlled the power of the social media and the internet.

The citizens of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Syria used propaganda to mobilize revolution through the social media. In the case for Egypt, The revolution s...