Thursday, May 4, 2023

Blog#9 Propaganda

 Propaganda is defined as "information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view." Propaganda is not only something that has a history in foreign regimes, it has a deep history within the United States. There has been propaganda produced by the United States, such as campaign songs for presidents and folk songs. Some of these are benign and just people expressing their opinions, but a good part of the messages projected are deliberately misleading. 



The ivention of the radio marked a change for America, in regards to Propaganda, as messages were able to be distributed much faster. With the mass adoption of the radio, campaign songs, a benign form of propaganda, started to be used a lot more. A few examples are Row, Row, Row with Roosevelt (1932), Go Goldwater (1964), and Hello Lyndon(1964). All of these were to try to encourage the public to support a certain perspective without presenting the nuances of issues, however, every politician does this and these were not unusual. 


The narrative on Ukraine is often presented as one-sided and without nuance. I fully support the Ukrainian people in their defense of their homeland and am even open to limited aid, but the message that has been sent from the media is one that solely favors Ukraine. One could argue that the mainstream media is propagandizing the Ukrainian government, covering the heroism of its people, but not on the unfortunate reality that in order to have peace, some concessions will have to be given. Luckily many are able to see through the propaganda and think about the issue independently.

The media makes a lot of money from selling stories of War. In addition to this many prominent politicians support wars because their campaigns are funded by defense contractors and supporting a war makes you look patriotic. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XX3qQFJPq2M
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W12UnUEspNI

https://abcnews.go.com/US/artist-finds-inspiration-war-propaganda-covid-19-stay/story?id=70732034



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