Week 1 Homework
6October 1, 2013 by maggiew@uoregon.edu
Hi Everybody!
So, as you know our first class session is on Wednesday at 3pm. Since it is the first week, I am giving you a fairly simple assignment: read the Wikipedia article (yes, Wikipedia–don’t get used to it) on “propaganda.” I am including a link here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda
After reading through that, I want you to go to the Oxford English Dictionary Online (or in hard copy at the library if you prefer) and look up the definitions for “art” and “politics.” Here is the link to the OED website–you need to be on campus, or using the campus VPN to access it:
If you’ve read my previous post, then this might look similar to what I told you we would do at NSO. I decided to move it to day 1, so have some observations and questions about those definitions ready for class. Pay close attention to how the two definitions link to the Propaganda article–what jumps out at you as similar or different?
If you feel particularly motivated, keep looking around the OED online, it’s a VERY useful tool to get to know. If you want, go look up “propaganda,” you’d be surprised what you find. 😉
Well, that’s all for now. Looking forward to our conversation on Wednesday–I will expect you to be prepared to talk.
Your Fearless Leader (muahahahaha)
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One of the things that I found most interesting about reading the propaganda Wikipedia article was how I felt swayed to view what I believed in as true and what I don’t believe in as false. While I felt quick to point a finger at the “opposition” for using propaganda, it’s hard to view what I have been told as propaganda. In modern day western society, we view propaganda as negative, though it was interesting to read that it didn’t always carry this connotation.
At times, it was a little difficult to understand the various types of propaganda mentioned in the article, though my mind kept leaping to the show “Parks and Recreation”. In the show, Counsel Woman Leslie Knope constantly has her words and actions manipulated and spun negatively by various opposing parties. While I couldn’t find a perfect clip of this I really like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ish8NBunrQU. In this scene, Knope is fighting her town’s obesity epidemic, though faces many challenges from the restaurant association. This is somewhat of an exaggeration, though the show raises many questions about the relationship between fact and fiction, specifically in politics.
I was really interested by the Wikipedia article’s classification of propaganda into White, Black, and Grey – it hadn’t occurred to me that propaganda might be categorized by source as opposed to categorized by nature of the message portrayed. I think that “propaganda” has an extremely negative connotation in modern America – the word makes us think of Orwell’s 1984, or Hitler, or Kim Jong Il, or both.
But propaganda, as the article said, does also have very positive applications. Posters that patriotically remind strappin’ young lads like myself to register for the draft not only keep me in the good legal graces of US federal codes but also subconsciously activate some kind of Pavlovian response in me to be proud to be an American. Seeing those draft posters or seeing a flag waving or hearing the national anthem often makes me see myself as a mighty, ‘Merican eagle, entitled to fly throughout the world and set about righting wrongs in situations that don’t always involve me.
The Oxford Dictionary primarily defined “art” as a skill in any particular area, i.e. the art of war, the art of computer hacking, the art of mechanical bull riding. Propaganda, as the Wikipedia article stated, came from the Roman Catholic, Ecclesiastical Latin term “Propaganda Fide”, in other words, “spread of the faith”. And indeed, spreading the faith, whether it be faith in a God of your choosing or faith in a nation and its shut-down government, is a skill. I think that propagandists are artists – not just in the sense of “art” as defined by the Oxford, but also in the way that we think of “art” now. The best recent example of this, in my mind, is Sheppard Fairey’s unofficial Obama 2008 “Hope” poster.
One of the things that stuck out to me the most was the propaganda technique of “Beautiful People”. I instantly think of cosmetics advertisements and all those weight loss commercials. Then I stumbled across this…http://www.crestock.com/uploads/blog/2009/controversial/25-tipalet-advert.jpg
and this
http://ts2.mm.bing.net/th?id=H.4584861602481941&w=143&h=179&c=7&rs=1&pid=1.7
Both are promoting only one side of the argument, pro smoking and pro enlistment.
Reading the homework that was assigned, I was reminded of one of my favorite pieces of American propaganda: Rosie the Riveter. In this instance, a wartime propaganda campaign helped empower women during a time when they were not expected to contribute to society beyond the household. Here’s the link to the Rosie the Riveter wiki page, complete with lots of good images of both the campaign, as well photographs of real “Rosies.” While propaganda has the potential to be dangerous, and carry misinformation (i.e.. Nazi Germany, religious hate campaigns), propaganda also has the potential to change society for the better.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosie_the_Riveter
The image from the reading which made the greatest impact on me was this one http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:EuthanasiePropaganda.jpg for it would evoke a strong emotional response from the audience. Namely, the Germans seeing the image would feel as if caring for the sick and handicapped was a burden and they would feel cheated out of their money. Also, the audience would resent how the color and undefined features of the man make him seem hopeless and dependent.
When thinking about propaganda, what usually comes to my mind are war posters or political cartoons, propaganda from more recently in our history. That’s why I was particularly drawn to/interested in the propaganda from earlier times. I’d never really thought about propaganda existing back during times before the printing press and then afterwards, how the invention of it caused propaganda to spread much more rapidly. One German poster from 1545 was aimed at the Pope by the people, telling him to not be frightening and furious or else they would show him their rears. I found this kind of funny and also interesting to see how people used propaganda at the time to express their feelings toward those in power.