EOTO2 part 1: Propaganda

      Throughout history, governments and advertising companies have gone above and beyond to find ways to manipulate people into thinking a certain way or buying a specific product, one of the many tools used that we can still see today is Propaganda. Propaganda is a form of communication that has been used for decades that is always bias and its purpose is to promote a particular point of view or issue. Propagandists use specific symbols, language, themes and images to manipulate people's emotions into believing a message is true. So why is Propaganda so powerful? And where do we still see it today? 

    Research on Propaganda shows that this tool was heavily used by the U.S army during world war I and II where it usually depicts the enemy as evil, this technique was not only used to change public opinions but mostly to convince more Americans to join the U.S army and protect their country from "The evil enemy". This technique works well because instead of allowing people to make their own judgment and use critical thinking, propaganda creates a polarized society where you're either with this movement or you're against it. 

 In 1917 The Uncle Sam propaganda poster was adopted by the U.S army, it became so popular and such a powerful recruitment tool that it was used again during world war II and is still present and a part of American culture today. This propaganda poster inspired other countries like the British for example who used their own posters  in 1914 and saw the highest number of volunteers enlist in the entire duration of war. William Bird and Harry Rubenstein said " Propaganda posters were an agent for making the war aims the personal mission of every citizen". What this means is that instead of explaining the real reason why a country is going to war it targets people's emotions by making them feel guilty or scared. The poster below clearly show how guilt was used to make people join the army. 

Where do we see propaganda today? 

Overall, the idea of a big poster seems a little too old for our generation and with the rise of social media a new and more powerful form of propaganda surfaced: Memes. 

    Memes can be described as images with a caption that tend to make people laugh, but memes are so much more than that, they are shared by millions of people everyday all over the world and are almost always related to current events and politics. They are shared so much due to confirmation bias, popularity bias and lack of critical thinking. But the main two things that Propaganda posters and memes have in common are: Time and source. Time meaning they spread FAST and with the rise of technology and social media it is impossible to stop something from spreading once it is out. Sources means once the propaganda is out to the public it is almost impossible to trace where it came from, a meme for example is shared over 4 million times in one day, it would take years to find the first person that reposted it, what this does is make the source almost irrelevant to the message and when in reality the bias of the source is what created the message.