Plan: Propaganda a look at 2

Plan:


1. Propaganda a look at
2. The first large-scale
3. Political opponents

Propaganda is a form of communication that aims to shape people's beliefs and behaviors. It is typically not impartial and used to promote a specific agenda or perspective and is often biased, misleading, or even false. Propagandists use various techniques to manipulate people's opinions, including selective presentation of facts, the omission of relevant information, and the use of emotionally charged language.

Propaganda can take many forms, including political speeches, advertisements, news reports, and social media posts. Its goal is usually to influence people's attitudes and behaviors, either by promoting a particular ideology or by persuading them to take a specific action. The term propaganda has acquired a strongly negative connotation by association with its most manipulative and jingoistic examples.
American cartoon, published in 1898: "Remember the Maine! And Don't Forget the Starving Cubans!" Used to encourage support for American intervention in the Cuban War of Independence.
English Civil War cartoon titled "The Cruel Practices of Prince Rupert" (1643)
Primitive forms of propaganda have been a human activity as far back as reliable recorded evidence exists. The Behistun Inscription (c. 515 BC) detailing the rise of Darius I to the Persian throne is viewed by most historians as an early example of propaganda.^[1] The Arthashastra written by Chanakya (c. 350 – 283 BC), a professor of political science at Takshashila University and a prime minister of the Maurya Empire in ancient India, discusses propaganda in detail, such as how to spread propaganda and how to apply it in warfare. His student Chandragupta Maurya (c. 340 – 293 BC), founder of the Maurya Empire, employed these methods during his rise to power.^[2] The best-known originator of Roman historiography was Quintus Fabius Pictor (3rd century BCE). His style of writing history defending the Roman state actions and using propaganda heavily eventually became a defining characteristic of Roman historiography. Another example of early propaganda is the 12th-century work, The War of the Irish with the Foreigners, written by the Dál gCais to portray themselves as legitimate rulers of Ireland.
The Pope as Antichrist, from a series of German woodcuts (1545) usually referred to as the Papstspotbilder or Papstspottbilder in German or Depictions of the Papacy,^[3] by Lucas Cranach, commissioned by Martin Luther. German peasants respond to a papal bull of Pope Paul III. Caption reads: "Nicht Bapst: nicht schreck uns mit deim ban, Und sey nicht so zorniger man. Wir thun sonst ein gegen wehre, Und zeigen dirs Bel vedere." ("Don't frighten us Pope, with your ban, and don't be such a furious man. Otherwise we shall turn away and show you our rears.")^[4] Title: Kissing the Pope's Feet.^[5]
Propaganda during the Reformation, helped by the spread of the printing press throughout Europe, and in particular within Germany, caused new ideas, thoughts, and doctrine to be made available to the public in ways that had never been seen before the 16th century. The printing press was invented in approximately 1450 and quickly spread to other major cities around Europe; by the time the Reformation was underway in 1517 there were printing centres in over 200 of the major European cities.^[6] These centres became the primary producers of both Reformation works by the Protestant Reformers and anti-Reformation works put forth by the Roman Catholics.
During the U.S.'s Colonial period, religious writers and trading companies circulated glowing tracts urging settlement in the Americas, but often left out the risk and perils.^[7] During the era of the American Revolution, the American colonies had a flourishing network of newspapers and printers which specialized in the topic on behalf of the Patriots (and to a lesser extent on behalf of the Loyalists). The most famous single publication was Common Sense, a 1776 pamphlet by Thomas Paine that played a major role in articulating the demand for independence.^[8] On occasion, outright disinformation was used, as when Benjamin Franklin circulated false stories of atrocities committed by the Seneca Indians in league with the British.^[9] Later, The Federalist Papers were written under pseudonyms by three framers of the Constitution in order to influence public support for ratification.
In the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars both sides made heavy use of it during military campaigns with media literate. For instance, the Girondists distributed broadsheets among enemy troops offering them rewards for desertion.^[10]Napoleon cultivated his own image through the use of propaganda and excelled at garnering public support and capitalizing on his victories^[11]
19th century[edit]
Propaganda, as generally understood, is a modern phenomenon that emerged from the creation of literate and politically active societies informed by a mass media, where governments increasingly saw the necessity for swaying public opinion in favour of its policies. The French Revolutionary and Napoleonic eras produced some of the earliest propaganda of the Modern Period. A notable example was perhaps during the Indian Rebellion of 1857, where Indian sepoys rebelled against the British East India Company's rule in India. Incidents of rape committed by Indian rebels against English women or girls were exaggerated to great effect by the British media to justify continued British colonialism in the Indian subcontinent.^[12] At the time, British newspapers had printed various accounts about English women and girls being raped by the Indian rebels. It was later found that some of these accounts were false stories created to perpetuate the common stereotypes of the native people of India as savages who need to be civilised by British colonialists, a mission sometimes known as "The White Man's Burden". One such account published by The Times, regarding an incident where 48 English girls as young as 10–14 were supposedly raped by the Indian rebels in Delhi, was criticised as a false propaganda story by Karl Marx, who pointed out that the story was reported by a clergyman in Bangalore, far from the events of the rebellion.^[13]
In the U.S. prior to the Civil War, slavery proponents and abolitionists both disseminated their ideas through literature and lobbying.^[7] Early anti-slavery periodicals included Anti-Slavery Reporter and Freedom's Journal (1827–29), the last attacking the "return to Africa" colonization programs favored by many prominent politicians. Activists such as William Lloyd Garrison and Theodore Dwight Weld were very effective in anti-slavery societies' writings in winning over public opinion. On the pro-slavery side, the Ostend Manifesto (October 18, 1854) made a case for acquiring Cuba as a slave state, as a way of getting around the Missouri Compromise. In the wake of Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), several books were written to bolster the decision. For instance, George Fitzhugh's Cannibals All!, or Slaves Without Masters argued that the master-slave relationship was better than wage-slavery under capitalist exploitation. Another, Frederick A. Ross's Slavery Ordained of God, used divine will to justify slavery and controversially equated slavery to the treatment of women (i.e., both slaves and women are children). Lastly came Augusta Jane Evans Wilson's Macaria; or, Altars of Sacrifice (1864), popular in the North and South, persuasively defended Confederate policy and predicted horrible consequences if the slaves were freed.^[14]
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, propaganda techniques became more refined and effective due to, on the one hand, the growth of new communication technologies (e.g. underseas cables, wireless radio, silent motion pictures), and on the other, the development of modern advertising and public relations.^[7] Gabriel Tarde's Laws of Imitation (1890) and Gustave Le Bon's The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind (1897) were two of the first codifications of propaganda techniques, which influenced many writers afterward, including Sigmund Freud. Hitler's Mein Kampf is heavily influenced by Le Bon's theories.
First World War[edit]
How Britain Prepared, 1915 film