Use of Propaganda the U.S. War in Iraq
The word “propaganda” comes from the Vatican. The phrase “congregatio de propaganda fide” (The congregation for the propagation of the faith) was used to support the catholic faith in response to the Protestant Reformation (Labash, 20 Dec, 2001). Propaganda is everywhere and has been around for a long time. Every newspaper, magazine, news channel, radio station, advertisement, or any other types of mass media contain elements of propaganda. Propaganda is often given a negative connotation due to its history of power and control; as in the Hitler’s regime, but in reality the definition is very simple. According to Webster’s College Dictionary, propaganda is “information or ideas methodically spread to promote or injure a cause, movement, nation etc, and the deliberate spread of such information or ideas”. Whether the reader of a media source agrees or disagrees with the content, the purpose of the media is to convey one way to look at a particular situation or idea.
Sometimes, propaganda results in no important change on the reader’s ideals or morals, like the coverage of a popular new restaurant. The topic does not have much effect because it is not powerful enough to significantly change a society. The light heartedness of the topic blinds a person to the fact that they are still reading a source of propaganda making people not realize how common propaganda truly is. More powerful events, however, such as propaganda in the media coverage of a war can having a lasting effect on an individual and may result in changing the way society views the war. Propaganda’s influence on public opinion can be the difference between winning and loosing a war. In his book “munitions of the M...
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...://www.foi.missouri.edu> viewed 2 June, 2003
Labash, Matt. “The Power of Propaganda” The Weekly Standard. 20 Dec. 2001 <http://www.weekelystandard.com> viewed 7 May, 2003.
Lears, Jackson “Fighting Words.” The New Republic. 28 Aug, 2002 <http://www.tnr.com viewed 11 May, 2003.>
Maass, Peter “Kuwait City Dispatch Pressed.” The New Republic. 20 Mar, 2003. <http://www.tnr.com>
Schechter, Danny. “How Should Media Handle Conflict?” MediaChannel.org. 18 July, 2003 <http://www.mediachannel.org> viewed 2 June, 2003.
“The Peace Journalism Option” Buckinghamshire UK. Aug 25-29 1997. <http://www.poiesis.org/pjo/pjotext.html> viewed 2 June, 2003
Tyson, Ann Scott. “Hearts, Minds, Leaflets: Wars Psychological side” The Christian Science Monitor. 30 Jan, 2003 <http://www.csmonitor.com> viewed 2 June, 2003.
Both the CEO of Exxon, Lee Raymond, and the CEO of Mobil, Lucio Noto, announced that it is because of this reduction in prices and downsizing within the oil industry that the merger is taking place, the very nature of the oil industry was becoming increasingly competitive. The oil industry as whole was becoming more efficient, causing oil prices to fallr. Firms can only maintain their prices equal to or above marginal cost, and if prices are lower than marginal...
With regard to war, the purpose of propaganda is to make a particular group of people forget that another group is human. By focusing on a few, simple target ideas that reinforce the notion that another group of people are harmful and inhumane, propaganda is able to unite people in an unrealistic mindset. Understandably, however, governments have a priority to nurture the morale of its people and the armed forces that represent it by intimidating the enemy with the force of natural will. The question of whether or not we choose to accept this harsh reality remains ambiguous, as there will always be two sides to the argument.
War and Propaganda: A Look at How the Two Have Been Inseparable Through Time. There have been many wars that the United States has been a part of. Some fought on American soil, others fought abroad. But through it all, there has always been a need for the public’s support. And what better way to get that support than by putting information out there for the public?
Sylvia Plath wrote the semi autobiographical novel, The Bell Jar, in which the main character, Esther, struggles with depression as she attempts to make herself known as a writer in the 1950’s. She is getting the opportunity to apprentice under a well-known fashion magazine editor, but still cannot find true happiness. She crumbles under her depression due to feeling that she doesn’t fit in, and eventually ends up being put into a mental hospital undergoing electroshock therapy. Still, she describes the depth of her depression as “Wherever I sat - on the deck of a ship or at a street a cafe in Paris or Bangkok - I would be sitting under the same glass bell jar, stewing in my own sour air” (Plath 178). The pressure to assimilate to society’s standards from her mother, friends, and romantic interests, almost pushes her over the edge and causes her to attempt suicide multiple times throughout her life. Buddy Willard, Esther’s boyfriend at a time, asks her to marry him repeatedly in which she declines. Her mother tries to get her to marry and makes her go to therapy eventually, which leads to the mental hospital. Esther resents the way of settling down and making a family, as well as going out and partying all night. She just wants to work to become a journalist or publisher. Though, part of her longs for these other lives that she imagines livings, if she were a different person or if different things happened in her life. That’s how Elly Higgenbottom came about. Elly is Esther when Esther doesn’t want to be herself to new people. Esther’s story portrays the role of women in society in the 1950’s through Esther’s family and friends pushing her to conform to the gender roles of the time.
Hummel, William and Huntress, Keith. The Analysis of Propaganda. New York: William Sloane Associates, 1949
“Propaganda means any attempt to persuade anyone to a belief or to form an action. We live our lives surrounded by propaganda; we create enormous amounts of it ourselves; and we f...
...es these primitive standards, she becomes melancholy because she does not attune into the gender roles of women, which particularly focus on marriage, maternity, and domesticity. Like other nineteen year old women, Esther has many goals and ambitions in her life. Nevertheless, Esther is disparaged by society’s blunt roles created for women. Although she experiences a tremendous psychological journey, she is able to liberate herself from society’s suffocating constraints. Esther is an excellent inspiration for women who are also currently battling with society’s degrading stereotypes. She is a persistent woman who perseveres to accomplish more than being a stay at home mother. Thus, Esther is a voice for women who are trying to abolish the airless conformism that is prevalent in 1950’s society.
Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar is rich with an array of motifs, all which serve to sustain the novel’s primary themes. A motif particularly prevalent within the first half of the novel involves food, specifically Esther Greenwood’s relationship with food. This peculiar relationship corroborates the book’s themes of Esther’s continuous rebirthing rituals, and of her extreme dissatisfaction. The interrelation with food functions in two distinct manners: literally and figuratively. This analysis will concentrate on the figurative role of food in The Bell Jar, and how it denotes Esther’s overall state.
Fuller, J.F.C. "Propaganda and War. The New Technique of Mendacity as a Psychological Weapon." Ordnance, Dec
What does the word propaganda really mean? For most of us we assume that it is a word for negativity use. Just to assure those that think of propaganda as a negative word. Propaganda does have a positive objective if used correctly. The word propaganda is defined in a few different ways, But in the most general usage, it varies from bad to good persuasion of our minds. It is used during election time to our daily lives on television to our newspaper stands. According to Donna Cross’s essay, “Propaganda: How Not to Be Bamboozled,” there are thirteen different types of propaganda; this paper will discuss six varieties. George W. Bush and Dick Cheney used primarily every sort of propaganda to influence the citizens; therefore, our national society needs to develop awareness in the propaganda used by such politicians so that they can make wise decisions intelligently.
Welch, David. "Propaganda." New Dictionary of the History of Ideas. Ed. Maryanne Cline Horowitz. Vol. 5. Detroit: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2005. 1916-1923. Student Resources in Context. Web. 31 Mar. 2014.
Life is full of endless amounts of beautiful encounters for every character in the novel The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, except for Esther. She suffers from a severe and complex mental illness that impacts her life greatly. Although it is clear that Esther suffers strongly from depression in the novel, Sylvia Plath chooses to tell her life abstractly through countless symbols and ironies to prove that Esther depression completely consumes her. Everything that Esther sees is through a lens of depression, which scews her outlook on life.
Esther’s psychological transformation from a perfectly healthy person ends up suffering from depression. Her influences around her have negatively shown Esther a negative path to take. The events during the 1950s such as the Rosenbergs executions have only made the transformation even powerful. Sylvia Plath’s life could be compared to the Bell Jar because she was in the same situation as Esther. Freud’s theory of psychoanalysis and psycho dynamic has addressed depression through the main character Esther.
“Esther Greenwood, the narrator of The Bell Jar, encounters many of the problems Plath examined in her verse: her attempts to establish her identity are undermined, she projects an ambivalent attitude toward men, society remains indifferent to her sensitivity, vulnerability, and artistic ambitions, and she is haunted by events from her past, particularly the death of her father” (Explanation of The Bell Jar). Sylvia Plath was born on October 27, 1932 in Boston, Massachusetts to parents Otto Plath and Aurelia Schober. Plath’s father died in 1940, when she was eight years old, from complications with diabetes. The death of Esther’s father in The Bell Jar is mentioned to have happened when she was about nine or ten years old. “...and I felt
When one hears the words “LGBT” and “Homosexuality” it often conjures up a mental picture of people fighting for their rights, which were unjustly taken away or even the social emergence of gay culture in the world in the1980s and the discovery of AIDS. However, many people do not know that the history of LGBT people stretches as far back in humanity’s history, and continues in this day and age. Nevertheless, the LGBT community today faces much discrimination and adversity. Many think the problem lies within society itself, and often enough that may be the case. Society holds preconceptions and prejudice of the LGBT community, though not always due to actual hatred of the LGBT community, but rather through lack of knowledge and poor media portrayal.