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CHAPTER XI
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THE MECHANICS OF PROPAGANDA
THE media by which special pleaders
transmit their messages to the public through propaganda include all the
means by which people to-day transmit their ideas to one another. There is
no means of human communication which may not also be a means of
deliberate propaganda, because propaganda is simply the establishing of
reciprocal understanding between an individual and a group.
The important point to the
propagandist is that the relative value of the various instruments of
propaganda, and their relation to the masses, are constantly changing. If
he is to get full reach for his message he must take advantage of these
shifts of value the instant they occur. Fifty years ago, the public
meeting was a propaganda instrument par excellence. To-day it is difficult
to get more than a handful of people to attend a public meeting unless
extraordinary attractions are part of the program. The automobile takes
them away from home, the radio keeps them in the home, the successive
daily editions of the newspaper bring information to them in office or
subway, and also they are sick of the ballyhoo of the rally.
Instead there are numerous other
media of communication, some new, others old but so transformed that they
have become virtually new. The newspaper, of course, remains always a
primary medium for the transmission of opinions and ideas-in other words,
for propaganda.
It was not many years ago that
newspaper editors resented what they called "the use of the news columns
for propaganda purposes." Some editors would even kill a good story if
they imagined its publication might benefit anyone. This point of view is
now largely abandoned. To-day the leading editorial offices take the view
that the real criterion governing the publication or non-publication of
matter which comes to the desk is its news value. The newspaper cannot
assume, nor is it its function to assume, the responsibility of
guaranteeing that what it publishes will not work out to somebody's
interest. There is hardly a single item in any daily paper, the
publication of which does not, or might not, profit or injure somebody.
That is the nature of news. What the newspaper does strive for is that the
news which it publishes shall be accurate, and (since it must select from
the mass of news material available) that it shall be of interest and
importance to large groups of its readers.
In its editorial columns the
newspaper is a personality, commenting upon things and events from its
individual point of view. But in its news columns the typical modern
American newspaper attempts to reproduce, with due regard to news
interest, the outstanding events and opinions of the day.
It does not ask whether a given
item is propaganda or not. What is important is that it be news. And in
the selection of news the editor is usually entirely independent. In the
New York Times-to
take an outstanding
example-news is printed because of its news value and for no other reason.
The Times
editors determine with complete
independence what is and what is not news. They brook no censorship. They
are not influenced by any external pressure nor swayed by any values of
expediency or opportunism. The conscientious editor on every newspaper
realizes that his obligation to the public is news. The fact of its
accomplishment makes it news.
If the public relations counsel can
breathe the breath of life into an idea and make it take its place among
other ideas and events, it will receive the public attention it merits.
There can be no question of his "contaminating news at its source." He
creates some of the day's events, which must compete in the editorial
office with other events. Often the events which he creates may be
specially acceptable to a newspaper's public and he may create them with
that public in mind.
If important things of life to-day
consist of transatlantic radiophone talks arranged by commercial telephone
companies; if they consist of inventions that will be commercially
advantageous to the men who market them; if they consist of Henry Fords
with epoch-making cars-then all this is news. The so-called flow of
propaganda into the newspaper offices of the country may, simply at the
editor's discretion, find its way to the waste basket.
The source of
the news offered to the editor should always be clearly stated and the
facts accurately presented.
82The
situation of the magazines at the present moment, from the propagandist's
point of view, is different from that of the daily newspapers. The average
magazine assumes no obligation, as the newspaper does, to reflect the
current news. It selects its material deliberately, in accordance with a
continuous policy. It is not, like the newspaper, an organ of public
opinion, but tends rather to become a propagandist organ, propagandizing
for a particular idea, whether it be good housekeeping, or smart apparel,
or beauty in home decoration, or debunking public opinion, or general
enlightenment or
liberalism or amusement. One magazine may aim to sell health; another,
English gardens; another, fashionable men's wear; another, Nietzschean
philosophy. In all departments in which the various magazines specialize,
the public relations counsel may play an important part. For he may,
because of his client's interest, assist them to create the events which
further their propaganda. A bank, in order to emphasize the importance of
its women's department, may arrange to supply a leading women's magazine
with a series of articles and advice on investments written by the woman
expert in charge of this department. The women's magazine in turn will
utilize this new feature as a means of building additional prestige and
circulation. The lecture, once a powerful means of influencing public
opinion, has changed its value. The lecture itself may be only a symbol, a
ceremony; its importance, for propaganda purposes, lies in the fact that
it was delivered. Professor So-and-So, expounding an epoch-making
invention, may speak to five hundred persons, or only fifty. His lecture,
if it is important, will be broadcast; reports of it will appear in the
newspapers; discussion will be stimulated. The real value of the lecture,
from the propaganda point of view, is in its repercussion to the general
public. The radio is at present one of the most important tools of the
propagandist. Its future development is uncertain. It may compete with the
newspaper as an advertising medium. Its ability to reach millions of
persons simultaneously naturally appeals to the advertiser. And since the
average advertiser has a limited appropriation for advertising, money
spent on the radio will tend to be withdrawn from the newspaper. To what
extent is the publisher alive to this new phenomenon? It is bound to come
close to American journalism and publishing. Newspapers have recognized
the advertising potentialities of the companies that manufacture radio
apparatus, and of radio stores, large and small; and newspapers have
accorded to the radio in their news and feature columns an importance
relative to the increasing attention given by the public to radio. At the
same time, certain newspapers have bought radio stations and linked them
up with their news and entertainment distribution facilities, supplying
these two features over the air to the public.
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It is possible that
newspaper chains will sell schedules of advertising space on the air and
on paper. Newspaper chains will possibly contract with advertisers for
circulation on paper and over the air. There are, at present, publishers
who sell space in the air and in their columns, but they regard the two as
separate ventures. Large groups, political, racial, sectarian, economic or
professional, are tending to control stations to propagandize their points
of view. Or is it conceivable that America may adopt the English licensing
system under which the listener, instead of the advertiser, pays? Whether
the present system is changed, the advertiser -and propagandist-must
necessarily adapt himself to it. Whether, in the future, air space will be
sold openly as such, or whether the message will reach the public in the
form of straight entertainment and news, or as special programs for
particular groups, the propagandist must be prepared to meet the
conditions and utilize them. The American motion picture is the greatest
unconscious carrier of propaganda in the world to-day. It is a great
distributor for ideas and opinions. The motion picture can standardize the
ideas and habits of a nation. Because pictures are made to meet market
demands, they reflect, emphasize and even exaggerate broad popular
tendencies, rather than stimulate new ideas and opinions. The motion
picture avails itself only of ideas and facts which are in vogue. As the
newspaper seeks to purvey news, it seeks to purvey entertainment. Another
instrument of propaganda is the personality. Has the device of the
exploited personality been pushed too far? President Coolidge
photo-graphed on his vacation in full Indian regalia in company with
full-blooded chiefs, was the climax of a greatly over-reported vacation.
Obviously a public personality can be made absurd by misuse of the very
mechanism which helped create it. Yet the vivid dramatization of
personality will always remain one of the functions of the public
relations counsel. The public instinctively demands a personality to
typify a conspicuous corporation or enterprise. There is a story that a
great financier discharged a partner because he had divorced his wife.
“But what,” asked the partner, “have my private affairs to do with the
banking business?” “If you are not capable of managing your own wife,” was
the reply, “the people will certainly believe that you are not capable of
managing their money.” The propagandist must treat personality as he would
treat any other objective fact within his province.
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A personality may
create circumstances, as Lindbergh treated good will between the United
States and Mexico. Events may create a personality, as the Cuban War
created the political figure of Roosevelt. It is often difficult to say
which creates the other. Once a public figure has decided what ends he
wishes to achieve, he must regard himself objectively and present an
outward picture of himself which is consistent with his. real character
and his aims.
There are a multitude of other
avenues of approach to the public mind, some old, some new as television.
No attempt will be made to discuss each one separately. The school may
disseminate information concerning scientific facts. The fact that a
commercial concern may eventually profit from a widespread understanding
of its activities because of this does not condemn the dissemination of
such information, provided that the subject merits study on the part of
the students. If a baking corporation contributes pictures and charts to a
school to show how bread is made, these propaganda activities, if they are
accurate and candid, are in no way reprehensible, provided the school
authorities accept or reject such offers carefully on their educational
merits.
It may be that a new product will
be announced to the public by means of a motion picture of a parade taking
place a thousand miles away. Or the manufacturer of a new jitney airplane
may personally appear and speak in a million homes through radio and
television. The man who would most effectively transmit his message to the
public must be alert to make use of all the means of propaganda.
Undoubtedly the public is becoming
aware of the methods which are being used to mold its opinions and habits.
If the public is better informed about the processes of its own life, it
will be so much the more receptive to reasonable appeals to its own
interests. No matter how sophisticated, how cynical the public may become
about publicity methods, it must respond to the basic appeals, because it
will always need food, crave amusement, long for beauty, respond to
leadership.
If the public becomes more
intelligent in its commercial demands, commercial firms will meet the new
standards. If it becomes weary of the bid methods used to persuade it to
accept a given idea or commodity, its leaders will present their appeals
more intelligently.
Propaganda will never die out.
Intelligent men must realize that propaganda is the modern instrument by
which they can fight for productive ends and help to bring order out of
chaos.
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History of Banking Fraud:
The Coming Battle
By M. W. WALBERT
The Coming Battle
documents from Congressional records, newspaper reports and writings by
the founding fathers and others a chronology of events long forgotten that
shaped our fledgling nation from 1776 to 1899. Read about the manipulation
of our money and its supply, the intentional creation of recessions,
depressions and panics, manipulation of the stock markets, and the
demonetization of silver.
Secrets of the Federal Reserve
by Eustace Mullins
Eustace Mullins' carefully
researched and documented treatise picks up from Walbert's expose' of
control of the money supply and the economy and
brings it to the mid 1980's.
The
World Order
How control of the world's money has inexorably led to an ever tighter
grip on control of the world's people.
Uranium Wars by Leuren Moret
How control of the world's people has inexorably led to wider use of
depopulation methods which include spreading radioactivity in food,
water, air, and the human genome.
Taking Back Your Power
by Allen Aslan Heart
WHAT CAN YOU DO? Stop playing THEIR game. Take back
your power. Stop paying taxes that are not legal or lawful. Stop paying
bills you don't really owe. Stop using THEIR money. There ARE ways if you
open your mind and look for the gaps in their fences that keep the sheeple
in their pasture. Are you chattel or a real person? You are the one who
makes that choice.
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© 2007, Allen Aslan Heart / White Eagle Soaring of the Little Shell Pembina Band,
a
Treaty
Tribe of the Ojibwe Nation
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