Shannon Ahern
May 3, 2017 COM 416 Propaganda Renee Hobbs Fake News Propaganda is around us all the time. Sometimes we see it, sometimes we hear it and sometimes it enters our minds without us even knowing it. Some can be dangerous or false, and some can be helpful and true. It is up to us to decide which to believe and which to ignore. However, this is easier said than done, because the creators behind propaganda use certain tactics and strategies to convince the audience to think a specific way, and they are tough to spot if the audience is not educated about it. Fake news is a major problem in the United States, as well as other parts of the world. There is no law put in place to avoid these false claims, therefore leading to false news stories, especially through the use of social media sites. As defined by a study done by Stanford University, “…’fake news’ (is) news articles that are intentionally and verifiably false, and could mislead readers” (Allcott, Gentzkow 213). The biggest issue with fake news is that it cannot be identified and or taken down once it is posted on the internet, thanks to the first amendment. All the way up until the day of the U.S. presidential election, false news stories were everywhere, and are largely blamed for the result of the election. A lot of people believe Trump’s victory was because of the fake news shared about both him and his opponent, Hillary Clinton. Both opponents had multiple fake news stories either for or against their campaign posted about them. I believe this was such an issue during this specific election because everything is online now. Social media is how everyone learns what is going on both nationally and internationally. A new generation of young adults also voted for the first time this election, and that generation is dependent on social media for keeping up with the news. I know this first hand because I am a part of it. For the entirety of the time leading up to the election, I was confused. Before taking this class, I did know a little bit about fake news. I knew how hard it was to figure out if a specific article was telling the truth. This made me weary of almost anything I read on the internet. What I know now, but did not know at the time, was to notice what sites the information was coming from. I would read an article claiming Trump believed in a certain policy, then read another claiming the exact opposite. Some people believed everything they read, while I was too weary to believe anything, even the articles that were true. Even after the election, the topic fake news is still following Donald Trump. A new ad was put out for Trump’s re-election campaign displaying all of the positive things he has done for the country after his first 100 days as president. CNN refused to run it. They said they would only run the advertisement, “if the campaign removed a section that featured the words ‘fake news’” (NY Times). The video claims that Trump is “Making America great again” but “you wouldn’t know it from watching the news”, and as that quote is being said the phrase, “fake news” is shown on the screen. What we see here is Trump calling out the media on spreading false news. In response to the add CNN said, “The mainstream media is not fake news, and therefore the ad is false”. There are a number of hypocrisies flying around this issue, in my opinion. For one, Donald Trump likes to exaggerate on almost every opinion or idea he has, and has been known to say things that don’t ring true. However, fake news is real, and Trump is not necessarily calling out one news station over another. Legally, CNN does not have to run an ad if they do not feel it is appropriate, but the head of Donald Trump’s re-election campaign believes it to be censorship. This is where the fine line between stopping the spread of fake news and not abiding by the first amendment is an issue. I became even more aware of how much fake news surrounds us after reading, Trust Me, I’m Lying, by Ryan Holiday. To me, it is incredible how much the media can manipulate us without getting in trouble. Holiday writes about his experience manipulating the media and audiences in order to get what he wants. We can partially blame this on how bloggers and other people in the industry just want to make a living. “The payment structure of blogging reflects this emphasis on speed over other variables, such as quality accuracy, or how informative the content might be” (Holiday 42). The bloggers know the more posts they create, the more money they make, and if writing fake news gets them there, they will do it. In addition to this, bloggers want views. They target their audience and write what is going to get them to the top of the google search page. If real news is boring, they might twist it into something more interesting or “embellish” it with false details. It is not important to them whether or not the story they are telling is true or false. Money is more important to them then telling the truth. The journalists and bloggers also depend on sketchy sources to get their information. They know that some of the sources are not credible, but use them anyways because they are either interesting or easily accessible. Holiday explains this in his book when he says, “The majority of journalists surveyed admitted to knowing that their online sources were less reliable than traditional ones” (p. 20). This is incredibly interesting to me. How can a professional journalist be spreading things that they know are not true? To me, I think there should be some sort of guide line when it comes to what can be published. Although, I can see how this could be tricky when we have the First Amendment to worry about. Now, I think about the articles published by the Huffington Post, Buzzfeed, and other sites like those and consider why specific blogs are written. If it a popular topic at the time, for example, anything about the Kardashians, true or false, it is going to a get a lot of views and comments. That is the only thing important to these companies. On social media, we see celebrities proving rumors being spread about them to be false all the time, and yet we still are constantly reading and believing the things these sites post. I believe this is because of how much the world today thrives on social media, especially the younger generation. Social media dis unavoidable today, and like the saying goes, if you can’t beat it, join it. As a community, we all become brainwashed to believe these things are important and start to believe everything we read. Fake news is also a problem in other parts of the world. The Russian government now uses a tactic even worse than fake news. Putin has a new strategy that literally alters the Russian people’s reality and makes them believe things that are not even real. For example, the creation of the name Novorossiya, for a part of the Ukraine. “Nobody who lives in that part of the world today ever thought of themselves as living in Novorossiya and bearing allegiance to it—at least until several months ago. Now, Novorossiya is being imagined into being (through the media)” (Atlantic). The fact that one person can influence an entire country into believing an alternate reality is scary. That takes fake news to another level. Hopefully the US does not reach this point. Hopefully we can become smarter as a country and start to decipher what is real and what is fake. There has always been lies and corruption when it comes to governments in general. However, fake news seems to be becoming more and more apparent with the growth of social media. Social media is a powerful thing, and can be used for both good and bad. We can hope that fake news will begin to lessen, once the readers start to realize what is true and what is false. Works Cited
Joffe,Helene (2008). The Power of Visual Material: Persuasion, Emotion and Identification. Diogenes 217: 84 – 93. Jowett, Garth and O’Donnell, Victoria (2012). Chapter 6. How to Analyze Propaganda. Propaganda and Persuasion. 5th Edition. Thousand Oaks: Sage. The Real Cost. (n.d.). Retrieved February 26, 2017, from https://therealcost.betobaccofree.hhs.gov/?g=t&utm_source=bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Branded 9%2F14&utm_term=the real cost&utm_content=Branded Real Cost&gclid=CPneidW0uNICFYa7fgodT5gKuQ&gclsrc=ds Without even reading this chapter from "Trust Me, I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator" by Ryan Holiday, it is more than obvious snark is everywhere when it comes to media. In the beginning of the chapter, Holiday explains that he himself used humor when he had to deal with a client who was hit with a lawsuit. In turn, this worked. Holiday was skeptical of the law suit in the first place, so in the end when it worked out in their favor, he felt that it was justified. He mentions how after this event, he noticed how much we can use snark and humor to distract the media from something else going on. Snark is successful for bloggers because the person being called out, can't come back from it. Whatever they say, whether it is to defend themselves or call out the person doing the snarking, they will just be made fun of more. Holiday says the best way to deal with snarking is to not respond to it, as hard as that may be, but responding will only make it worse. Snark also only works on certain people. Making fun of the cast of Jersey Shore won't do anything because they have already embarrassed themselves on television and will take anything as fuel to make them more famous. Snark works on important people like politicians, or respected bloggers or celebrities. These snarky blogs and writings can essentially ruin a person's career, and more often than not they are untrue or twist the truth. The writers who are responsible for these posts are insecure and attack others in fear of being attacked themselves. The chapter talks about one of the snarkiest writers, Nikki Finke, and explains how she rarely leaves her house and there is only one photo of her online and it is extremely old. To sum everything up, bloggers and writers use snark because they will do just about anything to get their names out there, and they are also fearful of being the one called out first. However, snark does nothing positive for media and instead can destroy a person's career.
The first chapter of book I in "Trust Me, I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator" by Ryan Holiday, explained things about bloggers and the media that I never would have known. The influence media has on us today is huge, and we are constantly affected by it. That being said, I never would have guessed how poorly the bloggers are paid. When I think about well-known bloggers, or people considered "Instagram famous", I would assume they were paid a fair amount for the amount of posts they produce. The chapter explained that the only way for bloggers to make decent money is to post and post and post and get millions of views, and even then the reward might be small. However, bloggers are constantly rewarded with perks and free stuff, which keeps the business going. The only "easy" way for a blogger to make real money is to get a job with an old media company and get their name out there. Once they make a name for themselves they could get a nice job with a magazine who tells their shareholders that they are making a come back (seeing as print is a lot less popular than digital media today). So basically everyone is doing whatever is in their best interest, which in turn is helping everyone involved. Holiday also explains how both the bloggers and the blog publishers know exactly what is going on, and the blogger will write whatever the publisher wants even if it is completely false or controversial, because they will do anything to get their name out there. The chapter basically makes this industry sound extremely cut throat, and often times, not rewarding.
Unknowingly, we experience propaganda constantly in our everyday lives. These things stick with us throughout the day without us even realizing it. After paying close attention to the propaganda that surrounds me, I've realized that the propaganda we deal with today is not necessarily recognized as that. There was an insane amount of propaganda used during the presidential election, on both sides. When thinking about the race, the one thing that stands out to me most is Trump's slogan, "Make America Great Again." Whether you are for or against Trump, this slogan means something different to either side. I am going to focus more on what the slogan means for the pro-Trump supporters. I think the reason this piece of propaganda was so helpful to Trump throughout his campaign is because it satisfied a lot of Americans' want for change. Since America had 8 years of a Democratic president, Republicans were feigning for change. Even if they did not necessarily agree with Trump, they felt they wanted a change for the country and agreed with some of his views. This is why I think this slogan had such an impact on the race. It simplifies what Trump wants to do and makes everything sound positive, which, to anyone who wants something different for America, sounds like a great idea. It is amazing to see how just 4 words greatly impacted the entire country. TV shows, movies, documentaries etc. are also heavily loaded propaganda. Recently, I watched the documentary, Cowspiracy, which explains how the meat industry is killing out planet and basically tells the viewer the only way they can help is to go vegan. By the end of the documentary I was shocked. I never knew how bad the meat industry is for our planet. They used a bunch of different propaganda techniques to make this into a powerful film. They filled the documentary with statistics and graphs and interviewed reputable people. The film focused on the amount of damage the meat industry does to the ozone layer and environment. The film also used the idea of unity to get the viewer on board. They would tell the viewer what they could do to help and if everyone did help, we could save the planet. Whether or not the whole film was biased, or swayed one way, the propaganda techniques used were successful and helpful in getting their point across. Specifically in the New England, Dunkin Donuts is advertised everywhere. Without knowing why, I automatically think, if you don't drink Dunkins, you're not a true Bostonian. As ridiculous as that sounds, the company uses propaganda techniques which makes people feel this way. They often use celebrities from Boston or just a regular Bostonian with a heavy Boston accent saying "I'm drinkin' Dunkin". I think this is successful because it makes people feel like they belong to a community and that they should give business to them. The company also gives deals the day after professional New England sports team win a game. They push the fact that they are a casual, everyday business, which attacks their competitor. It is the opposite of Starbucks, one of their competitors, which is a more up-scale expensive business. Advertisements on TV, in newspapers and online also use a lot of propaganda. The commercials that stand out to me the most are the commercials trying to get kids and young adults to stop smoking. They emphasize the idea that cigarette smoking costs more than you think. There is one commercial that is played quite a bit where a girl goes into a convenient store to buy a pack of cigarettes. When she goes to pay, the cashier tells her it will cost more and then the girl starts to peel skin off of her face. This type of propaganda tactic attacks the viewers’ emotions. A person who smokes cigarettes might see this commercial and imagine themselves in this situation. These commercials are very uncomfortable to watch which makes the message even stronger to the viewers. Another commercial that appeals to the emotions is the ASPCA commercial. These commercials have been on TV forever. Their technique includes showing sick, injured or abused animals to affect the viewer's emotions. Naturally, someone would feel sorry for the animals being shown on the screen and would probably be more likely to donate money to the organization. They repeat a few times through out the commercial, "They need YOUR help". This tactic makes the viewer feel like it is their job to help the animals. They also often use celebrities to be the spokesperson for the commercials, which also increases the chances of a person to donate. I think that many people have a soft spot animals and this propaganda technique has probably helped the organization immensely in making money. Protests and advocacy events are full of propaganda. The whole point of a protest is to express how strongly the attendees feel about the issue. For example, the women's march that occurred a couple of weeks ago was probably one of the biggest protests I have ever seen. The signs they women held were full of propaganda. The signs mainly targeted how women feel oppressed and feel as though their rights are being taken away. Instead of moving forwards in regards to women's rights, a lot of people feel as though we are moving backwards. Signs were held that directly affected anyone's emotions. The point was to make everyone feel affected. The messages addressed the fact that they were walking and protesting for your mom, sister, friend, wife, etc., so that men would also join the protest. Before the protest took place there was a lot of advertising for it. It was all over Facebook and used the propaganda technique of making women feel united and also made them feel as though they could be a part of something bigger. |
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