Age of Propaganda by
Americans create 57% of the world's advertising while representing only 6% of its population; half of our waking hours are spent immersed in the mass media. Persuasion has always been integral to the democratic process, but increasingly, thoughtful discussion is being replaced with simplistic soundbites and manipulative messages. Drawing on the history of propaganda as well as on contemporary research in social psychology, Age of Propaganda shows how the tactics used by political campaigners, sales agents, advertisers, televangelists, demagogues, and others often take advantage of our emotions by appealing to our deepest fears and most irrational hopes, creating a distorted vision of the world we live in. This revised and updated edition includes coverage of the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal, recent election campaigns, talk radio, teen suicide, U.F.O. abductions, the Columbine shootings, and novel propaganda tactics based on hypocrisy and false allegations.
U.S. Official Propaganda during the Vietnam War, 1965-1973 : The Limits of Persuasion by 
Germany and Propaganda in World War I: Pacifism, Mobilization and Total War by
Adolf Hitler, writing in Mein Kampf, was scathing in his condemnation of German propaganda in World War I, declaring that Germany failed to recognise that the mobilization of public opinion was a weapon of the first order. This, despite the fact that propaganda had been regarded by the German leadership, arguably for the first time, as an intrinsic part of the war effort. In this book, David Welch fully examines German society - politics, propaganda, public opinion and total war - in the Great War. Drawing on a wide range of sources - posters, newspapers, journals, film, Parliamentary debates, police and military reports and private papers - he argues that the moral collapse of Germany was due less to the failure to disseminate propaganda than to the inability of the military authorities and the Kaiser to reinforce this propaganda, and to acknowledge the importance of public opinion in forging an effective link between leadership and the people.
Propaganda and Persuasion by
Reflecting the remarkable changes in the world of propaganda due to the increasing use of social media, this updated Seventh Edition provides a systematic introduction to the increasingly complex world of propaganda. Viewing propaganda as a form of communication, the authors help readers understand information and persuasion so they can understand the characteristics of propaganda and how it works as a communication process. Providing provocative case studies and fascinating examples of the use of propaganda from ancient times up through the present day, Propaganda and Persuasion provides an original model that helps students analyze the instances of propaganda and persuasion they encounter in everyday life. New to the Seventh Edition: New coverage of social media as a disseminator of propaganda offers readers an up-to-date perspective. The book's four case studies have been updated and strengthened to demonstrate their relevance not only to past and contemporary culture, but also to the study of propaganda campaigns. New coverage of how a propaganda case study can be structured to reveal the components of a campaign allows students to compare strengths and weaknesses across different types of campaigns and evaluate the relative success of various propaganda strategies. Updated research on persuasion and expanded coverage of collective memory as it appears in new memorials and monuments enhances the presentation. Current examples of propaganda, especially the ways it is disseminated via the Internet, deepen student understanding. New illustrations and photos add a unique visual dimension that helps readers conceptualize methods of persuasion and propaganda.
Post-Truth by
2016 marked the dawn of the post-truth era. The year saw two shock election results, each of which has the potential to reshape the world: the UK's decision to leave the EU, and the elevation of Donald Trump to the office of US President. The campaigns highlighted many of the same issues in their home countries: social division, anger at the elite, anti-immigration sentiment and more--but, more than anything, they heralded an unprecedented rise of bullshit. Sophistry and spin have been part of politics since the dawn of time. But the modern era sees millions being fed false reports that Hillary Clinton ordered 30,000 guillotines to use on her opponents following her victory, while Trump claims he "never said that" about speeches recorded on video. Post-truth is bigger than fake news and bigger than social media. It's about the slow rise of a political, media, and online infrastructure that has devalued truth. Bullshit gets you noticed. Bullshit makes you rich. Bullshit can even pave your way to the Oval Office. This is the story of bullshit: what's being spread, who's spreading it, why it works--and what we can do to tackle it. James Ballhas worked in political, data, and investigative journalism in the United States and in the UK for BuzzFeed,The Guardian, and theWashington Post in a career spanning TV, digital, print, and alternative media. His reporting has won several prizes including the Pulitzer Prize for public service.
Fake News Nation by
After the election of Donald Trump as president, people in the United States and across large swaths of Europe, Latin America, and Asia engaged in the most intensive discussion in modern times about falsehoods pronounced by public officials. Fake facts in their various forms have long been present in American life, particularly in its politics, public discourse, and business activities - going back to the time when the country was formed. This book explores the long tradition of fake facts, in their various guises, in American history. It is one of the first historical studies to place the long history of lies and misrepresentation squarely in the middle of American political, business, and science policy rhetoric. In Fake News Nation, James Cortada and William Aspray present a series of case studies that describe how lies and fake facts were used over the past two centuries in important instances in American history. Cortada and Aspray give readers a perspective on fake facts as they appear today and as they are likely to appear in the future.
Nazi Propaganda for the Arab World by
This groundbreaking history connects Nazi Germany's Arabic-language propaganda during World War II to anti-Semitism in the Middle East in the decades since. Jeffrey Herf, a leading scholar in the field, offers the most extensive examination to date of Nazi propaganda activities targeting Arabs and Muslims in the Middle East during World War II and the Holocaust. He draws extensively on previously unused and little-known archival resources, including the shocking transcriptions of the "Axis Broadcasts in Arabic" radio programs, which convey a strongly anti-Semitic message. Herf explores the intellectual, political, and cultural context in which German and European radical anti-Semitism was found to resonate with similar views rooted in a selective appropriation of the traditions of Islam. Pro-Nazi Arab exiles in wartime Berlin, including Haj el-Husseini and Rashid el-Kilani, collaborated with the Nazis in constructing their Middle East propaganda campaign. By integrating the political and military history of the war in the Middle East with the intellectual and cultural dimensions of the propagandistic diffusion of Nazi ideology, Herf offers the most thorough examination to date of this important chapter in the history of World War II. Importantly, he also shows how the anti-Semitism promoted by the Nazi propaganda effort contributed to the anti-Semitism exhibited by adherents of radical forms of Islam in the Middle East today.
Media, Persuasion and Propaganda by
Living in a saturated media environment, we are crowded from all sides by persuasive messages and information. Advice, promotion and propaganda form a spectrum of persuasion, and everywhere we see it performed in its full theatricality, complete with actors, scripts, props and costumes. Based on enduring rhetorical principles, these persuasive techniques and the psychology behind them have become increasingly sophisticated during the 'age of persuasion', a century of applied research in advertising, advocacy, public relations, mass entertainment and social control. Media, Persuasion and Propaganda guides the reader through the many varieties of persuasion and its performance, exploring the protocols of rhetoric unique to the medium, from orality and print to film and digital images. Using case studies and exercises, this innovative study poses challenging questions, such as: How do individuals and organisations exert influence to build communities and networks? What role do media play in communicating persuasive messages? How do we use recent discoveries in cognitive science to promote a cause, advocate social change or market ideas and products? How do we defend ourselves against manipulation and undue influence, and when does persuasion turn into propaganda?
Historical Dictionary of American Propaganda by
From the French and Indian War in 1754, with Benjamin Franklin's Join or Die cartoon, to the present war in Iraq, propaganda has played a significant role in American history. The Historical Dictionary of American Propaganda provides more than 350 entries, focusing primarily on propaganda created by the U.S. government throughout its existence. Two specialists, one a long-time research librarian at the U.S. Information Agency (the USIA) and the State Department's Bureau of Diplomacy, and the other a former USIA Soviet Disinformation Officer, Martin J. Manning and Herbert Romerstein bring a profound knowledge of official U.S. propaganda to this reference work. The dictionary is further enriched by a substantial bibliography, including films and videos, and an outstanding annotated list of more than 105 special collections worldwide that contain material important to the study of U.S. propaganda. Students, researchers, librarians, faculty, and interested general readers will find the Historical Dictionary of American Propaganda an authoritative ready-reference work for quick information on a wide range of events, publications, media, people, government agencies, government plans, organizations, and symbols that provided mechanisms to promote America's interests, both abroad and domestically, in peace and in war. Almost all entries conclude with suggestions for further research, and the topically arranged bibliography provides a further comprehensive listing of important resources, including films and videos.
Politics and Propaganda by
In a world of near-boundless suspicion of politics and the media, why do politicians still exploit the familiar techniques of propaganda? And why are we so vulnerable to their inscrutable allure? In Politics and Propaganda Nicholas O'Shaughnessy shows us why propaganda continues to be one of the prime movers of human history. O'Shaughnessy, renowned author, scholar, and founder of the cutting-edge field of political marketing, explores one of the most-studied but least-understood aspects of civilized society. His comprehensive study of rhetoric, myth, and symbol explains both the evolution of propaganda and its continued success in the modern and post-modern eras. The result is an elegantly argued analysis that draws on a veritable encyclopedia of examples to explain the persistent appeal of disinformation in an age of high media literacy and intense political and social skepticism. Nicholas Jackson O'Shaughnessy is Professor of Marketing at the University of Keele (UK) and a member of that university's Center for Political Marketing. He is a Fellow of Hughes Hall, Cambridge, and an Elected Fellow of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce. Professor O'Shaughnessy is also the author of numerous well-known books on aspects of political marketing.
Conflict propaganda in Syria : Narrative battles by
This book investigates rival narratives about the conflict in Syria from 2011 onwards. It examines the starkly different narratives about the Syrian conflict told by mainly Western mainstream and alternative media, and contrasts these narratives with the equally polarized but more nuanced narratives of mainly western scholars and long-form journalists.
LikeWar: The Weaponization of Social Media by
Named a Best Book of the Year By Amazon andForeign AffairsMagazine Through the weaponization of social media, the internet is changing war and politics, just as war and politics are changing the internet. Terrorists livestream their attacks, "Twitter wars" produce real‑world casualties, and viral misinformation alters not just the result of battles, but the very fate of nations. War, tech, and politics have blurred into a new kind of battle space that plays out on our smartphones. P. W. Singer and Emerson Brooking tackle the mind‑bending questions that arise when war goes online and the online world goes to war. Delving into the web's darkest corners,LikeWar outlines a radical new paradigm for understanding and defending against the unprecedented threats of our networked world.
Munitions of the Mind: A History of Propaganda from the Ancient World to the Present Era by
New edition of a classic work on the history of propaganda. Topical new chapters on the 1991 Gulf War, September 11 and terrorism. An ideal textbook for all international courses covering media and communication studies. Considers the history of propaganda and how it has become increasingly pervasive due to access to ever-complex and versatile media. Written in an accessible style and format, this book has proven its appeal to the general reader as the public becomes more and more cynical of the manipulations of the political sphere.
Propaganda and the Ethics of Persuasion by
This book develops a sophisticated account of propaganda and its intriguing history. It begins with a brief overview of Western propaganda, including Ancient Greek theories of rhetoric, and traces propaganda's development through the Christian era, the rise of the nation-state, World War I, Nazism, Communism, and the present day. The core of the book examines the ethical implications of various forms of persuasion, not only hate propaganda but also insidious elements of more generally acceptable communication such as advertising, public relations, and government information, setting these in the context of freedom of expression. This new edition is updated throughout, and includes additional revelations about a key atrocity story of World War I.
The Media at War by
This uniquely comprehensive assessment of the role of the media before, during and after wars draws on examples from the 20th century's total wars as well as limited wars, terrorist campaigns, and complex emergencies such as Rwanda and Somalia. It argues that the media's performance in wartime may result as much from peacetime journalistic practices as from the special circumstances of war. The book concludes by assessing the impact of new communications technology and how the representation of future wars is likely to differ from those in the past.
World War I and Propaganda by
World War I and Propaganda offers a new look at a familiar subject. The contributions to this volume demonstrate that the traditional view of propaganda as top-down manipulation is no longer plausible. Drawing from a variety of sources, scholars examine the complex negotiations involved in propaganda within the British Empire, in occupied territories, in neutral nations, and how war should be conducted. Propaganda was tailored to meet local circumstances and integrated into a larger narrative in which the war was not always the most important issue. Issues centering on local politics, national identity, preservation of tradition, or hopes of a brighter future all played a role in different forms of propaganda. Contributors are Christopher Barthel, Donata Blobaum, Robert Blobaum, Mourad Djebabla, Christopher Fischer, Andrew T. Jarboe, Elli Lemonidou, David Monger, Javier Pounce, Catriona Pennell, Anne Samson, Richard Smith, Kenneth Andrew Steuer, Mar a In s Tato, and Lisa Todd.