Post on 23-Feb-2023
Sanchita A. Kadam
Professor Dr. Joseph
Ethics and Public Policy
Masters in Public Policy
St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai
23/11/2014
Propaganda: Ethics and Praxis
Abstract
My paper explores the many definitions of propaganda and how it
is looked at from an ethical point of view. With the help of many
scholarly articles I was able to study the link between ethics
and propaganda. The following paper specifies the origin of
propaganda and its usage in other various fields of work. The
practical application of propaganda through various media has
been looked at. The various techniques used in application of
propaganda are explained with suitable examples. The paper
explores the unique position of propaganda in the field of
ethics.
Propaganda: Introduction
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe
it.” -----Joseph Goebbels, propaganda expert and Reich Minister of
Public Enlightenment and Education, for Nazi Germany.
The word propaganda has a very negative connotation to it and at
face value appears to be professing all things bad. According to
the Merriam Webster dictionary, “propaganda is a set of ideas or
statements that are often false or exaggerated and that are
spread in order to help a cause, a political leader, a
government, etc.” Propaganda is clearly not a scientific term
that can be defined within the confines of a few words. It is a
social phenomenon having containing views of various social
thinkers and practitioners over the years. We will explore these
definitions further in the paper.
Propaganda is a form of persuasion that seeks to manipulate the
minds of the receivers in pursuit of a desired goal mainly by
authority. In theory people buy commodities of their choice and
create opinions based on a process of free thought but in reality
these choices and opinions are fed, mostly unknowingly, in their
minds by various manifestations of propaganda through various
media. Propaganda is politically skewed information designed to
persuade or educate the populace, normally in an effort to
disseminate a particular ideology (Clark).
Propaganda as a word has the most negative connotations and
sinister appearance among the larger public. While considering it
under the discipline of semantics, propaganda can be said to one
of the most misunderstood concepts as it is perceived as
unethical and immoral by general public. This can be credited to
the times of Second World War when Nazi Germany used propaganda
as a significant tool to spread anti-Semitic sentiments and to
gain popularity for electoral gains. Millions of Germans voted
for the Nazi party in free elections due to skillful application
of propaganda techniques by the party.
Some contemporary definitions blame propaganda of dehumanizing
the receiver through manipulation and persuasion. In short it
blames propaganda of killing critical thought process among the
audience. Such an allegation is a wee bit like stretching it too
far. Humans are very much capable of willfully pursuing critical
thoughts and thus even though propaganda has been successful in
manipulating minds it has not gone as far as to blind the public
entirely. In this digital day and age when any kind of
information is at the mercy of every internet user, analysis and
cross checking is an easy task. Thus propaganda can go only so
far as to play with the minds of those who either do not have
access to the vast arena of information on the internet or to the
ones who do not seek such a source of information.
It seems like an exaggeration to claim that propaganda robs us of
our freedom and turn us into automatons, yet it certainly sets
impediments in our way, thereby inhibiting our capacity to know
and to act well (Black). Thus it can be inferred that propaganda
impairs the quality of volition and will of people and if they
were informed otherwise or given a chance for critical thought,
they could judge speak or vote otherwise.
Propaganda is a far more diversified and complex phenomenon than
just uttering lies and the slick manipulation of beliefs and
language.
Edgar Henderson claimed previous definitions fell short, and
proposed that “propaganda is a process which deliberately
attempts through persuasion techniques to secure from the
propagandee, before he can deliberate freely, the responses
desired by the propagandist”
Leonard Doob in his book, Public opinion and Propaganda,
suggested that propaganda is an absolutely inevitable social
phenomenon and it cannot be exorcised by calling it evil names.
Propaganda is a social phenomenon that poses as communication and
exploits communication resources (Black).
The ‘success’ of propaganda should not be measured purely in
terms of its ability radically to change opinions and attitudes.
Propaganda is as much about confirming as about converting public
opinion (Welch).
One of the major reasons for the existence of a social phenomenon
like propaganda is the persistent human want for power. It
explains like this, when the monarchy, feudalism and imperialism
had the power to have a strict control over the lives of their
subjects, they did not need a measure like propaganda to
manipulate them. It’s when concepts of universal suffrage, human
rights and universal literacy came into practice when power
started to slip from these entities and it got disseminated among
the public through the power of knowledge and state of awareness
infested through education.
Whether propaganda is good or bad depends upon the merit of the
cause urged, and the correctness of the information published
(Bernays).
Origin of propaganda
Propaganda as a term first came into use as a result of
missionary activities of the Roman Catholic Church in the 17th
century. The church had resorted to holy wars to re-establish
their faith by force of arms which turned out to be highly
unfruitful. So Pope Gregory XV established the Sacra Congregation
de propaganda fide (Congregation For The Propaganda Of Faith) in
1622 in pursuance of the goal of persuading people to accept
catholic ideals and doctrines. A College of Propaganda was set up
under Pope Urban VIII to train priests for the missions.
Propaganda has been very much prevalent through the middle ages
to modern times. Propaganda was involved in the conflict between
the king and the parliament in England; it was used in the
American freedom movement as also the French revolution. Later,
fascism and communism engaged in intense revolutionary propaganda
(American History Assn.).
With development in politics, especially in democracies
propaganda was found to be useful for promotion. A candidate has
to indulge in promotion as a part of political to get elected to
office and thus uses propaganda techniques to appeal to his
voters.
Propaganda praxis
Propaganda as a phenomenon has evolved over the years and has
assimilated into various social practices. It can’t be said that
everywhere persuasion is used propaganda comes into play unless
it is used rigorously to accomplish a personal motive.
Propaganda, as per its apparent first application evolved into
religious propaganda, furthermore with world war it emerged into
political propaganda as also war time propaganda. At around this
time the newly emerged medium of advertising was used to further
propaganda. In the post war years it was employed by fascists and
communists to invoke revolutionary propaganda. In many countries
either overly or covertly propaganda is vehemently used through
the medium of education in the subject of history. In today’s
modern age, propaganda is mostly covertly used in democratic
societies through the practice of public relations. Although many
practitioners of public relations refute that they are involved
in bad propaganda, one has to admit there is a very fine line
between public relations and propaganda.
In fact the evolution of public relations as a practice began
with the motive of propaganda in mind. Edward Bernays, the father
of public relations, cringed from the negative connotation that
the word propaganda had and thus renamed it as public relations.
He is very well known for employing means to using propaganda to
promote America’s involvement in the First World War. He saw
propaganda as democratic leadership.
Propaganda techniques
There are numerous techniques of propaganda used by various
media. A few of the prominent ones are as follows:
Ad hominem: It is a Latin phrase which means attacking one’s
opponent instead of attacking their arguments which is most
of the times evident when there is conflict between two
political party workers in democratic societies.
Appeals to fear: It seeks to build fear by invoking panic and
anxiety in general public like Joseph Goebbels instilled the
fear that the Allies sought to exterminate German people in
order to invoke war sentiments and to garner mass support.
Bandwagon: It attempts to persuade target audience to take
course of action that everyone is else is taking, basically
forwarding the herd mentality among the people.
Cherry picking (selective truth): During the Second World War Britain
had a psychological warfare division and the deputy director
explained that a good propagandist is someone who tells that
part of the truth which is requisite for his purpose and
tells it in a way that the receiver does not realize that he
is receiving propaganda. Therefore one cannot claim that
propaganda is involved in lying to the public. In fact,
propaganda involves telling the truth but not its entirety.
(Cole)
Since the focus of the paper is ethics of propaganda and its
applications in various fields, very limited techniques of
propaganda have been mentioned above. There are many more such
techniques being used by people in the field of public relations,
advertising and other such fields.
Public relations
Public relations is a strategic communication process that builds
mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their
publics (PRSA).
In this definition communication process refers to a top-down one
way communication. This kind of communication has been
incorporated into a public relations model called the press
agentry/ publicity model by Grunig and Hunt where complete truth
is not essential (Grunig et al). Propaganda fits into this
category of hiding facts and selective exposure of information.
Thus, it can be said that public relations does not follow the
pure art of persuasion as put forward by Tench and Yeoman in
their book Exploring Public Relations.
Cutlip et al (1985, cited in Tench and Yeomans, 2006) suggest
that the objective of most public relations campaigns is either
“to change or neutralise hostile opinion, crystallize uninformed
or latent opinion, or conserve favourable opinions by reinforcing
them” (Lovell).
The new profession of public relations has grown up because of
the increasing complexity of modern life and the consequent
necessity for making the actions of one part of the public
understandable to other sectors of the public (Bernays)
At the same time one cannot say that public relations and
propaganda are congruent in absolute terms. While practitioners
of public relations argue that only unethical public relations
can be affirmed as propaganda, scholars believe that propaganda
and public relations are terms that can be used interchangeably.
Ethical theories for propaganda
In order to understand the ethics in propaganda it is essential
to understand which ethical theory does propaganda conform to.
Among the various approaches in ethics, propaganda as per its
various definitions comes close to conforming to the
consequentialist theory. This theory bases the moral evaluation
on acts and their consequences. Under this, the utilitarian
approach is a purely consequential ethical theory which states
that morality depends on the relation of the act to the
maximization of the utility.
Act utilitarianism as stated by John Stuart Mill is the one where
it seeks to promote capability of achieving happiness for large
amount of people.
Deontology is an ethical position which judges the morality of an
action on the basis of its adherence to a set of rules. It does
not concern itself with the consequences of the action unlike
utilitarianism. Thus deontology could apply to ethics of
propaganda since propaganda abides by its set rules and
principles but its consequences being good or bad, amounting to
happiness in the short run or proving fatal in the long run is
quite debatable.
Jacques Ellul who has been a pioneer in the area of ethics of
propaganda said, “Propaganda seems to be… a purely neutral
instrument in itself, and one which therefore can be used for any
kind of cause- a good cause such as peace… an evil cause such as
militarism. In reality nothing is further from the truth (Ellul).
Propaganda does obey a certain ethic but not taken in the moral
sense but rather as a rule of behavior (Ellul). As a system of
intervention, propaganda is purely formal but as an integrated
part of social reality, it needs to have content of moral nature.
The techniques that propaganda uses can be justified for its
methods and principles through deontology but when it is being
received by the audience and furthermore interpreted, the
question of morality arises. When the utility of the actions of
propaganda is raised, one can claim that propaganda is simply a
neutral instrument that can be used for good or bad causes as
mentioned by Ellul. The consequence of the propaganda determines
whether it is ethically justified or not.
Ellul instead puts forth a new way of linking ethics to
propaganda. He says that propaganda itself creates a morality, an
ethic. It furnishes man with a criterion for good and evil.
We are in the presence of the making of an artificial and
ideological morality, and I mean by that a morality which
imposes itself upon a group of humans who have not chosen
it; neither was it developed slowly through usages and
customs, trials and errors, uncertainties and choices, nor
was it passed on from generation to generation by a slow
cultural transmission, but rather as a whole of systematic
behaviors obtained by rapid and active technical means…and
always with a totalitarian goal, that is to say,
encompassing all of man, leaving no latitude of choice nor
any field undetermined, which would be completely
destructive to propaganda. (Ellul)
Ellul states that propaganda constitutes a psycho political
universe in which a person situates oneself and while in that
universe if he makes any criticism of propaganda he will end up
contributing to the reinforcement and growth of propaganda. Thus
morality and ethics have no power over the actions of propaganda
because judging it ethically would deviate propaganda from the
political or economic universe and propaganda as its goal has to
hide reality within an ideological discourse which acts as a
justifier because it is moral.
Edward Bernays
According to Edward Bernays, a pioneer of public relations,
manipulation of opinions and habits of the public is an important
element in democratic societies. The people who engage in such
manipulation are a part of an invisible government which is the
true ruling power of our country. Propaganda is the executive arm
of the invisible government. This invisible government is in the
hands of the wealthy few since the cost to reach millions of
people through advertising is an expensive affair.
So our opinions are formed, our volition is formed largely by
people we have never heard of or seen and in order to live in a
smooth functioning society one has to come to accept such a way
of life. If the masses studied and analyzed every single
economic, political issue in every question then it would be
difficult to come to any conclusion about any issue at all. Thus
another viewpoint of looking at persuasion methods and propaganda
is that they help in narrowing our field of choice to pragmatic
proportions thus making it easier for the society to function.
An alternative to propaganda would be having committees of few
chosen wise men who could choose our government, dictate our
conduct and choose the best commodities for us to use which seems
much similar to a dictatorship.
Public relations: a code of ethics
During World War One Edward Bernays was a part of Woodrow Wilson
government’s committee on public information and he was
instrumental in promoting the idea of America entering the war by
convincing people at large that war efforts were aimed at
bringing democracy to all of Europe. Seeing the effects of
propaganda in wartime Edward Bernays thought of engaging in the
same practice during times of peace. Eventually the public
relations counsel in US has developed from itself a code of
ethics realizing that public relations has developed into a
significant profession.
A public relations professional should refuse a client whom he
believes to be dishonest, presenting a product which is
fraudulent or putting forward a cause which he believes to be
anti-social. This is his social responsibility. On the
professional front, he must not accept a client whose interests
conflict with those of another client of his. He must not accept
a client whose product seems unmarketable to him. He must
reiterate to his client that his job is not to fool or deceive
the public (Bernays).
If he is sending out propaganda the source should be clearly
mentioned, the editor should be in the knowhow of the source and
he must accept or reject it judging the news by its merit.
Propaganda through education
Propaganda is the deliberate, systematic attempt to shape perceptions, manipulate
cognition, and direct behavior to achieve a response that furthers the desired intent of
the propagandist.— Garth S. Jowell and Victoria O‘Donnell, Propaganda
and Persuasion
According to a report of 2009, much of the information being
taught to America‘s 7th grade students regarding Islam, its
history and its founder, Muhammad, does not meet the academic
definition of history. But it perfectly fits this formal
definition of propaganda (Act for America).
The American Textbook Council (the Council) was founded in 1989
as an independent national research organization. ―The Council
reviews history textbooks and other educational materials. It is
dedicated to improving the social studies curriculum and civic
education in the nation's elementary and high schools. According
to the Council, textbooks being used by thousands of public
schools across the country are blatantly glorifying and promoting
Islam.
Covertly revising history and leaving out important facts are
proven thought-control techniques that were used extensively by
the Nazis and the Communists in their quest for world domination.
More recently, the Saudis and the Iranians have employed and even
improved upon these tactics of deception.
In the reviewed textbooks glittering generalities about Islam
include statements that are unsupported by or even contradictory
to historical facts. These ―propaganda points‖ ignore factual
information about Islam‘s violent history of holy war, conquest
and subjugation.
In the reviewed textbooks everything about Islam is praised and
glorified. Problems in Islamic history and culture are simply
left out of the textbooks. Students learn about Islam‘s ―great
cultural flowering as it ―spread to other cultures, but nothing
about the later centuries of stagnation, decline and decay.
While the finding of this report can be given credit because of
its sources, the claims that it has made about the holy Quran
were unnecessary and to me it seems like an attempt at creating
anti-Islamic sentiments among parents of school-going children,
which in itself can be rounded off as an attempt at spreading
anti-Islamic propaganda.
Propaganda and journalism
Propaganda sometimes leads to erosion of ethics of journalism due
to the interdependence of media and the corporate sector. This
can be illustrated with a simple example. If a residential
building is coming up on a land entitled to be used for public
infrastructure and there is a nexus of the government official
and the owner then the public relations practitioner would advise
on how to package the proposal and ways to mollify public
objections. It is the job of the news media to alert the public
about the implications of the concerned project but they would be
unable to do so if they carry the ads of the same builder
(Marlin).
This point is noteworthy that the media is at the mercy of the
corporate because of the advertising revenue that they provide.
As pointed out by Noam Chomsky advertising revenue is one of
filters in his propaganda model. The reason why news through
print is accessible to us at such low prices is because of the
advertising revenue they get from the corporate sector
Public relations practitioners often advise how to package
proposals and how to anticipate and defuse public objections
War time Propaganda
While many examples of war time propaganda have can be followed
from many decades in the modern age, World war one can be a good
one to illustrate. It is said that the propaganda employed during
world war one actually started the formal practice of propaganda
by appointing officials to carry out the act of manipulative
persuasion. While public relations and advertising are very
subtly mild forms of propaganda what actual propaganda stands for
is well demonstrated by the govt. officials during World War One.
Persuading people to buy a product now seems like an in front of
the hill that the propaganda in war time manipulated people who
were anti-war to develop war sentiments.
At the turn of the 20th century, the economy was geared towards
the mass production of consumer goods at prices within the reach
of many. In a market now virtually flooded with goods, finding
demand for these helped to give rise to modern marketing and
advertising. Part of that process frequently entailed creating a
want, if not a need, for goods where none had existed before.
Consumers were encouraged to shift from making rational, fact-
based decisions towards choices based more on emotional impulses
Products were advertised keeping war as the theme and in that way
both war sentiments were invoked and private enterprises
benefited demand being generated for their product. So, along the
way they could draw on a sense of romanticism, recreating the war
in a romantic way and reinforcing recruiting propaganda that
spoke to the sense of adventure that characterized the conflict.
In the face of shortfalls in recruits into the army prior to the
outbreak of war, J E B Seeley, the Secretary of State for War in
Britain, had recruited the services of the publicist Hedley Le
Bas of the Caxton Publishing Company. Le Bas’s solution had been
to launch an advertising campaign, drawing on emotional appeals,
which met with a good deal of success. Subsequently, these
services were retained and many in government acknowledged for
the first time the contribution that advertising practitioners
might make either in an ‘official’ capacity or by their own
volition in joining the patriotic crusade as a means of promoting
their goods as the nation went to war.
Conclusion
Propaganda as a practice has been employed into various fields
over the years now. Although its application keeps evolving, the
core of the concept remains intact- manipulative persuasion.
There’s no reason for one to believe that manipulative persuasion
is an unethical practice. The concept of propaganda in itself
cannot be determined as unethical or ethical without considering
the context in which it is used and what outcomes it bears. For
instance when propaganda actually began in practice, it was used
to preach the Christian faith and to gain more followers. There
was no harm intended and the outcome was pretty much harmless.
Public service advertisements are put out with the intention of
creating awareness about policies, or to invite suggestions
regarding policies which is essential for good functioning of a
democracy. To encourage people to take their children for a polio
dose every time a polio drive is arranged with the use of
celebrities in their ads was a propaganda technique by the
government but the outcome was very much beneficial for the whole
lot of the population. Thus, in this case propaganda becomes
morally viable and an ethical practice.
On the other hand when propaganda is used via techniques like
half truth and glistening imagery in order to form positive
public opinion about a certain thing and thus create a negative
public opinion of a certain other opposing idea then one can
question the ethicality of propaganda. The recent ads of the
political party BJP (Bharatiya Janta Party) encouraging people to
become a member of the party while the media covers positive news
about the leaders of the party is a milieu of various techniques
of propaganda employed by the party that will have far reaching
effects in the long run which are difficult to gauge presently.
In defense one can say that these are just Public relations
activities of the party and it is a professionally viable
practice. That is where the lines between propaganda and public
relations get blurred and thus it is difficult to determine
whether public relations is an ethical practice or not in such
contexts. A public relations practitioner must follow certain
ethics so that it doesn’t veer towards bad propaganda and have a
bad long lasting effect on the masses in the long term.
Thus, any individual, organization or group intending to indulge
in propaganda to further their purpose must follow some self-
imposed ethical codes in order to avoid veering off to bad
propaganda that can hurt the concerned audience n any manner.
Also, the study of ethics of propaganda is very contextual and
cannot be done without considering its effects and circumstances.
Works Cited
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Black, Jay. Semantics and Ethics of Propaganda. Journal of Mass Media Ethics,
16(2&3), 121–137. Web.
Welch D. The Third Reich Politics and Propaganda. New York. Routledge,
2002. Print.
Bernays E. Propaganda. 1928. Web.
Cole, R. Encyclopedia od Propaganda. 1998. Print.
PRSA. Public Relations Society of America.
http://www.prsa.org/aboutprsa/publicrelationsdefined/#.VHDFYdKUcx
h
American History Association. “The Story of Propaganda”.
http://www.historians.org/about-aha-and-membership/aha-history-
and-archives/gi-roundtable-series/pamphlets/what-is-propaganda/
the-story-of-propaganda
Grunig, J. Hunt, T. Managing Public Relations. 1984. Print.
Ellul, J. The ethics of Propaganda. 1981. Web.
Chomsky, N; Herman, E. Manufacturing Consent. 1988. Web.
Tench, R. and Yeomans, L. Exploring Public Relations, Pearson
Education, 2006. Harlow.
Lovell, E. “Ethical Propaganda”. Web.
Act for America. Islam in America’s Classrooms: History or Propaganda? Truth
in Education Joint Subcommittee, 2009.
Marlin, R. Propaganda, Ethics and Media- Political And Commercial Erosion Of
Journalism Ethics. Global media Journal, 2010. Web.
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