Assignment

Pride or Propaganda

CA499 Professional Strategies

Rodney Hopper

Grantham University G00066147

Pride or Propaganda

Terrorist, extremist, villainous, heinous, atrocious, militant, are just a few words to describe those in the opposition to a certain political or ideological point of view. Patriot, citizen, hero, soldier, etc. different or are they words media use to promote a governmental idea or agenda? Imagine being on the other side of the issue from your opposition. Looking them square in the face and actually listening to their point of view and how their view point is not unlike yours in many ways. Both feel as if they are right and the other is wrong. Both feel as if one is destroying, effecting or infringing on the rights, beliefs or way of life of the other? Both consider the other to be unwelcomed, unwanted and a nuisance. Both would agree that they feel as if they are the hero of their story and the other is the villain. These are points that would be agreed upon, only in the perspective of the narrative of the person telling the story. How did they get here? To what extent made them feel as if they are right and the other is wrong? An agenda, propaganda or material that was used, gave them a sense of entitlement, of belonging, and pride. Each having their rights, or liberties being infringed and feeling it necessary to villainize the other seems to be the only rational way. So how did we as American’s get to this conclusion of always being the good guy? Did we just come to this on our own collectively? Did we somehow just see all the wrong in the world and without guidance, come to a common goal or interest? No. We have for years been programmed, inundated and conditioned to believe that we are, above all others and regardless of circumstances, Right. I will attempt to answer the question of why do most American’s feel as if our country is always in the right and all others are in the wrong? Is it Pride or propaganda? I will explain a brief history of how our country was not only founded in such propaganda as well as how that same type of information has formed our national pride. I will explain some basic forms of programming that we undergo daily that instills this pride. I will also explain that even our media often spins topics in the favor of America and often depicting certain types of attacks as happening more often based on their correlation with certain separatist or “extremist” groups.

We have been practicing the subtle art of nationalism and promoting our cause for hundreds of years. All the way back to the revolutionary war where we used pictures and writings to show tyrants from across a vast sea imposing their heinous tyranny, on us, the good people of the new world. This was to inforce a sense of togetherness, a bond and as a means to fund and finance a revolution (Clevelandfed.org, 2015). So as you can see our founding fathers used such tactics because brute force alone could not get the job done. We needed to win people’s hearts and minds. We needed people to believe in one common goal and we needed other countries to help us. What better way then through illustrations and newspaper articles to get our word out. We did then and do now still use media, social media and other venues to finance wars, to influence our people and others abroad to buy into a certain ideal or set of circumstances.

So when did our nation really make an art of crafting propaganda and use it in the way that it actually works? In 1917, George Creel wrote a letter to Woodrow Wilson explaining the need for a committee that had the nation’s best interest in mind. Creel was a well-known journalist who made a name for himself by writing a book about Woodrow Wilson that many believe helped Wilson win the election. They needed a campaign that actually made people want to fight as well as influence other countries to join. Journalist famous for writing about Wilson and getting him elected. “As chairman of the Committee on Public Information (CPI), Creel became the mastermind behind the U.S. government’s propaganda campaign in the Great War. For two years, he rallied the American public to the cause of war and sold the globe a vision of America and President Wilson’s plans for a world order. He was a controversial figure in wartime Washington, but his efforts changed the ideological landscape at home and abroad, and many of the methods and approaches he pioneered became a standard part of U.S. statecraft” (Cull, 2012). Hollywood even bought in a started to make movies such as Perishing’s Crusader and a slew of other glamorized war movies. CPI even went as far as to block the export of films that depicted Americans in illegal or Wild West activity and blocked showing German films etc. As you can see this is a very effective and important aspect of programming or influencing through propaganda. If other countries believe you’re a bunch of wild cowboys running through the west shooting up the place who wants any part of that? American had an image to uphold and they were going to keep their reputation no matter what. There were multiple reports that Creel and this committee often had operatives and sympathizers alike to report in a favorable way to the American cause. I understand that all countries look out for the welfare or image of their society but to actually change media when much of the premise of free press and free speech is infringed all to win a war? Seems a little hypocritical, but all justified under the war effort.

So what types of propaganda do we have today that we use to influence this sense of pride in our country? The Pledge of Allegiance for example, written in 1892 by Francis Bellamy but adopted by the United States in 1923 in a time where “Daniel Sharp Ford, the owner of a magazine called Youth's Companion, was on a crusade to put American flags in every school in the country. He sensed that the U.S. needed a boost of patriotism. Keep in mind: Not even 30 years before, the Civil War had still been raging. National unity was a fragile concept” ("Pledge of Allegiance," 1995). How has this creed or pledge to America been instilled and conditioned into our fabric as to have such strong pride and ownership of an institution. How does this simple act or pledge influence America’s youth at an early age to conform to the nationalist ideals? Do you think that having youths, impressionable people, or even adults recite something over and over again, everyday, influence their beliefs in that system? Let’s inject the word God, in 1954 during the cold war, into the creed and give the impression that God is protecting and guiding our nation and now you’ve reached those who are God fearing. Do you think that this simple task could steer some or the mass majority of citizens? Do you think that the majority of other countries practice this type of pledge? Don’t get me wrong, people all over the world are proud of their flags, they revere that sense of national pride by displaying it openly, but do they get up and pledge to a nation everyday as youths? Turns out there are multiple pledge of oaths and kids in North Korea pledge their allegiance to their ruler. Not to say the United States is in any way like North Korea but this indoctrination is important to consider and how it shapes our youths to have faith and allegiance, no matter what.

So does reporting of news and the American perspective still happen today? Yes! According the Washington post, they give drastically more coverage to attacks by Muslims, particularly foreign-born Muslims — even though those are far less common than other kinds of terrorist attacks. “In total, there were 89 attacks committed by different perpetrators in the United States during the five-year period we examined. Between 2011 and 2015 in the United States, Muslims perpetrated 12.4 percent of those attacks. In real numbers, the average attack with a Muslim perpetrator is covered in 90.8 articles. Attacks with a Muslim, foreign-born perpetrator are covered in 192.8 articles on average. Compare this with other attacks, which received an average of 18.1 articles. Attacks by a Muslim perpetrator get, on average, about 4½ times more coverage. In other words, whether intentional or not, U.S. media outlets disproportionately emphasize the smaller number of terrorist attacks by Muslims — leading Americans to have an exaggerated sense of that threat.” (Lemieux, 2017) Without getting into a complete Muslim extremist debate, the point I’m making is simple. That right now, ISIS and other fundamental extremist groups are an enemy of the state. So the desire or need to report on them seems to be exponentially higher than reporting on anyone or anything else that would be closely related. If you can realize for just one second, that even though the media wants to stay objective of its reporting it’s very much reporting to the populous of a nation of people who are fundamentally “patriotic” in their beliefs and therefore feel the need to report to what they see as the biggest threat to our way of life? So tomorrow if Mickey Mouse says or does something irrational, and the American government deems them an enemy that the news will shift gears to reporting anything and everything that Mickey mouse and his pose of miscreants have done, or will do wrong?

In conclusion I have explained why I think that our Country is systematically predisposition to believe that we as a nation are always in the right. Propaganda is pride in a certain sense, it is a method by which you influence people and their actions to follow an agenda of those who are elected. I have explained how American has used propaganda tools over the years to influence its own people as well as those who we would call allies. I have explained a basic form of programming that most Americans have received as children or still do to this day and its direct result to how they grow up and view America and its opposition. Most important I hope that I have shown a direct correlation between how American’s are have such pride and the media reports to them in such a way that they have been handed misinformation all in the name sake of being an enemy of the state. It is important for the reader to understand that from every point there is a counter point. There is a different perspective to understand and sometimes empathize with, that no matter your view point, there is another to consider.

References

Alter, J. (2002, March 4). Truth: The Best Propaganda. Newsweek, pp. Vol 139, Issue 9.

Betus, A. (2017, March 13). Yes, the media do underreport some terrorist attacks. Just not the ones most people think of. - The Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/03/13/yes-the-media-do-underreport-some-terrorist-attacks-just-not-the-ones-most-people-think-of/?utm_term=.4ff9b08b18c3

Cull, N. J. (2012). Master of American Propaganda | American Experience | Official Site | PBS. Retrieved from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/the-great-war-master-of-american-propaganda/

The Pledge of Allegiance. (1995, July 4). Retrieved from http://www.ushistory.org/documents/pledge.htm

Propaganda and Patriotism:: Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. (2013). Retrieved from https://www.clevelandfed.org/warbonds/index.html

Snow, N. (2008). Us Propaganda. American Thought and Culture in the 21st Century, 97-110. doi:10.3366/edinburgh/9780748626014.003.0007

Lemieux. (2017, March 13). Yes, the media do underreport some terrorist attacks. Just not the ones most people think of. - The Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/03/13/yes-the-media-do-underreport-some-terrorist-attacks-just-not-the-ones-most-people-think-of/?utm_term=.4ff9b08b18c3