Propaganda

Victoria Ras

Summary

In this class, we learned about many different types of propaganda. Some of the propagandas we learned about are worse than the others. It was interesting to learn about how they can impact society. In my essay, I talked about 5 different propagandas which were fake news and how that relates to propaganda, conspiracy theories in propaganda, election propaganda, art as propaganda, and education in propaganda. All five of these in different ways persuade people in society to think something that might not be true. Fake news is everywhere and can be dangerous if you don’t know how to spot it. Fake news can also be misleading and present false information about a conversational topic. With AI becoming a big part of our lives now it’s easy to create something fake and trick people into thinking it’s real. Conspiracy theories are talked about a lot. Some of the conspiracy theories people make up can be bad and create problems within the community. People that do makeup conspiracy theories most of the time don’t think they are wrong and don’t care to listen to other people’s opinions. Election propaganda happens quite often and even when there aren’t elections going on people still are talking about it online. When elections do happen the country is divided and posted their opinions online about who they think will win and what they think of each candidate. People’s opinions can easily change because of the media and they can be persuaded to vote for one candidate over the other. Art as propaganda is another one we talked about. Art is everywhere and is made to evoke emotions or show the emotions of the person who made it. Sometimes art is about something going on in the real world that might be conversational. One of the last ones I chose to talk about in my essay is education in propaganda. In school now kids might not be “proud to be an American” and can sway their friends to be anti-American. Public schools can easily sway student’s beliefs. Overall Propaganda can be found anywhere.

Leap 3 essay

During this class, I learned a lot about different propagandas and how some of them negatively impact society. Some of the propaganda I learned about I didn’t know much about before. I’ve picked 5 of the top propagandas that I enjoyed learning. The ones I picked were fake news and how that relates to propaganda, conspiracy theories in propaganda, election propaganda, art as propaganda, and propaganda in education. Throughout all of these, I learned about how propaganda can be powerful and persuade society into thinking something that might not be true.

Fake news and how that relates to propaganda was one of the first sections I learned about. Before reading about it I knew somewhat what the lesson was going to be about. Fake news has affected me ever since I was a kid and got social media. Social media is one of the main platforms where fake news is. I’ve gotten pretty good at spotting what fake news is and what isn’t fake news. A lot of fake news I see is about ongoing investigations and people putting out their own opinions about what happened. For example, over the summer a woman went missing on the side of the highway. She was on the phone with 911 and told them she had seen a little boy run out of the woods. So she pulled over and as soon as she got out of the car she went missing. People all over the internet were making assumptions about what happened and said someone kidnapped her and she’s probably dead. But eventually, news came out that the whole thing was fake and a setup. She was just trying to get attention. But people all over TikTok were trying to be detectives and putting false information out there. It could cause more problems for the police. Lots of people drove to the place where she went missing and investigated the scene themselves. Some of the stuff that was posted online about this case I believed. I also learned about the 10 types of fake news. A couple that I have seen and could understand are conspiracy theories, misinformation, and bogus. Lots of times fake news will be posted by bots or people that are in power. For example, I think a lot of news channels post fake news. News channels are usually for the Democrats or the Republicans. So they will post whatever will make that side happy. The news also makes things sound way more scarier than it really is. A couple of months ago the national phone service was sending out a message to all phone carriers in the USA. And when the news was talking about it, it scared me because they said the noise could go on for hours and they didn’t know if they were doing it to prepare us for some kind of attack. Obviously, it was false because nothing happened. Over time I’ve learned to not believe something right away when I see it on the internet. Another thing that just happened on the news this past week was a car that lost control near the border of Canada and the U.S. The news was saying it was a terrorist attack and they had a bomb in their car. What really happened was the person who was driving the brakes stopped working and caused the car to accelerate and fly into a building.

Fake news is everywhere. You just have to know what to believe and what not to believe. I think it helps to look at factual resources and not use TikTok or any social media platform to get your news.

The next one we learned about is conspiracy theories in propaganda. Conspiracy theories are everywhere. There are conspiracy theories about what happened on 9/11 to what happened during the 20/20 election. Sometimes I listen to conspiracy theories on TikTok. Most of the time they are harmless ones like how Pizza Hut reuses pizza when one table doesn’t finish it all. My grandma talks about 9/11 sometimes because she’s from the city and my grandpa worked on the Twin Towers as an electrician. My grandma says underneath the Twin Towers was a lot of money and when they fell as people were cleaning up, they noticed the money was gone. Lots of articles talk about this topic and say that someone had the whole thing planned so they could get the money without anyone noticing. Now I don’t know if this is 100% true but it can be just some rumour someone started that’s been talked about for so long.

Our class website says “ Terms like sponsored content, pseudoscience, disinformation, and partisanship are essential to enable critical thinking about the timeless and contemporary forms of propaganda that circulate today”. Fake news can be dangerous to society and especially to people who are young and don’t know anything about fake news. Younger kids nowadays are getting social media and easily have access to fake news. Sometimes fake news can cause chaos and problems. An example I’ve seen is in New Jersey a couple of years ago I remember the state saying there was a problem with the water. It wasn’t anything dangerous though and that can harm us. But people automatically assumed that the water would kill them so the grocery stores were packed with people trying to buy water. It was all for no reason and the news caused complete chaos.

Another topic we learned about is election propaganda. Presidential elections happen every four years. The most recent one was in 2020. The one in 2016 I think was the biggest one because it was President Trump and President Biden going head to head. There was biased information and news being put out about every candidate. The country was and is still so divided by that election. Lots of news outlets would try to persuade the public to vote for a certain candidate. Everybody was so vocal about who they were voting for. TikTok was one social media platform that was covered in news about the election. It’s hard to ignore people’s opinions on social media. You also can’t tell what’s true about a certain candidate until you fact-check the information that you are reading. Sometimes that facts that are getting put out there people still don’t believe them. And refuse to think it’s true. I remember when Trump won and people were shocked and didn’t believe it. A conspiracy theory about the election in 2016 election was that it was rigged. People think that Trump’s ballots were purposely thrown out and he didn’t win because of it. I think there is some truth behind this because there are pictures and sources that confirm it.

Propaganda can also be found in memes. During the elections and to this day there are still memes being made about Trump and Biden. One of the recent ones that I’ve seen is Biden falling off his bike. People that support Trump might find that hilarious but people that support Biden might not. Memes can also create problems and cause arguments online. Some of the memes can be fake and people can write in their own texts or pictures to make it look real. With AI being a thing now anything can be made and put out online. I remember in this class watching an AI video of I think Biden talking and saying stuff that he actually wasn’t saying. People now are able to use voice-changing effects to make it sound like the person they want. Some people might see these AI videos and these memes and think they are true. I think older people might not be aware of AI and what it really is. I know my grandparents don’t know much about it and if they saw a video of someone they liked saying bad things they might believe it. False memes can be super dangerous and mislead people into thinking what they are seeing is true.

Another topic we talked about is art as propaganda. Art has been around forever and there are different artists all around the world. On our class website in the reading it says “Through creating, sharing, and liking emotionally evocative and playful online content, we let others know who we are and what we value”. Art is a way for us to express what we are feeling. Some people might be able to relate to it and some people might not. Some artists express how they feel about different situations going on in society. These art pieces can persuade people’s thoughts and feelings. I know when I see artwork in the street known as graffiti It makes me feel a certain way when it’s about something meaningful. Making art is a good way to get your feelings out and express your emotions. Banksy is one of the artists we talked about in class. He is based in England. In the text it says “His trademark is a stencil-style guerrilla art of political and social commentary that has been featured on streets, walls, and bridges in cities throughout the world, first making his presence known in London, Brighton, and Bristol”. Nobody knows who he is but to him, that’s not important. Some people view his art as vandalism and think that it’s bad for society. In the text it says “The works have dealt with many political and social issues such as anti-War, anti-capitalism, anti-fascism, anti-imperialism, anti-authoritarianism, anarchism, and existentialism. They also deal with the human conditions of greed, poverty, hypocrisy, boredom, despair, and alienation”. His work mocks power and sometimes he gets backlash from it. Personally, I like his work and think there are powerful messages behind all of his work. His work evokes emotions and although it might be looked at as conversational I think it’s beautiful. Some artists aren’t able to express how they truly feel because they are concerned about the backlash they are going to get. One of the pieces he did that was on our class website is a homeless person with a sign that says “Keep your coins, I want change”. Looking at this it makes me sad because over the years the homeless population has gotten worse. As a kid growing up near NYC, it would make me sad to see homeless people and it still does. I remember when I went to L.A. and drove through Venice Boulevard and saw all the tents with homeless people living in them. Sometimes I wish I had some type of authority and power to fix it. I think there should be a change. Helping homeless people out can prevent danger and also prevent problems in society. I think sometimes people forget that they are humans too. Although they might’ve done something bad to get them where they are in life we all make mistakes. I don’t think homeless people deserve to live on the street.

I don’t think all art is propaganda. Sometimes art is just made to make people happy. But sometimes art is made to provoke emotions and persuade people into thinking something. Art will always be around and I think it’s important to put aside your own personal feelings or beliefs when looking at art.

Lastly, another topic we talked about is Propaganda in education. On our class website, I learned about how propaganda is in education. Some of the reasons are public schools hate Christianity, Yikes Howard Zinn, and some public schools are treating transgender kids decently. In the text, it says “To Ruse, this is a propaganda campaign, and she claims that a cartoon “gender unicorn” is being used to brainwash children”. Ruse talks about how in public schools all kids should be treated equally even if they are different.

I also learned about if monuments are a form of propaganda. Some monuments and memorials can be looked at as being Confederate and people think they should be taken down. I do think Confederate monuments and memorials should not be taken down. I changed my answer from what I wrote on the website because I think it’s a part of history and we can’t change what happened in the past. We can only move forward from it. The past isn’t something we can control. Even if they were taken down I think they should be moved into a museum because they are a part of history. There might be some propaganda around it but we need to remember American history. The history of our nation helped us become who we are today. In schools, patriotism can be taught depending on the teacher. Some people might think that is wrong. Growing up we always said the pledge of allegiance in the morning as a school and now times have changed where some students sit during it because they don’t agree with the United States and what it’s all about. Some kids doing that might affect other student’s beliefs. Even athletes do it in NFL games. I remember when this started happening it was all over the news and some people thought it was great and some people looked down upon it. Depending on what you believe in is how you see it. It caused conversational conversations on social media platforms and everyone was writing their opinions about it.

Overall I think learning about the different types of propaganda has helped me become aware of what’s out there. Propaganda is everywhere, even in places we might not think it is.

Citation: https://propaganda.pathwright.com/library/propaganda-in-education-61520/519002/path/step/109921983/