Jenna-Rose Oosterman

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OW1DvIzZ7sXyeYycIoT1Pcqvzd_vHlnqgBjtr5rZva4/edit

When I first signed up for this class, I thought it would be mainly about the Holocaust and maybe some terrorist attacks, but I got way more than I bargained for. I was so intrigued by all of the different locations and mediums where propaganda is found… pretty much everywhere. I was originally kind of upset that I couldn’t take this class in person because of all the online classes we were forced to go through during covid, but this platform made everything a lot more enriching and made my work seem more valuable through the ways we communicated with many other students every week.

In terms of this paper, I had trouble narrowing it down to exactly what topics and viewpoints I wanted to include. From the second I went through the page in the last module about America’s violent response to great change, I knew I wanted to include that because it was something so eye-opening to me. I went through that section of the module connecting so many dots throughout American history that we had been taught for so many years but never really given the whole story. I included why I believe it’s so easy for politicians and leaders to use propaganda because so many of them do it and so many of us fail to recognize it. So many of us live our daily lives believing everything we see and hear, but that cannot be our reality forever. I included a few controversial topics in my essay of insights because I wanted to tie my opinions and gained knowledge to things that have already happened, are happening, and what is going to happen in the future if we do not start to change things. I wanted to include something about art and activism in my essay, but I feel as though oftentimes, the pieces are able to speak for themselves, but then again, it’s all about perspective.

My favorite sentence in the whole essay is this: Our instinctual response as a nation is to impose violence in order to gain compliance.