Dujuan Heath

Com 491 Senior Seminar

Professor Berkos
DP 3

How far would one go to gain followers in their desired way of life? Propaganda
showed just how far some individuals such as Adolf Hitler were willing to go to gain
supporters in line with their negative ideals. Propaganda throughout mass media was a no
holds barred use of communication to propagate specific beliefs and expectations.
Propaganda theorists focused heavily on media and its ability to persuade and promote
messages to millions of individuals. The end goal for all who utilized propaganda was to
change the way people act.
Propagandist relied on using false information against their opposition to discredit
them. Theorist began to realize evaluate all uses of propaganda and realized not all was
bad. They found there was three different types of propaganda individuals would use.
Black propaganda was the strategic and deliberate transmission of lies. The Nazis used
this form of propaganda because a false sense of where the message was truly coming
from. Society would believe that these lies came from a trustworthy source. Gray
propaganda was the transmission of information or ideals that could potentially be true or
false. Propagandist would make no effort to verify the content transmitted because it
could potentially not be in their best interest. White propaganda was a counter to black
and gray propaganda as it was the intentional suppression of harmful information and
ideas mixed with the promotion of positive and consistent ideas and information. White
propaganda took attention off problematic events.
There were two different viewpoints as to how individuals allowed propaganda to
impact their behavior. Behaviorism was the notion that human action is a conditioned
response to external environmental stimuli. Sigmund Freud offered another notion that
human behavior is the product of the conflict between individuals Id, Ego, and
Superego; this notion was known as Freudianism. Theorist came up with three different
theories in regard to propaganda in terms of power. Harold Lasswells theory noted that
the power of propaganda was the result of a weak state of mind in the average person.
However he felt that propaganda was more than using media to lie to people; that one
must be slowly prepared to accept different ideas. Lasswell makes notice that successful
social movements only gained power by propagating master symbols over time using
different media. Walter Lippmann believed that propaganda posed a threat to society. He
suggested that the government establish a unit that could evaluate information as well as
determine which information is shared with society through mass media and what is
withheld. John Dewey was another theorist who believed that people must think critically
about media content. It did not matter what message was given to people but how they
interpreted that message.
Media content is not the only thing we can create in society. Impressions are
images that we form of people when we meet them. These images consist of our beliefs
that describe and individual. There are four stages in forming an impression of an
individual. We begin to observe a persons behavior; we attribute a cause for that
behavior. If we believe the individual is the cause for that behavior we form an

impression of him or her. Finally we make an evaluation based on our impression as to

whether or not we like or dislike the person.
Referring back to the observation stage people are always behaving in some
manner. Although people might not always be speaking they are for sure communicating
in a nonverbal way. When trying to figure out the cause of the behavior we try to attribute
the cause of a behavior to a certain circumstance or to the character or personality of an
individual. Behaviors are things we can see from our own eyes however traits are things
we cannot see. When forming the impression of a person we tend to experience the halo
effect, presuming that if an individual has a good trait we think of them as a good person.
We also experience implicit personality where we believe a certain type of person posses
certain traits. Making an evaluation is at our discretion based on how positive or negative
a trait is to us.
Both impression building and propaganda deal with controlling and creating. As
an individual we control what we allow to impact our behaviors and how we judge
people. Propaganda in media in the past was something used to control the minds of
society to promote ones ideal. Today in society marketers and politicians use more of a
white propaganda way of promoting their ideas and products. The entire propaganda and
creating an impression thing relates to a play I am reading in drama class Taming of the
Shrew where this young lady with a bad attitude is tricked into marrying a man who
creates an imagine of his self that fits the girls personality. Questions that arise about me
for creating an impression is how do we know that someone is not trying to create an
impression just for us? For example when a guy wants to speak to a girl, he can act nice
and portray nice traits but turn out the complete opposite. In relation to propaganda why
does one look to media especially in modern day society as a means of confirming what
is correct and what is not?