Introduction
Propaganda can be positive and negative, but in today’s world society is increasingly faced with negative propaganda. An example of negative propaganda is political propaganda aimed at humiliating an electoral opponent or pursuing foreign policy goals. By influencing mass consciousness, propaganda manipulates human emotions and instills in citizens a sense of fear of an exaggerated enemy. Presenting simplified information, propaganda affects the education of people and their ability to think critically, express their opinion, participate in a civil process, and think about the activities of the country. Negative political propaganda threatens the very existence of the democratic world, undermining its basic principles.
Propaganda Definition
Propaganda is a way of purposefully forming a public opinion by imposing a point of view that is beneficial to the informer. The main function of political propaganda is to root in the minds of the majority a particular opinion on social structure issues, the authorities’ position, or candidates in future elections. Destructive propaganda exacerbates social contradictions and gives the propagandist power over public thinking. Propaganda can be directed at society or a specific social group, such as voters. Media is one of the most effective propaganda agents as it allows reaching the most significant number of people (MacLeod 1). Messages transmitted through the media are available to a wide range of audiences who will form an opinion based on distorted or understated information that is beneficial to the disseminator.
The Negative Effects
Manipulating Emotions
Political propaganda is dangerous because it uses methods to manipulate the audience’s emotions. In order for propaganda to reach the maximum number of people, propagandists appeal to basic human feelings: fear, indignation, and the desire to protect justice. One of the most primitive propaganda techniques is the imposition of the image of the enemy, with the help of which people become instinctively afraid of an invented threat (Hearns-Branaman et al. 73). The more emotions the message evokes, the more effective it is, even if it becomes illogical. Journalists should be objective in their judgments, but this principle can be rejected in favor of creating action-packed reviews on the agenda (Post and Kepplinger 2422). Due to the bias of journalists, the distorted message continues to be repeated, consolidating in the public mind. When information with the same emotional solid message is recured, negative images are firmly fixed in people’s minds, influencing their decision-making.
One of the techniques by which propaganda manages to control people’s emotions is using particular speech patterns. The most primitive way is using negatively-colored speech, designed to endow the enemy with disapproving qualities in the public mind. Propagandists may instead use harshly neutral words or euphemisms when talking about their negative traits to reduce the disagreement of the audience. Rhetorical statements and exclamatory calls can appeal to an emotional response from the citizens, preventing them from thoughtful consideration of the situation.
Obstructing Critical Thinking
Mass political propaganda is dangerous because it prevents people from thinking critically. The main goal of propagandists is to prevent the emergence of critical thoughts in principle. This is achieved by repeated repetition, providing two binary concepts and appealing to the desires of the audience. Any political propaganda divides the world into unequivocally good and evil, leaving no intermediate options and, accordingly, no field for an adequate discussion (Davis 122). The transmitted propagandist’s message is always simple, accessible, and unambiguous. Propagandists appeal to the feeling of insecurity among citizens and distrust of the authorities. People are more willing to accept the version of events that already fits their particular ideas.
Propaganda keeps the audience from applying their critical thinking skills by carefully handling the facts. The open lie is rarely used, as it is easy to quickly detect and disprove it. The most effective technique is the suppression or concealment of facts that are beneficial to one side or another. The factual data that propaganda conveys may deliberately represent only a part of the situation or a one-sided view of it. Full information is not delivered to people, which prevents them from making an informed opinion. Manipulating the scale of events is another technique for hiding the truth. The exaggeration of the positive aspects and the downplaying of the negative ones leads to a preponderance in the public consciousness. Obstacles to critical thinking separate society and force people to drop out of political and public life.
Instilling a Feeling of Fear
Propaganda negatively affects the psychological state of people, instilling a sense of fear. Driven by the desire to denigrate a political opponent or an external enemy, propaganda instills in the population a sense of a threat hanging over them. Manipulating the basic human need for security, propaganda effectively achieves its goals, but causes significant damage to the morale of society. Driven by fear, people cannot make informed decisions on the elections (Reisach 906). Feelings of fear can also turn people away from politics, social activism, or speaking their minds. A strong associative image of the political process as a danger does not allow people to influence the situation in the country and can make them indifferent to the civil society processes.
Making People Less Smart
By providing the society with simple and understandable catchy statements, propaganda makes people believe any information without conducting additional investigation, which affects the mental abilities of the population in the future. Pursuing the goal of protecting citizens from excessive thinking for the purposes of manipulation, propaganda tries to create a society that is easy to control for selfish purposes (Elder and Paul 37). When one particular point of view is given to conflicting information, and the rest is boycotted, a person loses the desire to think, doubt and argue. When the majority of the environment believes in a certain point of view, a person loses the ability to think analytically and does not consider the situation from several sides. Over time, the effect of such propaganda begins to negatively affect the entire society, making it incapable of reflection, independent search for information and reasonable doubts.
Giving a Wrong View of the World Situation
Propaganda is a public threat because it misinforms the citizens about the real situation in the world. In an effort to achieve foreign policy goals, propaganda can present other countries in a friendly or, on the contrary, completely evil light. By imposing a certain image on each country, propaganda seeks to give the audience a simplified view of the world and of current events (Dukalskis 48). This process can be especially dangerous for people who cannot see the real state of affairs abroad with their own eyes. As a result of propaganda actions, a false or simplified picture of the world is formed by the society. The public may misinterpret historical events or current political developments. This state of affairs threatens the general education of citizens and the ability to analyze the activities of their country in an informed manner.
Posing a Threat to the Democratic World
By depriving society of critical thinking and manipulating emotions, propaganda achieves the goal of introducing people into a state of dissonance. An audience exposed to frequent propaganda loses the ability to form their own opinions and faces a conflicting feeling of being unable to recognize the truth (Hobbs 6). Due to the ambiguity but expressiveness of judgments, people’s distrust of the authorities grows, and they begin to feel that deception and pressure are being expressed on them from all sides. Such a society is not capable of making political and public decisions. Propaganda violates the very concept of democracy, preventing the population from becoming active participants in the life of their country.
Conclusion
Political propaganda is a dangerous social phenomenon that undermines the foundations of a democratic society and prevents citizens from forming their own opinions on important issues. By resorting to primitive methods of repetition, emotional coloring, and appeal to a sense of fear, propaganda takes away the ability of people to think critically. Propaganda is a proven way to convey information and influence the mass public consciousness. The only way to combat these negative phenomena is to raise citizens’ awareness of the dangers of propaganda and raise the general level of people’s critical thinking skills. Propaganda is a common problem, the consequences of which should be minimized by society and the state through joint efforts.
Works Cited
Davis, Aeron. Political Communication: A New Introduction for Crisis Times. John Wiley & Sons, 2019.
Dukalskis, Alexander. Making the World Safe for Dictatorship. Oxford University Press, 2021.
Elder, Linda, and Richard Paul. Fact Over Fake: A Critical Thinker’s Guide to Media Bias and Political Propaganda. Foundation for Critical Thinking, 2020.
Hearns-Branaman, Jesse Owen, and Tabe Bergman, eds. Journalism and Foreign Policy: How the US and UK Media Cover Official Enemies. Taylor & Francis, 2022.
Hobbs, Renee. Mind over media: Propaganda Education for a Digital Age. WW Norton & Company, 2020.
MacLeod, Alan, ed. Propaganda in the Information Age: Still Manufacturing Consent. Routledge, 2019.
Post, Senja, and Hans Mathias Kepplinger. “Coping with Audience Hostility. How Journalists’ Experiences of Audience Hostility Influence their Editorial Decisions.” Journalism Studies, vol. 20, no. 16, 2019, pp. 2422-2442, Web.
Reisach, Ulrike. “The Responsibility of Social Media in Times of Societal and Political Manipulation.” European Journal of Operational Research, vol. 291, no. 3, 2021, pp. 906-917, Web.