{"id":19336,"date":"2016-03-31T13:47:58","date_gmt":"2016-03-31T18:47:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=19336"},"modified":"2016-03-31T13:47:58","modified_gmt":"2016-03-31T18:47:58","slug":"how-propaganda-actually-works","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=19336","title":{"rendered":"How Propaganda (Actually) Works"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3 id=\"page-title\" class=\"page__title title\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.desmogblog.com\/2016\/03\/31\/how-propaganda-actually-works\" target=\"_blank\">How Propaganda (Actually) Works<\/a><\/h3>\n<article class=\"node-10450 node node-blog node-promoted view-mode-full clearfix\">\n<header>\n<p class=\"submitted desktop-only\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.desmogblog.com\/sites\/beta.desmogblog.com\/files\/styles\/full_width_blog_image\/public\/blogimages\/3817151718_ba4024a7c8_o.jpg?itok=QgDbwDyG\" alt=\"clean coal propaganda\" width=\"826\" height=\"322\" \/><\/p>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"horizontal-social-bar horizontal-social-bar-top clearfix\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden\">\n<div class=\"field-items\">\n<div class=\"field-item even\">\n<p><strong><em>Political Propaganda employs the ideals of liberal democracy to undermine those very ideals, the dangers of which, not even its architects fully understand.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In the early years of DeSmog\u2019s research into environmental propaganda, I thought of industry\u00a0<span class=\"caps\">PR<\/span>\u00a0campaigns like \u201cjunk science,\u201d \u201cclean coal,\u201d and \u201cethical oil\u201d as misinformation strategies designed to dupe the public about the real issues.<\/p>\n<p>Although there is obvious truth to that view, I now understand that propaganda is far more complex and problematic than lying about the facts. Certainly propaganda is designed to look like facts that are true and right, but not in a way we might think. What\u2019s more, the consequences are far worse than most people consuming and even producing it\u00a0realize.<\/p>\n<p>Much of my new understanding comes from conversations with Jason Stanley, an American philosopher and professor at Yale University and author of an important new book\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/press.princeton.edu\/titles\/10448.html\" target=\"_blank\"><em>How Propaganda Works<\/em><\/a>. According to Jason Stanley, the danger for a democracy \u201craided by propaganda\u201d is the possibility that the vocabulary of liberal democracy is being used to mask an undemocratic reality.<\/p>\n<p>In a democracy where propaganda is common, you have a state that appears to be a liberal democracy, its citizens believe it is a liberal democracy (they have free speech) but the appearance of liberal democracy masks an illiberal, undemocratic reality.<\/p>\n<p>In this\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/How-Propaganda-Works-Jason-Stanley\/dp\/0691164428\" target=\"_blank\">rich and thoughtful book<\/a>\u00a0Stanley defines political propaganda as \u201cthe employment of a political ideal against itself.\u201d DeSmog stories about groups presenting ideologies or financial interests as objective and scientific evidence are paradigm examples of this type of propaganda.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPropaganda that is presented as embodying an ideal governing political speech, but in fact runs counter to it, is antidemocratic \u2026 \u00a0because it wears down the possibility of democratic deliberation,\u201d Stanley writes.<\/p>\n<p>He dismisses the idea that it&#8217;s deception that makes propaganda effective. Instead, Stanley argues what makes propaganda effective is that it \u201cexploits and strengthens flawed ideology.\u201d<br \/>\n&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How Propaganda (Actually) Works Political Propaganda employs the ideals of liberal democracy to undermine those very ideals, the dangers of which, not even its architects fully understand. In the early years of DeSmog\u2019s research into environmental propaganda, I thought of industry\u00a0PR\u00a0campaigns like \u201cjunk science,\u201d \u201cclean coal,\u201d and \u201cethical oil\u201d as misinformation strategies designed to dupe [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6],"tags":[5317,6295,13193,2864,1426,655],"class_list":["post-19336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","category-liberty","tag-desmog-blog","tag-ideology","tag-james-hoggan","tag-lies","tag-misinformation","tag-propaganda"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19336"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19336\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19337,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19336\/revisions\/19337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}