Monday, February 18, 2008 Rama: Propaganda: in-group vs. the out-group By Karlon N. Rama Stage Five
CAGAYAN DE ORO – From the Latin word propagare or extending forth, the word has come to denote half-truths or half-lies issued to hide flaws or to cover imperfections.
Its purpose is simple: to create or suppress a specific opinion.
The most effective propaganda is almost completely truthful. Parts are simply omitted or modified slightly to lead to a particular conclusion. All this to produce an emotional rather than a rational response from the audience.
And there are many ways to do it. The most common are press releases, commercials and infomercials, whatever that means. Other methods include discourse that use repeated phrases.
Whatever the method, propaganda aims to create an in-group versus out-group scenario with the in-group, the perpetrator of the propaganda, demonizing anything and everything in the opposite side.
Propaganda was the first part of the seminar I attended this weekend. I am staying at the Malasag Eco-Tourism Village, in a room that offers a breath-taking view of the City of Golden Friendship’s skyline. I will be in Cebu by tomorrow puhon.
And while Antonia Koop’s Peace and Conflict Journalism Network (Pecojon) sessions leave no room for an exploration of the local shooting scene, the discussion does propel me to look at the propaganda that, for years, has been launched against firearms.
To many people, firearms equate to crime and violence.
An editorial cartoonist or artist asked to depict a street crime, for example, will almost always conjure an image of a masked man armed with a gun.
The rendition is made despite the fact that most street crimes are still being committed with the use of knives, not firearms.
In the few times that guns are used, the firearm is paltik. Yet, in the cartoon, no distinction is made. (This is probably because it is difficult to render the difference in a drawing though).
Still, no attempt at truth-seeking is made. How many times has a gun been used in a crime? How many times has a similar firearm been used in self-defense?
It is almost an unconscious association on the part of cartoon artists. They have been bombarded with similar images—propaganda—before and their rendition simply reflects what they know to be a “fact.”
The sad part is that their rendition will influence those who see the editorial cartoon. The perception that firearms equate to crime and violence is thus transferred, with the potential to be repeated again and again.
In this situation, the propaganda against the pro-gun group, the out-group, has been successful.
But how did the unconscious “learning” process of our exemplar begin?
Perhaps he saw a similar cartoon or photo or read a newspaper or magazine account depicting the same message.
Or perhaps the cartoonist saw a similar discourse being made.
In the United States, and to some extent even here in the Philippines, the anti-gun propaganda machine is in full blast.
Propagandists utilize a full arsenal of techniques in getting the job done—attacking pro-gun personalities in the media, citing prominent figures to support the lobbied position, appealing to fear, building support by instilling anxieties and panic in the general population, appealing to prejudice, using loaded and emotive terms to attack values or moral goodness, among others.
Then there is the “black and white” approach which utilizes labels, there is also the “simplification” approach, which uses generalities to provide simple answers when, in fact, the issue is complex. Another, is “scape-goating”—as in blaming the proliferation of crimes to the existence of guns.
The only antidote to crime is not one-sided truth, but to see the many sides of the truth.
