Critical thinking, learning different perspectives, and questioning take a bit of effort. When it comes to political views this is not easy for many people. I recently had a person tell they didn’t have time to check facts, and routinely relied on radical publications and posted misinformation.
To a certain degree political propaganda has always been with us, but never in my lifetime to the current degree and level of outrageousness – and apparent effectiveness, even at a time when fact checking has never been easier.
Propaganda can be very effective, especially if it’s cleverly crafted.
Here’s why:
- Appeals to emotions: Propaganda often uses fear, patriotism, or anger to manipulate people’s feelings and cloud their judgment.
- Repetition: By constantly repeating a message, propaganda can make it seem true, even if it’s not.
- Half-truths and misinformation: Propaganda may take a sliver of truth and distort it, making it difficult to discern fact from fiction.
Here are some things that can make propaganda less effective:
- Media Literacy: People who are aware of propaganda techniques are better at spotting them and avoiding manipulation.
- Access to diverse viewpoints: Exposure to different perspectives makes it harder for a single propaganda message to take hold.
- Critical thinking: Questioning information and looking for evidence helps people form their own opinions.
So, while propaganda can be powerful, it’s not invincible. By being aware of its tactics and developing critical thinking skills, people can become more resistant to its influence.
So why don’t people try harder?
QUINNSCOMMENTARY 
The art of propaganda has a splendid and powerful history for both good and evil in human history. Before the written word there was oral mythology. When the printing press and then the radio and then TV and then the internet, and now artificial intelligence came into existence, the platforms greatly expanded the power “to inform” with propaganda (points of views).
Nowadays it’s everywhere! It’s easy to be non-critical and be swept up in the hysteria whipped up by propaganda( points of views). War, inequalities of every stripe, political movements, government actions, economic trends are all subjects ripe for propaganda to persuade. What’s “true” or predictive is all subject to propaganda opinion, right or wrong. “let the buyer beware”!
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NPR is just like Fox News. Just the other side of the coin.
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I sometimes listen to NPR on long drives, they lean left for sure, but they are nothing like Fox.
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Sure NPR leans left but why should it be doing so on my tax dollar? Cut of their money from the taxpayers and compete like every other media outlet. Our ability to gather information, music, and comment has drastically increased since we first funded the organization. Time to spin them off has long since come.
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You need to pay closer attention. Same goes for NBC, CBS, ABC. They all lean far – far left. Just as Fox leans far right.
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yep, that is the problem. The objective truth “leans left”. So do you report bullshit to try to appease MAGA and appear “fair or balanced”, or do you just try to be objective and follow normal journalism norms and be accused of bias. I prefer the latter. Fox News was specifically set up to be disinformation and cause distrust in traditional media as conservatives starting to be on the wrong side of the facts. Then the internet just blew it up on steroids and half the country now would rather get their news from some wacko podcast or YouTube site instead of legitimate media sources. So now we have measles spreading because if anti-vaxxers and a criminal has taken over the Republican Party. Who could have imagined even a decade ago that Republicans would be pro-Russia and pro-China now. I remember voting for the first Bush and how much I admired him. It is like an alternate reality now – he and Reagan would roll over in their graves
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NPR is not directly funded by the the federal government, to address Al’s question.
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Yes, NPR is directly funded by the government–you probably mean NPR does not get 100% of its budget from the feds. It should get nothing just like NBC–CBS–FOX–CNN.
Fox News was set up so that there was an alternative to left wing news. It now has far more viewers than its left-wing competitors.
Disinformation is anything you don’t believe no doubt G.
You probably believed it when they told you Hunter’s laptop was Russian disinformation. Or that Old Yeller telling us he had no knowledge what so ever of the drug addicts business dealings.
You probably thought it was disinformation when Faux News was showing the invasion by illegals every night for years. Took the Texas governor to send them to liberals to finally realize this was for real.
Yes, thanks to the illegals, 7 million crossing since Old Yeller, we have had an outbreak of measles. Almost every school system you name requires that shot for students to begin school. How many illegals have had their shots? Are they let in without required vaccinations for say COVID–measles and mumps? Guess what??? Nobody knows!! And the left could care less.
Didn’t Trump slap a tariff on Chinese exports because of the tax they place on U.S. goods? That horrible orange haired man–he should have acquiesced to the Chinese as Obama and Biden have done.
Yes, Russia invaded the Crimea and Ukraine when Trump took over because he was such a good friend.
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Perhaps if you would identify who is using these nefarious means to persuade you it would help. Merely saying it is the far right or far left is not good enough. Who are the puppet masters? It is not helpful to say rely on fact checkers. Who funds the fact checkers? Who is the arbiter of misinformation, disinformation, no information? Is NPR more reliable than Fox News? Who says and why.
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To some extent all politicians employ these tactics, but in this day and age Mr Trump is the master and since he seems to like off the cuff remarks, I’m guessing he gets the credit for most of his stuff. I just viewed a video of his on TruthSocial about the “bloodbath” comments. His remarks were absolutely not true, based on what he previously said, but the real propaganda was his claims about Chinese EV imports and effect on auto industry. His rhetoric is based on fear and yet few seem to question the consequences of his proposals or bother to look at current data regarding car imports. The other fact is China won’t sell any cars beyond what good old Americans are willing to buy. In other words upon a deep dive the propaganda is opposite what may be in the American people’s best interests.
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I remember some old GM hands scoffing at Japanese imports back in the early 70s. Guess who had to have a government takeover to keep operating. Those Camrys and Accords have sold like hotcakes for years. Who is to say that China can’t build a sellable car? Do we know what the Biden position is on anything other than keeping abortion rights up to the moment of birth? Why do you speak like an arbiter of truth yet throw mud in one direction? Botther Quinn,I first read your columns on Humble Dollar and thought them fine. I wander over here and find you cleverly talking up propaganda. No problem with that, it’s your page. Just not my cup of tea.
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