Is the concept of 'propaganda' pseudoscience?

[Anonymous No.12389728]

You often hear right-wing writers, journalists, etc. talk about 'propaganda', and even some of the more fringe, off-beat people on the left, but none of them can actually concretely explain what they mean by 'propaganda'. He seems more like a boogeyman conjured up by conspiracy theorists, then a valid concept. So would it be correct to say that the concept of 'propaganda' is a form of pseudoscience and/or conspiracy theory?

For example, you will often hear right-wing nutjobs talk about how 'propaganda' is supposedly being 'pushed' by the 'deep state', 'big pharma', 'the mainstream media, 'cultural Marxists', etc. But this doesn't hold up to scrutiny. If there was a coordinated effort by some secret network of 'elites' to shape public opinion and consumer psychology, and literally every major corporation, media company, and government agency were working to push the narrative by using le evil 'propaganda', then we would know by now and these people would be exposed. In other words, pushing 'propaganda' would just back-fire on any companies or government agencies that were involved in 'pushing' this 'propaganda'. Corporation, new agencies, the government, etc. ultimately have to answer to the public, so there is no reason to push 'propaganda' because the public would eventually find out, and when they did, it would just make these corporations/the government look bad.

I can understand why propaganda might have been an issue a long time ago like in the colonial Era and before the industrial revolution because back then most people were uneducated and illiterate, unless they were rich or royalty or something like that. Nowadays, though even the working classes are educated and literate, and most people are a lot more rational than they were in colonial times. Plus we have the internet and news, so if we found out that the government or le ebil 'cultural Marxists' were trying to brainwash us with propaganda, the whole world would find out almost immediately.

[Anonymous No.12389738]

>>12389728
Your lack of comprehension for the world in which you live is astounding.

[Anonymous No.12389739]

>>12389728
Propaganda didn't exist before modernity, it relies on mass communication channels in order to propagate. The term has since evolved and there are multiple theories of what propaganda actually is.

A good primer would be Gramsci, Edward Bernays, Marshall McLuhan, Chomsky.

[Anonymous No.12389744]

>propaganda is now a right wing conspiracy theory
jesus christ

[Anonymous No.12389747]

>>12389728
You are a legitimate retard

[Anonymous No.12389755]

>information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view.
There's no massive conspiracy, but plenty of people are willing to lie to further their agenda.
On the right for example most of fox new's commentary fits this description exactly. Though oddly enough their journalism and reporting is for the most part factual if slightly biased. In liberal media it's still common as well if not quite as blatant. It most commonly appears when liberal leaning media discusses actual progressives within the democratic party.

[Anonymous No.12389761]

>>12389728
>If there was a coordinated effort by some secret network of 'elites' to shape public opinion and consumer psychology, and literally every major corporation, media company, and government agency were working to push the narrative by using le evil 'propaganda', then we would know by now and these people would be exposed.
many people know this, and have exposed this. but you have chosen not to believe them

[Anonymous No.12389764]

The concept of propaganda is propaganda.

[Anonymous No.12389812]

>>12389747
I was considering explaining some shit to OP, then I read your post. That stopped me. Why waste trying to explain anything to the OP who is obviously retarded? Likely they aren't going to listen, more likely they are too stupid and ignorant to understand even if they did listen. Therefore you have saved me the time and effort of engaging in what certainly would have been a futile activity. I will now put the time to better use, like washing the dishes. I am eternally grateful. Thank you! Thank you!

[Anonymous No.12389816]

>>12389761
>many people know this, and have exposed this. but you have chosen not to believe them

But the very premise is ridiculous on it's face. Why would a company or the government lie to the public if it would just result in people getting fired, sued, arrested, etc? People is positions of wealth and power are not stupid. In fact most of them are extremely intelligent, so why would they intentionally engage in business practices that would undermine the respect and legitimacy of their organization? People usually bring up 'propaganda' when they have been pushed into a corner and the available evidence suggests that they're wrong, so they just resort to saying 'oh yeah, well you're brainwashed by the media/the government/the New World Order/Big tech/etc

[Anonymous No.12389856]

>>12389728
>if government did anything that wasn't in our best interest we would know about it by now
Wow, soifaced anon debunks literally everything

[Anonymous No.12389860]

>>12389816
>Why would a company or the government lie to the public
kek

[Anonymous No.12389877]

>>12389816
>why would the government lie to the public
Real galaxy brain right here

[Anonymous No.12389890]

>>12389816
>Why would a company or the government lie to the public
Oh so you're telling me Iraq did have WMDs? And that incubator baby story was real? That explains why nobody got fired or suffered any consequences at all then.

[Anonymous No.12389922]

>>12389890
It's funny that all of a sudden once Obama became president, all the right wingers suddenly became pacifists and started criticizing the Iraq war. It's almost like the only reason you are against the war is because Obama was able to do what Bush never did and actually take out Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden.

[Anonymous No.12389931]

>>12389728
Didn't read lol

[Anonymous No.12389952]

Propaganda is and will always be real, but, yes, OP, you're right that most cases of someone accusing someone of or blaming something on propaganda are just paranoid coping strategies, and I agree with your examples

[Anonymous No.12389953]

>>12389728
>americans struggle to understand the meaning of simple words
Never ceases to amaze me.

[Anonymous No.12389972]

>>12389728
DIDNT READ FAGGOT

[Anonymous No.12389977]

>>12389816
>>many people know this, and have exposed this. but you have chosen not to believe them
>But the very premise is ridiculous on it's face. Why would a company or the government lie to the public if it would just result in people getting fired, sued, arrested, etc? People is positions of wealth and power are not stupid. In fact most of them are extremely intelligent, so why would they intentionally engage in business practices that would undermine the respect and legitimacy of their organization? People usually bring up 'propaganda' when they have been pushed into a corner and the available evidence suggests that they're wrong, so they just resort to saying 'oh yeah, well you're brainwashed by the media/the government/the New World Order/Big tech/etc

One example is tobacco companies pushing propaganda that cigarettes don't cause cancer. Propaganda is often not just outright lies - it's muddying the waters and a strong motivation to support a specific objective with some semblance of truth and empiricism.

Propaganda can include promulgating things you genuinely believe are true, as well. There's just a laxness for rigor, a willingness to appeal to things like emotion, and perhaps some self-deception.

Trump talking about alleged voter fraud is propaganda. Woke people on Twitter talking about white supremacists in the government is propaganda. A lot of corporate PR is propaganda. Almost anything a government says during a war is propaganda.

So I agree with you that "cultural Marxism" conspiracy theories are completely retarded and delusional, but this is a separate topic from propaganda. I think your issue is really more with conspiracy theories than propaganda.

[Anonymous No.12389983]

>>12389890
>>Why would a company or the government lie to the public
>Oh so you're telling me Iraq did have WMDs?

It's still unclear and unproven, but there's no strong evidence that Bush lied. It seems very possible he genuinely believed the intelligence assessment, and that many people in the CIA also genuinely believed it. It's likely some deception happened at some layer, but that can be true despite most people involved actually believing it

I'm certainly not saying they wouldn't lie about it, but I think it's not shown that they did

[Anonymous No.12389993]

>>12389739
Chomsky is exactly the type of fringe leftist that I was referring to. He claims that there is a massive global conspiracy to manipulate the media and lie us into war. He claims that the military and the media secretly work together in order to fight never ending wars that will last for human history.

Or you have people on the alt-right like Dave Rubin or Ben Shapiro who claim that the media has a 'liberal bias' and that journalists and universities are working together to silence "great geniuses" like Jordan Peterson.

I don't think it has anything to do with 'propaganda' or 'disinformation'. Most reasonable people just don't agree with thinkers like Noam Chomsky or Ben Shapiro. It has nothing to do with the 'military industrial complex', or the 'media', or the 'government'. People just don't agree with Noam Chomsky or Ben Shapiro, and these people are butthurt that the general public does not take them seriously.

[Anonymous No.12390014]

>>12389977
>One example is tobacco companies pushing propaganda that cigarettes don't cause cancer

But that is a false equivalence. That's not a good comparison because first of all, I'm talking about modern day society, and secondly the general public didn't thinking smoking was bad for you, so that's the main reason tobacco companies said that smoking probably wasn't bad for you. The general belief at that time was that smoking was healthy, and doctors are regular people too, so they didn't necessarily know any better.
If the same stuff was happening today, people would realize that cigarettes are bad for you because we have more knowledge and understanding of medicine, and because with the internet around people would be able to spread information a lot faster than they did 100 years ago. Plus big companies now understand consumer rights law and they know they will be hit with lawsuit if their product turns out to be unsafe or unhealthy.

[Anonymous No.12390020]

>>12389728
the true enemy of the west are chang and igor. they are at least partly behind the extreme polarisation we see today. seeding conspiracy theories and then letting retards do the rest of the work for free proved to be wildly effective.

[Anonymous No.12390027]

>>12389860
I am from gd and we don't lie to the public, but instead emphasize the positive quality's of a certain product or circumstance.

[Anonymous No.12390034]

The really unfortunate part is that the Left has components of OPs view in their ideology. It isn’t to say the Right is superior, but the Left is seemingly involuntarily vulnerable to deception. I guess I need to embrace my sociopathy.

[Anonymous No.12390116]

>>12389816
You reminded me of my father and made me smile. Sometimes he would engage in absurd arguments where he would pretend to believe the government, police and general authorities were honest and honorable. I dont know why he did that, it was weird and stressed my mom. She could say "x politician did dis ebil" and he would be like "but thats illegal it cant be".

[Anonymous No.12390117]

>>12389728
1932
Edward L Bernays
It's psychology.

[Anonymous No.12390119]

[Anonymous No.12390121]

...what?
>WORDS WORDS WORD WORDS WORDS WORDS WORDS AND NONE OF THEM INDICATE KNOWLEDGE OF THEIR MEANING

[Anonymous No.12390139]

>>12389993
you act like people are crazy for making these claims, but don't really articulate why they are
like you're being ironic trying to make a point or something

[Anonymous No.12390162]

Have you ever heard how eating carrots is good for your eyes? Especially for night visions?

THIS is a very cleanly clear cut case of propaganda. It was specifically designed by the military in WW2 as a way to hide the fact we had developed radar technology, which was a secret at the time. We no longer need to hide radar as a secret, but the lies/propaganda remain till this day.

[Anonymous No.12390166]

That's right goy, the idea of propaganda is just propaganda go

<Click here to collect your good goy shekels>

[Anonymous No.12390167]

>>12389728
Low IQ. Jesus Christ.

[Anonymous No.12390177]

>Is the concept of 'propaganda' pseudoscience?

>There exists a terrorist organization to protest the nearly universally justified killing of a few hundred black people a year by police

>While 93% of black murder victims are killed by other blacks

[Anonymous No.12390203]

>>12389728
>Is propaganda real?

Nyet comrade.

[Anonymous No.12390209]

>>12390139
I've actually explained my perspective several time. I don't think it would be in the best interest of a company or government agency to lie to the public. We live in a capitalist system where money is the primary motive. What incentive would a company have to engage in practices that could upset their customer and result in serious legal consequences.

[Anonymous No.12390234]

Let me get this straight: you are claiming propaganda doesn't exist?

[Anonymous No.12390242]

>>12390209
Not the same guy and I have no strong feelings about this topic, but I just want you to know that you are fucking terrible at explaining your position. You are bad at explaining, in general.

[Murphs No.12390244]

>>12390209
Ok you, like a lot of other people nowadays, are attributing way too much power to the profit motive. Why do we have wars, when at face value, all they produce is an enormous cost in materiel?
Huh, you say that this does end up benefiting some companies in a roundabout way? Huh, you say that the profit motive is often overriden by governmental drives?

[Anonymous No.12390612]

>>12390209
>We live in a capitalist system where money is the primary motive.

News about death sells. There's an industry saying about this --- "If it bleeds, it leads." War and crime are the two most predictable causes of death, and they're easy for the public to get emotionally invested in. So, as a profit-seeking capitalist running a news organization, I'm incentivised to publish as much about war and crime as I can.

In order to find these stories, I need sources. Typically, these are police officers solving the crimes, or soldiers fighting the war. To maintain a relationship with my sources, I need to stay on their good side. This means portraying them in a flattering light. In doing so, I also produce a simple good-vs-evil narrative that's easy to sell to the undiscerning public. Most people already believe agents of the state are good.

So, without any grand conspiracy, a natural alliance forms between journalists and the state. The news agency gets sources that turn into stories, and the state gets portrayed positively. Everyone (except the public) wins. And all of this can happen without outright lying --- it's easy to couch stories in phrases like "sources claim" or "allegedly."

If you actually bothered to read Chomsky, you'd understand this. It's not a "conspiracy;" it's market forces at work.

[Anonymous No.12390647]

>>12389993
hope you get bombed, filthy american apologist. have you heard of the term military-industrial complex.

[Anonymous No.12390648]

>>12390014
Consumer right laws have been stripped down compared to the past.

Furthermore the whole reason those companies kept getting sued over and over is because they did know how horrible smokes were for your health and hid the info from the public. This came to light during congressional hearings that they pretty much paid off doctors to keep quiet and keep pushing.

If you don't believe me, see the morphine lawsuit that is happening. Big pharma is essentially getting a slap on the wrist compared to how much they made off with over the years.

[Anonymous No.12390868]

>>12389728
Start with Ellul.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda:_The_Formation_of_Men%27s_Attitudes

[Anonymous No.12390875]

This looks like a genius-tier bait thread that belongs in /pol/. Society is absolutely saturated with propaganda, at least on electronic networks.

[Anonymous No.12390952]

>>12389728
Do fish know they are in water?
At least in soviet Russia people knew they were getting propaganda, in the west a lot of people take media at face value.

[Anonymous No.12391146]

>>12389993
People not agreeing with one another is the heart of politics.
It would benefit my ideology if I spread my ideas around and shut down other people's ideas, propaganda Isn't about reasonable discussion it's about goading those butthurt people into taking rancid shits in the pool, reasonable people who stay at home while maniacs run amok are usually the last ones to act and the first victims of festering political situations.

[Anonymous No.12391149]

is this a serious post
youre in the most propagandized media era of all time
these media agencies have an extreme awareness on the condition of multiple groups. they're only getting more and more data on behavior
they send out bots to make threads to collect more data to see what reactions they get
using that info, they can easily guide your actions

stop posting on the internet, seriously
and honestly i have half a mind to start creating programs that make it look like i'm spending time at a bunch of random different websites

[Anonymous No.12391167]

>>12390027
intentionally misleading the full, known truth is a lie.
anything that falls short of full truth on a topic is a lie
pretending like you didn't know, or dancing around word games, or only representing half the issue is a lie

the essence of what a lie is, is known
word playing and obscuring the idea doesn't change it in the grand scheme.
what is beyond you will know when you're being dishonest, and it will reflect upon you.

[Anonymous No.12391176]

>>12390209
yet they do all the time, and when its over they are out of office and are doing something else or dead and you find out about it. chinese companies lie about their goods all the time and are way more profitable. there doesn't exist an honest salesman, if there was, there would be no profit or very little.

[Anonymous No.12391195]

>>12389728
I hope TL:DR op gets the vaccine

[Anonymous No.12391284]

>>12389993
>secretly
Not very secret, it's pretty obvious.

[Anonymous No.12391294]

>>12389728

[Anonymous No.12391297]

>>12389728
The most useful of idiots. Truly amazing.

[Anonymous No.12391436]

>>12389816
I don't have a brainless wojak that's brainless enough to properly encompass how retarded you are. suicide is your only course of action.

[Anonymous No.12391449]

>>12389728
china has millions of people employed to create propaganda lmao