Propaganda Techniques

Purpose

• persuades the masses
• influence emotions, opinions and attitudes
• direct people’s choices while maintaining the illusion of “free will”

Devices and techniques

• bandwagon – asking people to join the crowd and take action because ‘everyone’ is doing it
• card stacking – focusing on the best features and leaving out problematic facts
• testimonial – using a famous person to endorse the product, service or an ideology
• glittering generalities – using words and ideas which evoke an emotional response
• transfer – relating a product or an idea with something or someone who like
• name calling – connecting another person, product or an idea with something negative
• plain folks – using regular people to sell a product, service or an idea
• direct address – engaging the audience by speaking to them directly, by using personal pronouns and shared experience
• repetition – repeating the same word, phrase or idea more than once for emphasis (enhances recall value)
• undermining opposing views – criticising or countering the opposite argument
• appeal to authority – suggests that an argument must be correct because someone in power said so, it is an argumentation fallacy as it is not based on valid reasoning; example – the ‘keep calm’ posters are often accompanied with a Tudor Crown which essentially suggesting that people should keep calm because the authority is saying so
• false dilemma – when readers/viewers are provided with only two extreme binaries and pressured to take sides
• equivocation – when a word is used in two different senses in an argument