Throughout this book, we have delineated a great many persuasion and propaganda tactics and we have frequently discussed what we can do to counteract unwanted forms of propaganda. What we would like to do in this chapter is to pull together these recommendations with a simple goal in mind: How can we prevent propaganda from impacting us in our homes, workplaces, schools, courtrooms, and nation?
The answer to this question is complex. And why shouldn't it be? The propaganda we face is complex, taking a myriad of forms that often change in response to new environments, new opportunities, and our attempts to stop it.
In preventing propaganda, there appear to be two basic approaches we can take. First, we can take defensive action. In other words, learn how to detect propaganda, how to play the devil's advocate, what questions to ask about a communication, how to debunk and deflate a bogus appeal, and how to respond to unscrupulous propaganda attacks. M uch of this book has been written with this goal in mind.
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However, in a message-dense environment populated with propagandists of every ilk playing on our prejudices and emotions, even the best-trained warrior could not successfully defend against every attack. There is just too much flimflam—and too little time and too few resources to debunk it all. We also need to take offensive action—steps that will identify common propaganda forms and the seeds of propaganda and stop them at the source. Preventing propaganda from entering our homes requires both personal and institutional responses—that we take personal steps to end it and that we change some of the ways our society does things. In the remainder of this chapter, we offer some suggestions on things we can do to prevent, or at least slow, the spread of propaganda.1 We begin by looking at some ways to defend ourselves personally and then move on to some societal actions we can take.
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Know the ways of persuasion and realize that you personally may be the victim of propaganda. In a series of important experiments, Brad Sagarin and his colleagues taught college students about the ways of persuasion.2Specifically, the students received materials that explained how to distinguish a legitimate use of source credibility from an illegitimate one—materials similar to our discussion ofcommunicator credibility in Chapters 12-16. Next, Sagarin and his colleagues gave the students, in an unrelated context, a series of ads that used authority figures in appropriate and inappropriate ways. What did they find? The training alone did little to help the students resist a dishonest ad (although, interestingly, it did increase the influence of ads using legitimate communicators). However, the training did result in more resistance to propaganda when it was coupled with a "gotcha" procedure. In this case, before receiving the training on source credibility, the students were initially shown that they, too, could be taken in by dishonest communicators. The students were first asked to give their opinion of an ad that used a fake stockbroker to recommend a product, and then asked to take a look at their opinions to see whether they had noticed that the stockbroker was a fraud. If they hadn't, they were told that they had been fooled. Their illusion of invulnerability to propaganda weakened, the students eagerly applied the lessons they had learned concerning source credibility and resisted phony appeals.
Extrapolating from this experiment, reading this book is a good first step to bolstering your resistance to propaganda. However, in order for you to gain maximum protection from propaganda, you need to take one more step—don't fall prey to the third-person effect whereby you think that everyone else can be a victim of propaganda, but not you. Try to consider yourself vulnerable and prepare yourself accordingly.
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M onitor your emotions. If you notice you are having an emotional response to a communication, ask "Why?" Look for things that might induce emotions, such as a false commitment, a "free" gift that makes you feel obligated, a scarce item that induces feelings of inferiority, a we-they distinction that elicits the granfalloon, or speeches that make you feel fearful or guilty. If you feel that your emotions are being played on, get out of the situation and then analyze what is going on. If you can't physically remove yourself from the situation, redefine the situation mentally until you can escape.□
Explore the motivation and credibility of the source of the communication. Ask such things as: "Why is this person telling me this information?" "What does the source have to gain?" "Does the communicator really have the expertise and credibility to be believed, or is it just a manufactured image?" "Can the expert explain the issue in terms that can be understood, or is it just mumbo-jumbo designed to confuse and dazzle?"□
Think rationally about any proposal or issue. Ask such things as: "What is the issue?" "What labels and terms are used to describe it?""Are these labels used fairly?" "What course or courses of action are being discussed?" "What are the arguments in support of the advocate's position?" "What are the arguments opposing the position?" "How cogent are these arguments?"
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Attempt to understand the full range of options before making a decision. Ask such questions as: "Why are these choices being presented to me in this manner?" "Are there other options and other ways of presenting those options?" "What would happen if I chose something other than the recommended option?"□
"Don't watch your leaders' lips, watch their hands."3This metaphorical piece of advice comes from Theodor Plievier, an East German writer who has had vast experience with the ways of propaganda. In other words, don't base your evaluation on what someone says ("I am for the environment" "I am for education" "I am against crime") but on what the person actually does (how has the person protected the environment, supported education, or prevented crime?).□
Stop to consider the possibility that any information you receive may be a factoid. Let's take "idle" rumors and innuendo as an example.Human nature being what it is, most people take some pleasure out of hearing and repeating rumors. Why? As we noted before, rumors usually involve nasty, racy, or exciting negative stories about prominent people (national leaders, movie stars, or even well-known figures in our village, campus, or community). There is something about a nasty rumor about a prominent person that "takes them down a peg." The Germans have a word for it: Schadenfreude
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the secret, guilty pleasure we derive from the misfortune or embarrassment of others. But such rumors are often untrue and are certainly not harmless—they can be painful and destructive of the character and reputation of the target.Accordingly, when you hear a rumor or innuendo, you might want to ask the source: "What is the evidence for this?" "Where did you hear
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Accordingly, when you hear a rumor or innuendo, you might want to ask the source: "What is the evidence for this?" "Where did you hear it?" "Would you be willing to try to convince an impartial jury of the truth of this story?" In other words, insist that the repeater of the rumor put up or shut up. Each of us has a certain responsibility to challenge rumors rather than blindly accepting and repeating them.
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If everyone is "doing it" or you hear the same piece of "news" repeatedly, ask "why?" We recently completed a replication of the famous experiment by Solomon Asch in which subjects are asked to judge the relative lengths of lines.4In some of the trials, confederates of the experimenter intentionally agree on an obviously incorrect answer. Now it is the subject's turn to respond. The purpose of the study is to see whether or not the subject will conform to the erroneous opinions of the group. Inour study, more than half of the subjects gave the wrong answer at least once just to go along with the group. After the experiment, we asked one subject who did not conform what she thought about the experience. She gave advice opposite to the social consensus heuristic: When everyone is doing the same thing, use this as a cue to ask why. This is very good advice for avoiding jumping on bandwagons that aren't worth riding.□
If the deal looks too good to be true, it probably is. Before making a purchase, look for these common warning signs of a bad deal: (1) The deal is only good for "today"; (2) the seller offers "free gifts" in return for "minimum" effort; (3) a sale item is suddenly unavailable but a"much better" item happens to be available for "slightly more money" (throwing a lowball); (4) the seller emphasizes the amount of each payment rather than the total amount of the sale; (5) a "repair person" discovers a "dangerous" defect in something you own that must be repaired immediately; (6) you are given little or no time to read a contract; (7) the seller makes you feel guilty for asking questions or asks,
"Don't you trust me?"5
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Always ask yourself: "What are the arguments for the other side?" "What would it take to prove me (or anyone else) wrong?" This will help in avoiding acceptance of a position just because it is agreeable or presented in a pleasing manner. It will also stimulate debate and may result in improving the course of action you eventually adopt.□
Teach your children about propaganda. Recall from Chapter 38 that one of the best ways to prevent persuasion is through inoculation.Watch TV with your children and help them develop counterarguments against propaganda. For example, watch advertising with your children and ask such things as: "Do you think that toy can really do that, or is it just TV?" "Why do you think they make the toy look so good?" If need be, take the child to the toy store and compare the toy's real performance with the claims made in the advertising. When violence appears on the TV screen (and it will!) ask: "How do you think the victim felt? Would you like that done to you?"
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Support efforts to protect vulnerable groups such as children from exploitative persuasion. For example, you may wish to support efforts to limit the amount and scope of advertising directed toward children (as described in Chapter 38). You may wish to support efforts to limit the amount of TV violence entering the home through "family viewing hours," computer chips that you can use to block certain channels, or letting advertisers who support violent TV programming know that you won't be buying their products.□
Avoid being dependent on a single source of information. One of the hallmarks of intense propaganda (of the type found in cults and totalitarian regimes) is centralized communications from a single perspective. As companies in the mass media industry merge, consolidate, and buy each other out, citizens are becoming increasingly dependent on a handful of communications firms to deliver the diversity of opinions needed to sustain a democracy.6Public television is a useful alternative to commercial television and encourages the dissemination of shows such as "Sesame Street" and "M ister Rogers' Neighborhood." However, this is no substitute for a return to a quaint, old-fashioned idea: The public airwaves are owned by the public and should serve the public's interest. In distributing broadcast licenses and approving mergers, the government's guiding principle should be "How does this serve the community? How does this insure the dissemination of diverse viewpoints?"—not "How much money can someone make?"□
Think of the news as the news and try to separate it in your own mind from entertainment. Don't expect the news media to make every"event" into an entertaining spectacle with the sole purpose of securing ratings. The news media are among the few institutions that have the resources to serve as a watchdog over political and commercial enterprises. If they fail to serve this function, then we do not have the information we need to perform our jobs as citizens.
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Use communication style as one of your criteria in making decisions and judgments. For example, we have a friend who is a lifelong Republican; he has voted for every Republican who has run for president since Nixon. However, when the Willie Horton ad ran in the 1988 campaign, our friend declared, "I'll hold my nose and vote for Dukakis. I don't want a president who talks to the American people in this manner." Our friend recognized this ad for what it was—a cheap, mean-spirited play on emotions to get votes, and he wanted nothing to do with it. If we all followed the lead of our friend, then politicians and others would learn that demagoguery doesn't pay.710/13/2010 Age_of_Propaganda_-_Anthony_R._Pratk…
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Support campaign spending reform. Under the current matching funds formula, the American taxpayer foots the bill for much of election-year campaigning—for example, spending more than $170 million to finance a typical presidential campaign. Why pay for propaganda?Instead of giving candidates a blank check to purchase misleading thirty-second spots featuring vivid innuendo and slick images, why not require recipients of federal matching funds to use the money to pay for debates, open forums with the public, press conferences, infomercials that give the viewer a chance to hear the candidate's position in detail, and "talking head" ads such as those used in France?
(These are ads in which the candidate talks to the camera without distracting backgrounds such as waving flags or cheering shills, thereby focusing attention on what the candidate says and away from emotion-arousing images.)
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Increase your involvement with important issues. We saw in Chapter 3 that we are all prone to propaganda when we process information in a half-mindless state. On the other hand, when we are motivated by the personal relevance of an issue, we think about that issue,scrutinize messages, and seek out more information to help make our decision. The rub is that we often find ourselves in that "tuned-out"
state of mind. One solution is to create "involvement devices" to increase the relevance of issues facing our nation. For example, consider something as simple as a tax receipt sent to taxpayers listing how much they paid and how much of their money went to each major budget item. How would this work? Imagine the Jones family, whose income is $34,000.8
They would typically pay $3,200 in federal tax, $2,600 in Social Security and M edicare taxes, plus state, local, and sales taxes. The Jones family would receive from the IRS a thank-you note and a breakdown of how their money was spent: $1,682 on Social Security and M edicare, $1,102 on defense, $870 on interest on the national debt,
$348 on M edicaid. Each of the rest of the budget items cost the Joneses less than $100, including $58 each on items such as unemployment insurance, housing programs, and food stamps and $15 each on items such as federal law enforcement, federal research, student aid, and foreign affairs. Armed with such information, the next time the Jones family sees a multimillion-dollar missile accidentally explode on the TV news they might respond "Hey, that is my thousand bucks on fire" and might become increasingly interested in military procurement procedures. When a politician comes along and says "I'll save tax money by getting rid of welfare cheats and ending our involvement in the UN," the Joneses might respond: "Not likely. These are relatively small costs compared to the big-ticket items of Social Security, the military, debt service, and healthcare." The point is this: When armed with information that is personally involving, citizens are in a better position to distinguish valid proposals from poppycock.
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Demand consumer affairs shows. A good example occurs in the Netherlands, where Astrid Joosten hosts the hit TV show "TheSeduction."9This talk show brings together advertisers, media critics, and consumers to discuss advertising. The program provides a forum for consumers to complain about ads and for advertisers to respond to their complaints. It also serves as a model for much-needed
programming that would take a critical look at the consumer advertising entering our homes.
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Write companies asking for proof of advertised claims (as described in Chapter 11). We found that reading through the material we received from companies in support of their advertising claims made us much more sensitive to hollow claims (such as "Coke is it") and made us think about how an advertiser could support the claim (they often couldn't if they wanted to). Perhaps if we all wrote asking for proof, advertisers would realize that the empty promise is not an effective persuasion device.□
Support and extend efforts to squelch deceptive advertisements. Deceptive advertising misleads the consumer, harms competitors who must compete against phony claims, and ultimately makes it more difficult for those with legitimate claims to be believed by the consumer.To counter such propaganda, we need to toughen regulations so that advertisers are held accountable for deceptive ads (ones that he outright) and those that readily induce consumers to draw misleading implications (such as "No other pain-reliever is proven to be more effective"). It is reasonable to expect that the advertiser has a reasonable basis for making a claim, and these reasons should be available on request.10
In addition, when enacting any consumer protection law we need to make sure there are (1) enough law enforcement agents to enforce it and (2) enough of a penalty to deter would-be criminals.
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Support and extend efforts to eliminate misleading labels and other deceptive practices. Action can be taken to eliminate deceptive tactics.For example, the federal government has recently issued guidelines for labels such as "low-calorie" or "low-fat" so that they actually mean something. A simple law requiring a store to stock adequate supplies of advertised sale products can serve to stop lowballing practices that play on false commitments.11One area rife with fraud is telemarketing, where fly-by-night companies use high-pressure sales techniques to sell beachfront property in Fresno, California, or worthless gems at inflated prices. Here a number of laws and regulations are needed, including (1) creating internationally available databases for tracking fraudulent telemarketers; (2) requiring full disclosure to the consumer of the owners of the telemarketing firm along with the value of any prizes offered and, in cases where the telemarketer is soliciting for charity, the percentage of the contribution that will actually go to the charity (as opposed to the fund-raiser); (3) revising laws to make it easier for a consumer to take a fraudulent marketer to court;12and (4) establishing a registry of consumers who do not wish to be contacted by telemarketers, accompanied by stiff penalties when these wishes are violated. We owe it to ourselves to look for more areas where fraud and
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telemarketers, accompanied by stiff penalties when these wishes are violated. We owe it to ourselves to look for more areas where fraud and deception can be prevented.