Propaganda

Throughout my years as a media consumer I never really paid that much attention to the notion of propaganda. I was familiar with the concept but never thoroughly got the fact that experiencing propaganda is a daily occurance. Now I realize that I wake up to it, have my morning coffee with it, and fall alseep to it. I encounter propaganda everyday of my life and realizing this is a little daunting. Propaganda is scary because it never provides unbiased information for the audience to interpret and to decide on their own but rather aims to influence a person's ideas and actions by providing already made decisions.

The sole purpose for propaganda is to influence someone's beliefs and behavior with biased information. It is a systematic way of manipulation.

Take our whole war on terrorism. (I know we're all tired of this topic, but bare with me) Day in and day out our government is shoving down our throats propaganda that aims to center and support their ideas and actions. All of GWB's religious garble (my apologies for those "righteous" individuals who believe that state and religion should go hand in hand, but I vehemently disagree) to urgent talks about weapons of mass destruction have blantant propaganda tones written all over them. Of course this isn't any new news. Any educated person is well aware that every government tries to control their citizens by overloading their days with ongoing propaganda.

The government isn't the only player in the propaganda game however. Click on www.loosechange911.com to view arguments against GWB's claims of the tragic events on 9/11.

What makes propaganda so scary is that it is a one-sided promotion. Propaganda never provides the opposing side and it is very efficient and easy to fall in to. Which leads me to conclude that no matter what the ends, whether it be justified by the means or not, theoretically propaganda is not good. How propaganda functions, hyping one side of the story and never providing the other, makes finding truth more difficult.