Friday, October 11, 2013

Kill Your Enemy with Cameras!



We live in a world where the media determines the way we feel about things. We rely on the news to tell us who to like and who doesn’t like us. The more appetizing it is on the television the more we incorporate things in our everyday life. This isn’t new. The media’s influence on countries has been prevalent since the creation of media. My mother always told me to kill my enemies with kindness. I always thought that was a dumb phrase. The best way to kill an enemy is with a bullet, a blunt instrument, or propaganda! Using the media to destroy a person or a group of people is nothing new.
In Chapter 4: The Expulsion of Germans from Poland and Czechoslovakia propaganda was used to help get the people of Poland and Czechoslovakia against the Germans. Naimark stated “Czechoslovak government propaganda purposely raised the temperature of anti-German feelings in the country (Pg. 115).” The use of religion in the propaganda really helped aid the government’s decimation of the German’s character. The Czech Catholic Church also got involved stating “Once in a thousand years the time has come to settle accounts with the Germans, who are evil and to whom the commandment to love thy neighbor therefore does not apply (pg. 115)” Most citizens are religious, so if the government can convince religious figures to openly support their cause with the use of religion then the citizens will back up the government when it’s time for war.
                This type of propaganda happens all the time in current times. In America we use trigger words such as terrorist, liberals, rebels, and ruthless.  9/11 was the perfect example of this. The American government knew the attack was coming, but they decided not to take the proper precautions to protect the people. So instead we deemed the Iraqis as terrorist without explaining why they even attacked us. The media called Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein the Antichrist, ruthless, and murderers. Osama Bin Laden was viewed as a modern day Hitler. A countless number of posters were created showing Arabian people killing children, older people, and animals. It’s great for stirring people up.
In 2013, we are in technological advance society. We use social media such as FaceBook, Twitter, and Instagram to market all propaganda now. Everyone and everything is honestly a click away. The development of Memes and Photoshop has only allowed propaganda to flourish in today’s society. The government still is in control of its influence though. The current dispute the United States has with Syria was so underrated that the government used Syria’s hacking of a twitter page as a flashpoint.  Times are certainly different from how they use to be, but the ideology is the same. Use the media to pinpoint an enemy, and scare the citizen enough so that they can’t help but to be against the common enemy.

                So there is no need to kill your enemy with kindness, just kill them with a camera and put it on Instagram. It will make more of an impact. 

For articles about propaganda can be found here:

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