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:
No comments:
Post a Comment