Public Diplomacy, Propaganda and PSYOPS

1. Public Diplomacy, Propaganda and PSYOPS Lecture 1 What is propaganda?

2. What is Propaganda? • Original meaning – to propagate the ‘faith’ -(Congregatio de Propaganda Fide – 17th Century) • Sowing seeds of thought to translate into action (or inaction) • Acquired pejorative meaning 1914-18

3. ‘A Good Word Gone Wrong’ in the Great War of 1914-8 • Atrocity propaganda • Lies and half-truths • A ‘black art’ ‘defiling the human soul’ at a time when the mind was only just becoming understood (psychology) • BUT - Better to persuade than perish?

4. What it is not • Education …. But? • COMPLETELY honest • It is not about ‘Truth’ or at best it is about competing truths • Confined to dictatorships/authoritarian regimes • Designed to benefit solely the source; it can benefit the recipient as well. But primarily the source.

5. Two Models (Chomsky notwithstanding) The Totalitarian Model The Democratic Model ‘The Strategy of Truth’ Light censorship/regulation Persuasion Multi-party competition Media as Fourth Estate (watchdog but….) Education system teaches individual how to think for themselves • ‘The Big Lie’ • Reliant on heavy censorship and enforcement (coercion) • One Party State • Media part of State (lapdog) • Educational system is indoctinational for the benefit of society (sic.)

6. What is propaganda? • It is a process of persuasion • It is on the spectrum of communication from who says what to whom, when, how and with what effect • It injects the question ‘why?’ into that spectrum • Therefore it is about intent

7. Intentions • As a process, propaganda is value-neutral • As such, it is neither a ‘good’ nor a ‘bad’ thing • Value judgements like this are more appropriately directed as the intentions behind doing it • More useful to speak of ‘effective’ and ‘ineffective’ propaganda (results)

8. ‘Good’ or ‘Bad’ Intentions?

9. Propaganda is something some one else does!! • ‘Democracies only resort to propaganda in wartime’ • ‘Totalitarian regimes do it all the time’ • We tell the ‘truth’; they tell lies • In fact we tell our ‘truth’ and they tell their ‘truth’ • Whose ‘truth’ is right? • Better to talk about credibility

10. Propaganda – NATO definition ANY INFORMATION, IDEAS, DOCTRINES OR SPECIAL APPEALS, DISSEMINATED TO INFLUENCE THE OPINIONS, EMOTIONS, ATTITUDES OR BEHAVIOUR OF ANY SPECIFIED GROUP IN ORDER TO BENEFIT THE SPONSOR, EITHER DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY

11. PROPAGANDA CATEGORIES • WHITE - overt, attributable to a definite source • BLACK - covert, deliberate deception where a false source is definitely implied • GREY - where a source is concealed and not acknowledged by the originator

12. COHESIVE PROPAGANDA • CREATE GOODWILL • PROMOTE FRIENDSHIP • RAISE MORALE • STRESS COMMON INTERESTS • GAIN CO-OPERATION

13. DIVISIVE PROPAGANDA • LOWER MORALE • CREATE APATHY, DEFEATISM & DISCORD • PROMOTE DISSENTION, PANIC SUBVERSION, RESISTANCE, DESERTION, SURRENDER & DEFECTION

14. PROPAGANDA VARIANTS • INTERNATIONAL PUBLIC INFORMATION (Public Diplomacy/Cultural Diplomacy) • PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE/OPERATIONS • INFORMATION WARFARE/OPERATIONS • STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS/GLOBAL ENGAGEMENT • PUBLIC RELATIONS/SPIN DOCTORING • ADVERTISING/MARKETING (?) • PUBLICITY • NEWS? (‘the shocktroops of propaganda’)

15. PROPAGANDA PRINCIPLES IS MOST EFFECTIVE WHEN • IT IS BASED UPON CREDIBLE TRUTH • PRESENTED IN AN ATTRACTIVE FORM • IT AROUSES A NEED • IT SUGGESTS SATISFACTION

16. ADDITIONAL PRINCIPLES • REFRAIN FROM RIGID DOGMATISM • AVOID ANTAGONISM • IDENTIFIES ITSELF WITH THE TARGET • EXPLOITS, WHEN OPPORTUNE, WEAKNESSES IN HOSTILE PROPAGANDA TO THE MAXIMUM

17. Key Propaganda Writers Walter Lippmann & Harold Lasswell Aldous Huxley & George Orwell Hitler Jacques Ellul Noam Chomsky & Edward Herman R S Zaharna (on PD) A Pratkanis