London 2003
Words are the main tool in propaganda and communication in general. Words in propaganda are used to deceive, disguise intentions, evoque feelings, divert attention and veil their real purpose and meaning.
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| ‘Propaganda Techniques’ based upon ‘Appendix I: PSYOP Techniques’ from ‘Psychological Operations Field Manual no. 33-1’, published by Headquarters; Department of The Army in Washington DC, on August 1979. |
| This piece exploring propaganda was produced on black-out material, as a hint towards Plato's myth of the cave. The realities that we are surrounded by in the media are very similar to the shadows on the cave's wall, and propaganda veils reality, which might be behind us. |
The work on propaganda mirrors the process of manipulation, which uses distorsion, displacement of enphasis, saturation of data, omission, ambiguous or equivocal expression, censorship, incomplete information or information out of context and random association of concepts, amongst others. It also translates this process visually by using text that is incomplete, overlaps, that is scratched, erased or covered.
Propaganda in democratic societies
The starting point for the work on propaganda was the BBC documentary called ‘The Century of the Self’. It showed how Freud’s theories of the unconscious and our irrational desires, adapted by his nephew Edward Bernays, were used by the US government, big corporations and the CIA to develop techniques to manipulate and control the American public. Bernays believed that humans are incapable of governing themselves and should be kept away from politics, because our irrational nature only produces horrors like the nazism. He decided that the best way to achieve this was to divert our obsessions towards buying goods. His techniques originated the PR and advertising industry as we know them today, and helped develop the consumer society that we live in.
The success of the tactics he invented and developed based on Freud’s theories attracted the attention of the US government and the CIA. They hired him to convince the American public of the need of attacking democratic countries with almost no army, like Nicaragua, or imposing dictartorship in countries whose policies was unconfortable for American big business. Their campaigns were based on excuses like the interest of humanity, the defense of democratic values and freedom, or were simply aimed at diverting the attention, misinforming and hiding facts.
Today political parties use tactics based on the ones developed by Bernays
in their campaigns. With the help of the media they turn the voter into a consumer,
and treat him/her as such. The political party is advertised like a product
that adapts to the voter’s wishes and fears. These strategies were successfully
applied by the Democrats with Bill Clinton and exported with equal success to
the UK, with Tony Blair’s New Labour.
encrypted feminist
magazine
on-line qstnnr
laaaotfohc
grafeos
essence
and existence
you,
fascist (or the holy trinity of manipulation)
the
book of madness
propaganda
paintings and drawings
photography
