Propaganda - Description and Feel

PROPAGANDA IS EFFECTIVE BECAUSE it works on an emotional level. Most of our decisions are based on a combination between the perceived results of previous experience, the emotions we experience regarding the current situation, and logical analysis of the problem. Inside that mess is also perceived estimations of our skills, probable success, and evaluation of the forces and elements against us, if any.

What motivates us is not logic however, but emotion.

The propagandist uses symbols, attitudes and morals that are embedded in the target audience to control and limit the emotional state of his target. This is desirable because the emotional response is deep, powerful, long-lasting -- and not controlled by rational awareness or evaluation of the situation. An intellectual, rational response is not desired and is not sought.

There is a novel, one of my favorites by Philip K. Dick, We Will Remember It for you Wholesale, which posed a question -- If you remember spending six weeks as a Billionaire touring Europe and socializing among the world trenders. If it is a pure memory, wired into your matrix, did it happen? Did it? -- if it did, if the vacation could be authored, crafted by experienced and expert travelers, and tailored to your preferences and desires, would not that experience (which you could acquire in only a few hours, rather than six weeks) be more appealing than real travel to foreign lands with its reality of bungles and lost luggage and missing reservations, menacing dark streets, and weird toilet paper in the bathroom?

Discovering Mood and Feel through Grammar

Words fascinate me. They always have. If I never sold a article, or novel, I would still be a writer. What amazes me more, is the words we have to describe modes of speech/text.  Like when the restaurant host has reached the point that -- he doesn't care that this is your first date with the love of your life anymore, and comes to your table an hour and a half after he locked the door, to say "You need to leave in ten minutes, we have to close." That has a name. It's called a "boulomaic modality."

boulomaic modality
Definition - A type of modality that expresses what is possible or necessary given someone's desires.

And my recent interest:
Hendiadys: express a single idea by two nouns instead of a noun and its qualifier. The effect of this method is an amplification that adds force.

"He came despite the rain and weather."

-- Instead of --

"He came despite the rainy weather"

The first has a stronger sound. You don't want to use Adjectives anyway. Adjectives, especially the -ly words drag the story down. The sounds actually build up inside the mind like backwash, bogging everything to a dead crawl after a while. Though, to be honest that example has the draw back of sounding a little clunky, so the right words need to be found, and I advise reading your phrase out loud a few times so you can hear the tonality.

"The distinction and presence of the dignitary moved his audience."

By separating the term “distinctive presence” into “distinction and presence” we accentuate the adjective by transforming it into a noun, and giving the 'dignitary' a feeling of greater stature by the amplified feel of the hendiady -- kind of cool huh?

I began my career as a Copywriter under the rules:

1. The Theme: Should be based on two principles -- a man's interest in himself and his interest in other people. 
2. Headlines: "Wife fires cannon off Hitler's Bow" -- make it more interesting than that.
3. The Visualization: Visual yes, Emotional - a must. 
4. The Copy: The introduction can almost always be eliminated. Copy should fit space. It starts In-Action, and moves to the Call to Action without pause or distraction.
5. Adjectives: Once finish, go back and cut all the adjectives. 
6. A Purpose: Never write without knowing who you are selling to and why. No one buys nails. Ever. They buy a smile from their daughter when her picture is on the wall. Who the hell wants a nail?

But like the propaganda I've been discussing, Copy too has become stronger, more challenging and sexier than it was when I started 35 years ago. Details are the dwellings of devils, but we have to go in there none the less.

There are skills you simply have to acquire in today's massive text and content world of Internet and Social Media. Framing is one of them. We never thought about framing thirty-five years ago, but you have to catch your reader, and keep her attention. She's not easy to keep either. She's trained herself to scan thousands of words an evening. For a hesitant breath she will hover over your copy if it looks like you are interesting -- and within that hesitation you either catch her completely, or become invisible.

"Be bloody, bold, and resolute" (Macbeth)

Have to keep up with her expectations

orcid.org/0000-0001-7495-5377

Razor Ready to Parse and Diagnose A Propaganda Message

This article that we are going to take apart and explore is a good sample of the propaganda currently being pushed out into the Internet. It was published back in October, and it is in reference to the College Board Advanced Placement US History course.

The AP History course has had a consistent single complaint. Every year the teachers have voiced this complaint. For the last 20 years, History teachers across the nation told the College Board that the course was too stringently defined. There was no room in the AP Course for "Teaching." 

The course was laid out completely, with nearly an hour-by-hour description. The teacher's felt that they were unable to explore or contribute. "You didn't even need to be a teacher. A recording would have done," said one teacher.

In 2013 the crew at the College Board working on the AP US History, came up with an idea to solve this problem. They defined a Framework, which had in it the main ideas, the concepts and levels of expectation needed for the students in order to take the test with a reasonable chance of passing. 

There was no curriculum. 

The teacher would choose the material, and events of history to cover, as well the people of that era to explore. Everything would be covered by the teacher. Obviously, in order to explain this "building of curriculum" some "sample" data was required as "place holders" in the course manual. Larry Krieger saw his chance, claimed that the Sample Data was the True data, and began a Big Lie campaign in an attempt to get the AP to return to the previous format. 

Since this campaign is now mute, and everyone now understands the swindle by Larry Krieger, Jane Robins, Sandra Stotsky and James Milgram we can explore without controversy.

So, before you go further into this, please read this Overview.

To Verify the overview the College Board has published this document to clearly debunk the confusion spread by Larry Krieger, Jane Robins, Sandra Stotsky and James Milgram.

Once done, let's get into one of the Articles, which was posted as an Editorial on the AP History Problem. Oct 4, 2014

Excuse Me? Check this Box? Are you Six?

Dear Democratic Party whose email list I would like to leave....

So, your Opt-Out page, instead of being just a click, like professionals do it, is asking me why I'm leaving. Fine.

You don't engage me. I dont' know. Maybe its because I'm countering propaganda from these activists against CCSS or the research I do, ... maybe I'm jaded. But I really get the impression that you don't care about what you are doing, or why. I get this mental image of a blue/gray office and half-hearted interests. I get the vision of "screw this.." blasting off the emails. But seriously...I was close to shutting down on this one...


Do you believe that we should give middle-class families a tax break by closing corporate tax loopholes?

And then two buttons? Yes? No?

This is the political version of "Do you like me? Check the box if you do." from grade school.

To the members of the meeting you had, who dedicated all of their skill to produce a  message, designed to make an emotional connection, and be convincing -- I must say, well done. I am deffinity feeling an emotion. And It is convincing.

It convinces me that if you do care about what you are doing, you certainly don't give a damn about what I'm doing. Because, despite the fact that what I'm doing is actually directly affecting the chances of the Democrats doing better in the next election... you have interrupted my work to look at a childish note displaying a brazen declaration of insecurity.


I can't take this message seriously -- especially the question. So there is no way I can take you seriously. If I take that question, as it is presented, seriously, I'll stop what I'm doing and tell you to "F-off you are on your own". If you are so far out of touch with the democratic voters of this nation that you have to ask that question in that manner, then you are not a party I want any where near the house of congress or the white house. This email, and that ad you did about education... my god.

This -- right here, this email, is the reason the Republicans, who had a 9% approval rating, swept with a 94% success in November. Yes, I'm basically democrat, but ... how can I take you seriously?

Now... I'm trying to do a diagnostic on these, rather sophisticated propaganda messages I discovered last week, which from every source are militarized words designed to insure you lose even more in a couple years -- with the public's blessing. I feel it is important for people to be able to think. -- But honestly, judging by the messages I'm getting and the actions I'm seeing  (or actually NOT seeing) whoever is making these is wasting their money. They won't need them.

So, grow a spine, get someone who can create a real message or ask me a real question which demonstrates that you might give a &%( about this country, and maybe I'll join back up.

Glenn Hefley
www.ghefley.com

Aggressive Persuasion Time Distortion. Technique

Name: Time Distortion. / Engage the Future

Type:  Perception Alteration
Medium: In Person or Voice Call - Text is possible but challenging
Chance of Encounter: Med/Low
Typical Target: One-to-One though Mass Media is Possible -- Challenging though
Setup, Conditions, or Environment: Framing highly suggested prior to engagement. 
If campaign requires text, framing requirement becomes even more advised. 
Description of Handling: The handling means an act of influencing public opinion through specific action so manipulated people will have the impression that they are acting according to their own ideas and interests. In fact, they take an idea, or an opinion that does not belong to them, but has been induced by various means. .One of the simplest is the technique of Time Distortion. Researchers today, call this False Memory or Memory Distortion. This technique refers to a decision that the client is trying to take. Speaking (Communicating) to them as if the decision is already made and that it was a pleasant experience and now everything is going to work out, adds to the experience. Also combining the session with pleasing images made with the use of "past tense" makes the new belief seat into memory with less disturbance, and begin to inscribe into the long term memory.  

I've also heard this one referred to as, "It's Just Tense, that's All"
But that was described as more of a Trope than an engagement.

I remember when it happened. I remember when we got the news. The news that 913 people killed themselves in Jonestown. It was so stunning. The anchor man said it deadpan. Nine hundred men, and women, with their children, in a mass suicide during a church service. It really didn't hit. I don't think anyone who heard it that day, got the message. I don't believe we process after a certain degree of atrocity. It's not a shock, really. It's a dumbing. What you hear -- it just doesn't make any sense to you. The words, individually, as each was said, were recognized as words, sure, but they weren't recognizable in that order. I guess, when that sort of limitation is breached, you focus on the banal. So, yeah, this guy who is condemning the jokes about the Kool-aid, this college kid. Sure, I understand the rebuke, but i don't accept it. Even now, it is difficult to grasp - -and there are so many living people who are crushed by tragedy to focus on. I do not accept the reproach of the dead while the living cry out.

Was there something that could have been done about Jonestown?