Talk:Propaganda in the United States

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Articles for deletion This article was nominated for deletion on 19/4/2006. The result of the discussion was keep.

It would be interresting to go into US anti-drug propaganda campaigns. I think these are marvelous examples of propaganda. Very little information- heavy on negative imagry.

Perhaps one of the most effective means of propaganda in the US is the perception of unbiased media which always tells the whole story. What the media reports on is one thing but what they don't report on is almost more powerfull. Katrina for example... US media gave next to no coverage to offers from other nations of assistance, or at best heavily downplayed them. Canada, Cuba, etc.. which responed immediatly but were told "no thanks" by the administration. Instead of investigating why these offers were refused focus was put on the "blame game" issue. I don't know what exactly I'm trying to say here lol. Perhaps this sort of thing is outside the context of propaganda...70.176.240.53 13:23, 27 March 2006 (UTC)


This page really should give references for many of its statements. In particular, I'd like to see references for the following statements:

  • "...the government has always enforced various forms of censorship." (This is possible, but highly unlikely. You'd need to show that, from its founding in 1787 through today, the government has enforced censorship continually.)
  • "Recent legislation has allowed government to censor any information which could be imagined as assisting "terrorists"." Name the legislation, please.
  • "The censorship has been strengthened with government actively issuing statements about good journalism..." You should give a link to the government statements.
  • "...jailing journalists for refusing to reveal sources..." Name the journalists that have been jailed, please. (One was Judith Miller. Name others.)
  • "...threatening with charges for 'inappropriate' journalism." Again, please give a source.
  • "United States Department of Defense is an active operator of propaganda." Please give sources. (Yes, this is true -- but you should point to, say, Office of Strategic Influence.

Thanks. Chip Unicorn 06:01, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] The hell?

Is this suppose to be serious? --KingZog 18:49, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

There is a strong case to be made that the American government controls the media and broad swaths of the economy either directly or indirectly. From an outside perspective, it has always (Even before 9/11) been apparent to me that the public over there is grossly misinformed. It just puzzles me that, all too often, things like 9/11 are covered up so badly. See "Loose Change" for more on that particular botch-job: Loose Change - Cathal

That's nice. Gazpacho 07:41, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

http://www.ccdominoes.com/lc/LooseChangeGuide.html Loose Change is probably a disinformation movie. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loose_Change_%28video%29#Factual_inaccuracies (Read down from there.) 68.49.72.210 01:51, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What is wrong with this article

Despite the recent "rewrite" there is still so much wrong with this article.

  • Most propaganda in the United States is advertising by private companies to promote awareness of their products and services. - This is not covered by the normal definition of propaganda.
  • The News media section - Whatever the editorial slant of media, again that is not covered by the normal definition of propaganda. It is pushing your point of view, certainly, most media do that, it is not propaganda.
  • The bit about cointelpro needs citations
  • The Movies section - Come on, no one can expect the army to support a movie that is highly critical of the army especially if and when the storyline is totally fictional. That is not propaganda, that is common sense thinking.
  • The Common rhetoric section - This section is so silly I'm not even going into details on that one.

The only part that would make this article worthy of keeping in its present form is the History section up to ".. under J. Edgar Hoover."--Kalsermar 19:41, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

While some people might not consider private advertising propaganda, most political and government propaganda goes through the same channels, so those channels and their main use bear mentioning. I've rewritten the first section to steer clear of identifying advertising as propaganda. I also added two sources from well-known media watchdogs that claim the news media engage in propaganda. Gazpacho 07:39, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Claims that ABC, NBC, CBS, and CNN propagandize for the right

  • First, it does not matter whether the people who say so are communists.
  • Second, a citation appears earlier in the paragraph. So please stop removing it, Ajdz.

I'm curious what POV you think this article expresses. It's not my fault that for 50-odd years the government directed propaganda against the political left. There was a Cold War on. Gazpacho 18:27, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Please provide a quote. I have read both sources and haven't found it. And if they apply to later sentences, the citations themselves should be later. And who is talking about communists? --Ajdz 19:03, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

"06:30, 23 April 2006 Ajdz (→News media - whose accounts? communists?)"

From the source: "The dominance of right-wing think tanks and policy analysts in the media is a quantifiable fact . . ." And from the preceding issue that it refers to: "In the survey of 1997, conservative or right-leaning think tanks received 53 percent of all citations, 32 percent of citations went to centrist think tanks, and only 16 percent of the citations went to progressive or left-leaning think tanks." Gazpacho 19:25, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

That's think tanks, not actual media networks. (And I have often heard that there are more right-wing think tanks than left.) There's nothing there that says ABC is right wing. There's nothing there that says NBC is right wing. There's nothing there that says CBS is right wing. There's nothing there that says CNN is right wing. And if it's communists making the allegations, it becomes non-notable because everyone is to the right of communists. --Ajdz 19:27, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
Read carefully. Those are not the percentages of political orientations among the think tanks. They're percentages of orientations cited by the news media. I think the statistic asks the wrong question myself, but there it is. Gazpacho 01:11, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm not aware that CNN or NBC or ABC is frequently accused of biasing their coverage toward leftwing views. I think you could say that about CBS because of criticism of Dan Rather's debacle with fake Bush National Guard memo debacle. The criticism I've heard of CNN frequently is that it tilts right. The American flags they put on screen while playing dramatic music and displaying this big "Showdown with Saddam" logo did seem like a propaganda technique to me, but it wasn't in support of any leftwing view. I think there are some worthwhile points to be made on the subject of television news broadcasting propaganda. So although some specific text there needs changing, I do think a section on propaganda in the television news media is appropriate. DanielM 21:59, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Such accusations come all the time from (of course) the right, and from researchers who don't appear to have gone in with an axe to grind. See Media bias in the United States. That article may address Ajdz's concerns as well. Gazpacho 01:11, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
The link to the media bias article does help provide some context (thanks for adding that!), but I'm still not finding anything directly accusing the specifically named networks of being right-wing. There are a couple examples of CBS and ABC caving to pressure in very specific single instances. I think that a better source is still needed, along with some careful wording because claims of liberal bias are much more frequent. In fact, the "objective" UCLA study cited by the article "concluded that of the major 20 news outlets studied "18 scored left of [the average U.S. voter]." The only two on the right were Fox News and the Washington Times. --Ajdz 03:45, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WTF?

Italy likely to become a Soviet satellite? get the &*%# out Bigkev 03:26, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Italian general election, 1948 --Ajdz 03:35, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
the ever democratic USA at work again Bigkev 04:33, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Operation names

The choice of operation names like "just cause", "iraqi freedom", and "enduring freedom" is a use of propaganda not yet described. Añoranza 01:47, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Such clever use of internal linking there. As for the comment, how is that propaganda? As I see it they are military code names pure and simple.--Kalsermar 02:01, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
Military code used as a means of propaganda. Cf. Propaganda#Techniques of propaganda generation: all of them - Slogans, Virtue words, Just cause - Appeal to authority, Enduring Freedom - Bandwagon effect. Añoranza 02:36, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
Operation names are codenames, this user felt Phantom Fury was propaganda and when asked about their protest to the names Golden Pheasant and Desert Storm they stating "referring to the powers of nature and one of the most expensive metals is euphemist when actually labelling a military attack" I hope this gives people some idea of the extents of this users categorization of propaganda that needs to be removed from Wikipedia. Operation Overlord would be worse then any of the three I mentioned, however this user has not attempted to remove that. --zero faults |sockpuppets| 12:18, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
Military code is just that, military code for use by the military more than anything and certainly not propaganda.--Kalsermar 17:54, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

I read recently (I think it was in the new book Overthrow) that the name "Just Cause" was chosen manually because officials didn't think the randomly generated names sounded good. Gazpacho 01:52, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Military support of Hollywood Blockbusters

This documentary[1] claims that the US military support any movies that portray them positively. If true, this should definately be in this article. The guy from the Pentagon they interview says that they do not hide such support so hopefully it will be easy to source. Anyone interested in propaganda to support the invasion of Iraq should watch this[2]. Kernow 23:46, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

the US military support any movies that portray them positively imho falls into the category "Duh!" Why would any organization support an endeavor that portrays them negatively? Now, if the Military promotes, funds or commissions the making of a highly positive film or documentary for the purpose of recruiting and/or demoralizing the enemy in wartime or promoting morale of the people in wartime, then it would fall under propaganda.--Kalsermar 20:06, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
I concur. This bit should not be in the article. --Cultural Freedom talk 2006-07-12 21:31 (UTC)
By support, I mean that they provide military equipment and advice for free. This is effectively funding. If you watch the documentary then I think you will agree that it is a form of propaganda. Kernow 19:46, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] In my personal opinion the article is very poor

As living in USA for past 10 years I notice a lot of american propaganda that is difficult for american born citizens to notice. The whole idea of being the greatest country in the world. Or being the only country with free speech. Or dominating in sports ie. world football playoffs are not really WORLD because its only in USA. Also seems that USA is build on slogans that have no merrit. I do think USA is doing a great job in marketing itself to the world but isn't it just one of the propaganda tools. Unless I am misunderstanding the meaning of Propaganda, I honestly believe that USA image to the world, or at least the image USA wants the world to see is one big propaganda / marketing. Also don't ask me to write a better article, as you can probably notice my english is poor. Snow —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.27.150.54 (talk) 04:44, August 30, 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Evangelical Christian propaganda

Since in the introduction of this article, propaganda was defined to could have been from both government and private entities, I think we should put a small mention regarding Evangelical Christian propaganda? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Children of the dragon (talk • contribs) 00:35, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Maybe you know something that I don't, but I don't think proselytizing is propaganda. Yunfeng (talk) 19:22, 8 May 2008 (UTC)