Age of Propaganda: The Everyday Use and Abuse of Persuasion

• Publisher:   Holt Paperbacks
• Number Of Pages:   432
• Publication Date:   2001-03-14
• ISBN-10 / ASIN:   0805074031
• ISBN-13 / EAN:   9780805074031

Americans create 57% of the world's advertising while representing only 6% of its population; half of our waking hours are spent immersed in the mass media. Persuasion has always been integral to the democratic process, but increasingly, thoughtful discussion is being replaced with simplistic soundbites and manipulative messages. Drawing on the history of propaganda as well as on contemporary research in social psychology, Age of Propaganda shows how the tactics used by political campaigners, sales agents, advertisers, televangelists, demagogues, and others often take advantage of our emotions by appealing to our deepest fears and most irrational hopes, creating a distorted vision of the world we live in. This revised and updated edition includes coverage of the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal, recent election campaigns, talk radio, teen suicide, U.F.O. abductions, the Columbine shootings, and novel propaganda tactics based on hypocrisy and false allegations.

Drawing on the history of propaganda and modern research in social psychology, this book reveals mass persuasion in action -- not just the tactics, but why they work so well, and how we can protect ourselves from manipulation.

I used to laboriously collect information I found on media influence. Age of Propaganda contains such a vast array of examples of the deplorable use of propaganda; arguably the cause of many of our woes as a society, that I now rely heavily on this book for research. The chapters Words of Influence and Pictures in Our Heads are worth the price of the book alone. But it goes much further than that; examining emotional contagion, fear and guilt in advertising and even the psychology behind cults. The latter subject is my one criticism of this book; I believe the stories of David Koresh were fabricated to demonize a group which was, simply put, massacred by perhaps not evil, but certainly clueless and inoperant government agents. There are twenty one pages of references, so the contention by some that the book isn't backed up by enough evidence seems to me utterly misguided.

I was really looking forward to learning more about the use of propaganda, but was not expecting to purchase a book that contains so much of it. Here are just a few examples: 1. Preface xi "...we lamented the fact that there was no White House tape recorder in use during the 1990s-so that President Reagan escaped the consequences of deceiving the American people (and the world) by subverting the Constitution through the covert sale of arms to Iran...". This is propaganda passed off as a fact. President Reagan took responsibility that the sale of arms to Iran happened on his watch. However, he denied that he was personally involved in this action and there is no proof that he deceived the American people or that he was "subverting the Constitution". 2. Preface xiii: Context is Bill Clinton and media coverage of his "inappropriate relationship" with Monica Lewinsky. The authors state, "Much of this coverage bordered on the hysterical, with rumor chasing gossip chasing innuendo...". This appears an attempt to minimize the seriousness of the charges against President Clinton of providing perjurious, false and misleading testimony to a grand jury and engaging in obstruction of justice through efforts to delay, impede, cover up and conceal the existence of evidence. Would the authors have been so concerned about the amount of media coverage if the President who lied had been a Republican? 3. p. 57-60: Context is Rush Limbaugh. I listen to talk radio and have listened to Limbaugh on and off for 15 years. The authors claim that Limbaugh, "hung up" on "an African-American caller" and told the caller to "take that bone out of your nose and call me back". The authors charge of racism leveled against Limbaugh did not appear credible at all, so I checked it out on snopes.com. The authors fail to mention that the only possible documentation of this incident, that reportedly happened over 30 years ago when Limbaugh was hosting a Top 40 music show, is from an October 8, 1990 Newsday article which claims that Limbaugh admitted feeling guilty about making this comment. Snopes.com states that as far as they know, Limbaugh hasn't denied the Newsday article report. Let's see, Limbaugh has been on the radio for over 30 years and speaks for hours at a time. He allegedly makes a stupid, off-the-cuff comment over 30 years ago that he feels guilty about...and the authors feel compelled to treat it as fact and like an everyday occurrence? The authors continue, "Limbaugh's stock-in-trade pre-persuasion tactic is rumor and innuendo-a distortion, half-truth, outright falsity, or unsupported claim presented as the truth". The authors continue their personal tirade against Limbaugh until half way through page 60. To their credit, the authors do touch on some of the propaganda regarding what our nation now terms "The Civil War". However, there is so much propaganda surrounding this specific war that it could fill volumes. Anyone who has studied the subject and read the words of Lincoln knows that this war was not fought over slavery (which has been an abhorrent evil in many nations around the world, but especially so in this nation predicated on individual liberty), but over preventing states from ever allowing their citizens the freedom to choose to leave the union they had voluntarily joined. Consider the analogy of a marriage and a subsequent divorce to what happened in this war to "preserve the union". Or consider if Puerto Rico had voluntarily chosen to join the USA, but its citizens changed their minds and later voted to leave the union. Would it be acceptable for the remaining states in our union to wage war against the citizens of Puerto Rico, kill anyone who opposed our will to force them back into the union against their expressed will, and then celebrate that we had preserved our nation? If Puerto Rico voted to leave the union, shouldn't the USA military forces leave peacefully? If they refused, which was the case with Fort Sumter, shouldn't Puerto Rico have the right to finally force an unwanted foreign power from their country? I finally just threw this book away and started reading a much more intelligently written book on propaganda entitled, "Propaganda, The Formation of Men's Attitudes" by Jacques Ellul.

This is a common sense book that details the techniques used by the American political system to control the masses. America has never really been a very intelligent place, so it was always easy for corrupt leaders to swindle their way in. Americans think they live in a democracy, but they actually live in a Corporate War State controlled by the media, corporations and the wealthy, which use indoctrination in schools, family, and work to shape selective minds. Massive subsides to bureaucracies keep tabs on information and people, made easy through technological developments and information storing in computers. Secret and clandestine foreign "centers of intelligence" (CIA, NSA) wage war with world economies and non-compliant leaders. By giving the masses daily measured quantities of Propaganda, they are able to manipulate them and even use them towards their advantage (see The McCarthy Era - intense anti-communist suspicion). They use uninformative "news" casts (filled with sensational material), tabloid journalism, pornography, reality TV, fast food, identification with team sports, etc to shape impressionable and non-critical minds. It's a pretty easy conquest, as most Americans aren't very able to distinguish that their brains are turning to mush, those who do think are quickly eradicated by the indoctrination system within or made into a non-threat. Good book. Too bad no one will read it, except in Europe.

This book here is just plain scary!!! It has amazing facts! This is really a good read and every breathing human being should read this and get educated! No reason don't have the time!

What I like about this book:
- It is great to help people become aware of how the media manipulates our fears, insecurities and prejudices to make us want to buy everything in sight.
- It shows how advertisers take advantage of our being in a rush when shopping and not being used to think about what we're buying.
- It points out how we fall into traps without noticing it, and that it is not enough to know that ads are designed to make us like the products they are selling. The reason I didn't give it 5 stars is that many of the experiments are too old. Over 10, 20 or 30 years sometimes. I wish there had been more current studies used as examples. Still, it makes very pleasant, easy, informative, and many times funny reading :-)

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