#propaganda

The orchestration of press, radio and television to create a continuous, lasting and total environment renders the influence of propaganda virtually unnoticed precisely because it creates a constant environment. ↗

— Jacques Ellul

#constant #continuous #create #creates #environment

The principles underlying propaganda are extremely simple. Find some common desire, some widespread unconscious fear or anxiety; think out some way to relate this wish or fear to the product you have to sell; then build a bridge of verbal or pictorial symbols over which your customer can pass from fact to compensatory dream, and from the dream to the illusion that your product, when purchased, will make the dream come true. They are selling hope. We no longer buy oranges, we buy vitality. We do not just buy an auto, we buy prestige. And so with all the rest. In toothpaste, for example, we buy not a mere cleanser and antiseptic, but release from the fear of being sexually repulsive. In vodka and whisky we are not buying a protoplasmic poison which in small doses, may depress the nervous system in a psychologically valuable way; we are buying friendliness and good fellowship, the warmth of Dingley Dell and the brilliance of the Mermaid Tavern. With our laxatives we buy the health of a Greek god. With the monthly best seller we acquire culture, the envy of our less literate neighbors and the respect of the sophisticated. In every case the motivation analyst has found some deep-seated wish or fear, whose energy can be used to move the customer to part with cash and so, indirectly, to turn the wheels of industry. ↗

— Aldous Huxley

#manipulation #propaganda #sales-techniques #dreams

The United States has it's own propaganda, but it's very effective because people don't realize that it's propaganda. And it's subtle, but it's actually a much stronger propaganda machine than the Nazis had but it's funded in a different way. ↗

— Crispin Glover

#because #different #different way #effective #funded

What can we put into the hands of people under oppressive regimes to help them? For me, a big part of it is information, knowledge - the ability to defeat propaganda by understanding it. ↗

— Jimmy Wales

#big #defeat #hands #help #information

This is the secret of propaganda: To totally saturate the person, whom the propaganda wants to lay hold of, with the ideas of the propaganda, without him even noticing that he is being saturated. ↗

— Paul Watzlawick

#even #him #hold #ideas #lay

Propaganda in the ordinary sense of the term plays a less important part in a consumer society, where people greet all official pronouncements with suspicion. ↗

— Christopher Lasch

#greet #important #less #official #ordinary

Art is more engaging that propaganda. ↗

— Larry Norman

#engaging #more #propaganda

Cases of sickness made up a very small percentage which in my opinion was normal. However, propaganda pamphlets dropped from aircraft were telling the workers to feign illness, and detailed instructions were given to them on how to do it. ↗

— Albert Speer

#cases #detailed #dropped #feign #given

I remember Nazi election propaganda posters showing a hateful Jewish face with crooked nose. ↗

— Jack Steinberger

#election #face #hateful #i #i remember

Propagandists reveal themselves through their use of tricks such as "name-calling", employing "glittering generalities", "plain folks" identifications, "card stacking", "bandwagon" devices, and so on. Such devices could be identified easily in many religious and political speeches, even in academic lectures, and this approach to propaganda analysis led to a kind of witch-hunt for propagandists. ↗

— Klaus Krippendorff

#communication #propaganda #communication