A Primer on Black Propaganda (4 of 5)

The Mind Manager’s Craft

Black Propaganda doesn’t rely on merely floating a rumor around. A reliable method is needed to put the public under its influence. This is where advertising techniques come in. As much that the principles of military strategy shaped the art of advertising, so it is with waging propaganda.

Propaganda Techniques and Devices

Schiller’s presentation of his ideas was written for his time, when the Internet didn’t exist. Nevertheless, what he wrote still held resonance today. In fact, Schiller amalgamated all known advertising techniques in his ideas. Unfortunately, he didn’t explicitly state them in his book. To know them, another source was drawn upon for those unmentioned techniques: Prof. Serafin E. Macaraig’s, “Sociology in the Philippine Setting”, specifically the chapter on “Public Opinion, Propaganda and Mass Interaction” (chapter 6, page 107). They’ll be combined here to give readers an idea how manipulative messages influence them.

1)      Repetition – commonly used for TV and radio ads, an idea is regularly replayed until it’s permanently recorded in the public’s mind. As to why brands like “Jollibee” and “McDonald’s” are so popular owes much to this technique. Even political messages or ideas are disseminated using this. Speaking of which, repetition isn’t limited to the style of canned advertisements. The essence of this technique is the continuous replay of a core message – regardless of the means employed.

2)      Name calling - it’s putting a label to an idea or summarizes the idea in one word. Calling someone “Mr. Suave” is one example of this. It evokes the idea of the person being a debonair and dashing lover. On the other hand, when George W. Bush called the countries of Iran, Iraq and North Korea as the “Axis of Evil”, he desired to demonize the three as being a threat to the free world.

3)      Testimonial – its use rests on the general human attitude that prominent people know what’s good for everyone. This would be akin to the Filipino sociological trait of deferring to authority. How a Filipino regards the wisdom of his elders is true as well with figures of authority. Authority, especially here in the Philippines, is seldom questioned. Thus, anything they say is immediately accepted as gospel truth by the mere fact of authority alone. It’s for that reason celebrities are tapped to promote an idea to the public. Case in point is the commercial of Safeguard soap, where a representative from PAMET endorses the product’s effectiveness.

4)      Plain folks – this entails identifying an idea to ordinary people. The tagline, “walang mahirap kung walang corrupt”, exemplifies this. But its use isn’t limited to verbal messages. Schiller mentioned the use of “staged events”, where prominent politicians or celebrities would enact much-publicized actions or gestures. Ramon Magsaysay’s presidential campaigns made full use of this technique, going to the most remote baranggay to mingle with voters – with the media reporting them. Those events were meant to buttress his image as being “the man of the masses”, aside from his verbal slogans.

5)      Card-stacking – derived from gambling, where card cheats prepare a deck guaranteeing them favorable odds. In this instance, only one side of the issue is forcefully presented in the message: only partial truths are stated. This technique is used in conjunction with the testimonial technique, so as to add force to the psychological impact of the message. Since this also is (in essence) a form of persuasive argument, it’s used by lawyers to influence the judge or jury to accept their statements.

6)      Glittering Generality – the idea is somewhat like sweeping generalization, only it’s applied to an individual. It is a descriptive label appealing to emotion than logic: akin to calling someone an “angel” but really isn’t. (Mortals may not be perfect, but this technique makes them so…)

7)      Bandwagon – the idea behind this is that the majority is always right. If anyone still recalls the classic advertising ploy of the brand “Beer na Beer”, that is one example (with the line, “7 out of 10 people…”). A recent development has been the use of surveys and trust ratings, like those from Pulse Asia and Social Weather Station. As again, the combination of this technique with another is possible. In conjunction with Card-stacking and the use of testimonials, the average citizen can be driven to easily embrace the message.

To these techniques, Schiller is to add two more: fragmentation and immediacy & overload.

8)      Fragmentation – presenting a chunk of unrelated news items (be it on broadsheet or in multi-segment TV shows) to confuse or divert the reader/audience from controversial social issues of the moment.

9)      Immediacy and overload – since a large volume of tomorrow’s news arrive so fast, the average human mind is unable to process them all – a condition termed as “information overload”. As a result, one’s attention to the news items is lowered, skimming them instead and foregoing comprehension. Inadvertently, that means disregarding truly vital news. And because the nature of news delivery must be “always fresh”, would make a truly important news item instantly irrelevant once tomorrow’s news arrive.

The last two techniques are not consciously applied with conspiracy in mind, unlike the others. In fact, it is an exploitation of a common process in presenting and delivering news. Clumping unrelated news items in a newspaper layout is a practice to infuse variety. Timeliness is also vital, as it will go against journalism’s purpose if not done so. Nevertheless, the status quo has taken full advantage of all these techniques to create a society passive and docile to their aims. Either they use one technique or combine them all to gain society’s acceptable social judgment towards their aims. Ultimately, a social reality develops that is in the status quo’s favor.

     But today’s Information Age has easily neutralized that practice. Any related perspective, info or news item on an issue can be searched and grouped together for an audience. That gives them a clear picture of it. Even news that has been rendered stale by the immediacy technique can still be called up to serve as sources, thus reviving its relevance.