Propaganda and Persuasion

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Propaganda and Persuasion

The 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China, had all the usual nations represented, but in addition to the events themselves, American television primarily focused on biographical profiles of American athletes, especially champion swimmer Michael Phelps. The same thing happened during the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, B.C., but only this time the cameras focused on skiers Lindsey Vonn and Bode Miller and speed skater Apolo Ohno. In its pro-American coverage, with its prepackaged biographies, NBC anchors kept referring to "Team USA." In Russia, after figure skater Yevgeny Plushenko lost the gold medal to American Evan Lysacek, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said, with disdain, that Plushenko was still the champion. One has to ask whether television viewers watch the Olympics out of national pride or interest in international athletics. Black propaganda is when the source is concealed or credited to a false authority and spreads lies, fabrications, and deceptions. Black propaganda is the "big lie," including all types of creative deceit. Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's propaganda minister, claimed that outrageous charges evoke more belief than milder statements that merely twist the truth slightly (Bogart, 1995, p. xii). Written by Czar Nicholas II's secret police in 1903, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion portrayed Jews as demonic schemers. The 24 chapters or protocols claimed to be the real minutes of a secret council of Jews discussing its plot for world domination. First serialized in part in a Russian newspaper, the Protocols were released publically in 1905 at a time when, as part of a propaganda campaign, Russia sought to incite anti Semitism. They were also used in Russia during the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 to encourage widespread slaughter of Jews and were circulated widely by conspiracy theorists even after they were exposed as a forgery in 1921. Hitler cited the Protocols in Mein Kamp f, and they permeated Nazi propaganda. In recent times, they were printed in Pakistan, put on the web in Palestine, shown on Arab TV as a miniseries in Egypt in 2002 and Lebanon in 2003, and cited by neo-Nazis in the United States and Europe. During World War II, prior to Hitler's planned invasion of Britain, a radio station known as "The New English Broadcasting Station," supposedly run by discontented British subjects, ran half-hour programs throughout the day, opening with "Loch Lomond" and closing with "God Save the King." The station's programming consisted of "war news." This was actually a German undercover operation determined to reduce the morale of the British people throughout the Battle of Britain. The same technique was used on the French soldiers serving on the Maginot Line from the autumn of 1939 until the spring of 1940. Radio broadcasts originating from Stuttgart and hosted by Paul Ferdonnet, a turncoat Frenchman who pretended to be a patriot, warned the French soldiers to save France before the Nazis took it over. The