Propaganda and Persuasion

44 Propaganda and Persuasion performed the act), the agency or agencies (the means or instruments used by the agent), and the purpose (the motive or cause behind the act). Burke determined that, in Mein Kampf, (a) the act was the bastardization of religious thought; (b) the scene was discordant elements in a culture progressively weakened by capitalist materialism; (c) the agent was Hitler; (d) the agencies were unity identification such as "one voice" (the Reich, Munich, the army, German democracy, race, nation, Aryan, heroism, etc.) versus disunity identification such as images, ideas, and so on of the parliamentary wrangle of the Hapsburgs, Babel of opinion, and Jewish cunning, together with spiritualization and materialization techniques; and (e) the purpose was the unification of the German people. Burke's description of Hitler's strategies to control the German people is a masterful criticism of propaganda, yet it also is heavily flavored with moralistic judgment. It warns the reader about "what to guard against if we are to forestall the concocting of similar medicine in America" (p. 191). Donald C. Bryant's (1953) seminal essay, "Rhetoric: Its Function and Scope," devotes a few pages to propaganda, which includes advertising and certain political discourse, as "partial, incomplete, and perhaps misused, rhetorics" (p. 413). He characterized propaganda by technique—excluding competing ideas, short-circuiting informed judgment, ignoring alternative ideas or courses of action, and in general subverting rational processes. Although Bryant did not engage in propaganda analysis or add new insight into understanding propaganda, he acknowledged that the understanding of propaganda is grounded in the understanding of rhetoric. His stance is a classical one, for he said, "The major techniques of this propaganda are long known rhetorical techniques gone wrong" (p. 415). Contemporary rhetorical theorists have focused on intention in rhetoric. They note that intention means that a person "plans to obtain a specifiable outcome" (Arnold & Bowers, 1984, pp. 875-876). It is not always possible to know the exact intent of a propagandist; that is why historical analysis may be more exacting than analysis of current propaganda. Although few rhetorical theorists discussed propaganda, the study of persuasion blossomed in the 20th century as an inquiry into behaviorism. This happened almost concurrently with the serious study of propaganda by social scientists. This development and synopsis of the resulting research is presented in Chapter 4. Now let's return to the model that depicts propaganda as a special form of communication.

Propaganda as a Form of Communication

Propaganda may appear to be informative communication when ideas are shared, something is explained, or instruction takes place. Information