Benjamin Fabian
Renee Hobbs
COM416
December 8, 2017
At the beginning of this class, propaganda was not something I gave much thought to on a day to day basis. Now, after studying it for the past few months, I have come to realize that it is something that is found in the media every single day. According to Garth Jowett and Victoria O’Donnell, “Propaganda is the deliberate, systematic attempt to shape perceptions, manipulate cognitions, and direct behavior to achieve a response that furthers the desired intent of the propagandist” (mindovermedia.tv). This can be found in televised news, advertisements, entertainment, and one that has directly affected my generation the most, social media. By using propaganda with these forms of media, the propagandist is able to influence the thoughts of the viewers to support their stance even if it is not a true statement. Through these forms of media, we have seen propaganda grow exponentially throughout the past few years.
Being a millenial in today's world has caused me to notice how big of an influence social media has on everyday life. Social media is actually becoming a source of everyday news for a lot of people. With this recent election, Facebook and Twitter were two primary forms of social media used. According to an article written by Hunt Allcott and Matthew Gentzkow about fake news, “(1) 62 percent of adults get news on social media, (2) the most popular fake news stories were more widely shared on Facebook than the most popular mainstream news stories, and (3), many people who see fake news stories report they believe them” (Allcott and Gentzkow 2017). I experienced this first hand in my own house while the election was going on. My parents are both actively involved on social media, Facebook specifically, and I can remember multiple instances where they would have conversations about articles and stories they found on Facebook. Although I was not actively involved in the election process while this was happening, I gained a lot of knowledge about Trump specifically and how active he was on social media during this just by listening to the conversations my parents were having about the election and his actions. The term “fake news” became very prevalently used during this time which is basically an alternative definition for a lot of propaganda on social media. While President Trump was known for accusing other media sources of providing fake news to the world, he was also suspected of using fake news in his favor during this election. This use of fake news was a form of propaganda because it caused people who were actively involved in the election to sway towards voting for him when they may have not been before. A strategy used to make people believe what they were reading is by using legitimate articles on satirical websites to influence people to read the article and believe what they are reading to be true. Another quote from the article written by Allcott and Gentzkow is, “Other satirical sites contain articles that may be interpreted as factual when seen out of context” (Allcott Gentzkow 2017). This form of propaganda is basically taking something that is known to be illegitimate and providing legitimate looking information to convince people it is true. These websites tended to be short lived and most have been terminated since this time. Fake news was a widely used form of propaganda primarily on social media in the 2016 election and influenced a lot of people to vote for President Trump when he was not the favorite to win throughout the whole process.
Another large social media strategy that is considered propaganda is the use of conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theories have been around as long as we can think for many different issues such as 9/11, the end of the world, and even information relating to the bible. The attack on the twin towers in 2001 has caused a lot of different groups to create different conspiracy theories about what actually happened on this tragic day. In 2014, a conspiracy theory came out explaining how a group of people believe that there were no planes that hit the Twin Towers and that the plane just disappeared. The article states, “As Slate writer Scott Huler explained, Hall found that the hijacked plane disappeared exactly the way you disappear when you step behind a tree: The building came between the camera and the airplane” (seeker.com 2014). This form of propaganda is used to make people believe something that is clearly outrageous. While there is very clear evidence that the planes did hit the towers, this conspiracy theorist is claiming that it is a false image. By displaying this theory on social media during a time that social media became so prevalent, it not only caused certain people to believe it to be true, but it also just got people talking about it which is one of the main goals with conspiracy theories. Also, getting the conspiracy theory spread onto social media is one of the most popular ways to get stories spread from page to page and person to person. This form of propaganda is always spread very quickly because people tend to search for conspiracy theories due to a general interest in conspiracy theories that people come up with and for entertainment. While this theory is very exaggerated and very hard to believe, people tend to search and read about it because it is a talking point that they can either elaborate on or make fun of. This is another way social media comes into play in propaganda. As stated earlier, a lot of conspiracy theorists tend to only come up with these theories because they want them to spread in the media. An article written about this theory talks about how a video explaining this theory was spread on Facebook and had a lot of people buzzing about it. The article states, “And on Facebook he shared a mind-altering unmoored conspiracy video about the Sept. 11 attacks, adding: “Not saying yes or no...but this is interesting” (slate.com 2014). The fact that people were sharing the video on such a popular social media network is exactly what the conspiracy theorist wanted and got people to find it entertaining. This form of propaganda is something that has become very prevalent on social media and being at the forefront of social media development has caused us to experience everything that influences these theories. While this form of propaganda does not cause people to change their mind on certain situations, it provides a form of entertainment that causes people to talk about it and share it on popular social media accounts.
Terrorism has also become a very prevalent form of propaganda on social media recently. With ISIS creating a very big name for themselves, they have been utilizing social media to showcase their beheadings and also using it as a recruitment tool for new members. An article directed towards ISIS an their active social media use states, “The Islamic State expends huge amounts of energy building this composite narrative because its propaganda is being created for, an directed to, a number of audiences; potential members, sympathizers, enemies, general public--the list goes on” (theatlantic.com 2016). While this list would be surprising to most, the goal of ISIS on social media is not just to go after supporters because they just want to get the word out that they are active on social media and that they are still relevant. The article also states, “Reflecting this, they have made the strategic choice to not pigeonhole themselves by reaching out just to sworn believers in jihadism or those that they consider to be potential supporters, as coalition government so often do in their counter-messaging efforts” (theatlantic.com 2016). This is very similar to the conspiracy theories because they are mainly posting on social media in order to get views and to get people spreading the word. By spreading videos they send in of different tragic events, supporters will be gained just due to popularity of the videos. The United States are actually taking steps to prevent any of these videos from being spread now because they feel ISIS is gaining too many members and supporters because of it. However, the media still believes that ISIS is winning the propaganda war on social media. They are portraying themselves as being a global force that cannot be stopped no matter what other countries try to do to them. In this situation, being reactive on social media is actually a bad thing because it shows ISIS that people are viewing the videos and are worried enough about them to do something about it. This is what they are trying to accomplish with this form of propaganda and using social media to do it in this day in age has deemed to be a very smart tactic. By having the word spread about how awful they are and how awful they are being on social media, other countries find them to be a force and fear them because of it.
Another main form of propaganda found widely on social media, particularly Facebook, pertains to hatred towards a religion. In an article posted on the New York Times, the author wrote about an anniversary of the 1938 pogrom against Jews. The story talks about how a local business owner was included in a Facebook group started by a far-right group of people with the description stating, “Jews Among Us.” This far right group was not in favor of Jews and was using this site to ridicule and hate on business owners who happened to be in support of local Jewish citizens. This form of Propaganda is used so awareness is made of events that the people involved are not in support of. This business owner is involved in Jewish organizations and while he is not of the Jewish religion himself, this group was made to ridicule anyone who was in support of Jews. This created a lot of controversy because the business owner received a lot of hateful anonymous calls and messages because of this which created a controversy between him and Facebook. The business owner threatened to sue the chief executive of Facebook, Mark Zuckerburg. He felt that it was unfair for him to be included in a group he did not give approval to be involved with and because of it, it made him look very bad to the people of the far-right group. This issue of “hate speech” is becoming semi prevalent on social media because social media is basically a platform where freedom of speech is enforced. However, actions can and must be taken against these hate speeches because action would be taken if someone stood at a podium in a populated area and decided to start speaking about hatred against religions. The New York Times article states, “Facebook rejects claims that it has not responded to the rise in hate speech in Germany and elsewhere, saying it continually updates its community standards to weed out inappropriate posts and comments” (NYTimes 2016). Tis form of propaganda is different from the other forms that have been talked about previously. The reason for this is because this is a direct attack on a group of people. By exercising this form of propaganda on social media, it makes it seem that social media is basically just a platform for people to go on and say whatever they would like no matter the laws.
While all of these examples of propaganda are different, they all share one common aspect which is that the only way they can be impactful is if they go viral on these social media platforms. The definition of virality is, “the tendency of an image, video, or piece of information to be circulated rapidly and widely from one Internet user to another; the quality or fact of being viral.” In the first paragraph, I discussed fake news on social media and how important it is for these stories to be spread from person to person and page to page. A great example of a video that gained a lot of heat and went viral was the KONY 2012 video. I remember watching this video in high school and just thinking how awful the situation was and that something really needed to be done. This was a great form of propaganda because it gained a lot of popularity by utilizing children which caused the people watching to feel sympathy for them. The group of men known as “Invisible Children” also used popular celebrities to support this video and help gain awareness about Uganda’s child soldier situation. By using these different techniques, the group was able to generate multiple views and shares of this video because other people felt the need to take action. This is similar to the hate speech in Germany because the Invisible children group targeted a group of people they know would support the stand they are taking. With the German Hate Speech, a a group was collected of all far right members and they all attacked another group of people they collectively did not like. Overall, virality is very important to propaganda in social media because it is the only way writers and creators are able to portray a certain message to the public. If nobody knows about a story that obviously has some suspicion to it, it will never be trusted or talked about.
At the beginning of this class, I knew a lot about social media however I did not know how much propaganda there was on there. I now have a completely different view on social media and whether or not to believe what I am reading. It is very hard to decipher between fake news and real news nowadays because social media pages always seem more legitimate than they actually are. In the first paragraph, I talked about how fake news affected the 2016 election because of many new websites writing articles that seem very legitimate. This was such a good form of propaganda because of how many people are on Facebook. This fake news started on Facebook and was spread from person to person. The fake news was also heavily in President Trump’s favor so this caused the people reading the fake news to eventually be in his favor. The next paragraph went into how conspiracy theories are a form of propaganda on social media and the media in general. I went into detail on a conspiracy theory regarding 9/11 and how the reason it was so heavily talked about was because it was for entertainment purposes. Conspiracy theories are a great form of propaganda because they are meant to get views and to be talked about in whatever way you want. The people who come up with these theories do not expect people to believe them but just to have the word that they exist get spread. Following this, I went into detail about how Facebook has been a source for hate speeches in Germany in particular. This is a great example of propaganda because it targets a particular group an provides hatred to them. After providing all of these details, I went into how virality influences all of these forms of propaganda. When stories, theories, and crimes are spread around the internet, iti is called virality and it is important to target certain groups that the original owners know will influence the spread of it. Propaganda on social media revolves round word of mouth, virality, and entertainment.
Works Cited
Radford, B. (2014, June 12). 9/11 Conspiracies: Social Media And Their Enduring Appeal. Retrieved December 08, 2017, from https://www.seeker.com/911-conspiracies-social-media-and-their-enduring-appeal-1768678575.html
Scott, M., & Eddy, M. (2016, November 28). Facebook Runs Up Against German Hate Speech Laws. Retrieved December 08, 2017, from https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/28/technology/facebook-germany-hate-speech-fake-news.html?_r=0
Mozur, P. (2017, November 08). China Spreads Propaganda to U.S. on Facebook, a Platform It Bans at Home. Retrieved December 08, 2017, from https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/08/technology/china-facebook.html
Bach-Lombardo, C. W. (2016, February 13). Why ISIS Propaganda Works. Retrieved December 08, 2017, from https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/02/isis-propaganda-war/462702/
Radford, B. (2014, June 12). 9/11 Conspiracies: Social Media And Their Enduring Appeal. Retrieved December 08, 2017, from https://www.seeker.com/911-conspiracies-social-media-and-their-enduring-appeal-1768678575.html