From: Mermaid . (britannica@hotmail.com)
Date: Wed Jan 23 2002 - 08:51:42 MST
I found this to be interesting reading...especially the part on American
advertising.
<snip>
American propaganda, however, is much cleverer. American propaganda, they
patiently explained, relies entirely on emotional appeals. It doesn’t depend
on a rational theory that can be disproved: it appeals to things no one can
object to.
American propaganda had its birth, so far as I can tell, in the advertising
industry. The pioneers of advertising—a truly loathsome bunch—learned early
on that people would respond to purely emotional appeals. Abstract theory
and logical argument do nothing to spur sales. However, appeals to sexiness,
to pride of ownership, to fear of falling behind the neighbors are the stock
in trade of advertising executives. A man walking down the street with
beautiful women hanging on his arms is not a logical argument, but it sure
sells after-shave. A woman in a business suit with a briefcase, strolling
along with swaying hips, assuring us she can "bring home the bacon, fry it
up in a pan, but never let you forget you’re a man" really sells the
perfume.
Let’s take a moment and analyze the particular emotions that this execrable
ad appealed to. If you guessed fear, you win the prize. Women often have a
fear of inadequacy, particularly in this confused age when they are expected
to raise brilliant kids, run a successful business, and be unfailingly sexy,
all the time. That silly goal—foisted upon us by feminists and popular
culture—is impossible to reach. But maybe there’s hope if you buy the right
perfume! Arguments from intimidation and appeals to fear are powerful
propaganda tools.
American advertising and propaganda has been refined over the years into a
malevolent science, based on the assumption that most people react, not to
ideas, but to naked emotion. When I worked at an ad agency many years ago, I
learned that the successful agencies know how to appeal to emotions: the
stronger and baser, the better. The seven deadly sins, ad agency wags often
say, are the key to selling products. Fear, envy, greed, hatred, and lust:
these are the basic tools for good propaganda and effective advertising. By
far, the most powerful motivating emotion—the top, most-sought-after copy
writers will tell you, in an unguarded moment—is fear, followed closely by
greed.
Good propaganda appeals to neither logic nor morality. Morality and ethics
are the death of sales. This is why communist propaganda actually hastened
the collapse of communism: the creatures running the Commie Empire thought
they should appeal to morality by calling for people to engage in sacrifice
for the greater good. They gave endless, droning speeches about the
inevitably of communist triumph, based on the Hegelian dialectic. Not only
were they wrong: their approach to selling their (virtually unsellable)
theory was not clever enough. American propagandists (we can be
jingoistically proud to say) would have been able to maintain the absurd
social experiment called communism a little longer. They would have scrapped
all the theory and focused on appealing images. Though the Commies tried to
do this through huge, flag-waving rallies, the disparity between their
alleged ideals and the reality they created was just too great.
<snip>
[Mermaid]It begins with Communist propaganda and then moves on American advt
propaganda. Grazes over Nazi propaganda and then ends with American
political propaganda. Interestingly, there isnt sufficient discussion about
the current state of media.
I thought it would be nice to know more about the author of the article,
Paul Weber. Worth a peek...
http://www2.xlibris.com/bookstore/author.asp?authorid=3724&bookid=11789
the actual article on propaganda:
http://www.thetexasmercury.com/articles/weber/PW20020120.html
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