In EOTO Group 1's presentation, one thing that really stood out to me was the topic of propaganda. Propaganda is defined as "the dissemination of information - facts, arguments, rumors, half-truths, or lies - to influence public opinion." Propaganda has so much power over us, as things like posters, ads, billboards, ect. can all play a part in influencing what we do that we never intended on doing. Thus, propaganda is influencing, and manipulating our decisions making.
Propaganda was first introduced in 1622. It was introduced in Europe because of the activity of missionaries in the Catholic Church. The term grew and is now used to persuade and manipulate behavior. There is both good and bad propaganda. When we think of bad propaganda, we probably think of posters promoting war, or ads promoting a politician in a bad light. One author wrote, "What if wars could be won by words? Without a missile being fired, propaganda alone could swing the mood of a nation and undermine the actions of its leaders." In this author's article he writes on how reputation of words to express an idea or product eventually gets stuck in our head and ends up persuading us to act. Propaganda like this can cause many arguments between friends and families. Many propaganda, for example, with politicians can be fake news, but many believe it. That is what leads to many controversy between groups of people. We even see propaganda reaching children. Back during the First World War, children were being influenced to believe war to be just. One author wrote, "All the belligerent states made children and teenagers the target of intensive propaganda with the aim of integrating them into the conflict." They did this by inserting their opinions on war with parents, schools, clubs, books, songs, and games in order for it to reach children. Their goal being to convey that war is just and to get children excited, and support war when they reached the age where their opinions matter. This is why fake news and propaganda can be bad. In Group 1's presentation, it was pointed out that Millennials have more knowledge of what is real news and what is fake. However, the younger generation, Gen Z, is being raised on technology. Technology that can be used to persuade them. There is so much propaganda on the internet, and everything is posted on social media whether real or fake news. Our upcoming generation is being fed a lot of options and beliefs and are being persuaded and manipulated into believing a lot of it. For example, your favorite celebrity might post something, and because you are one of their biggest fans, you are going to believe it. The media is now using popularity to manipulate our decision making. Thus, I believe the media is a danger for our new generation.
Examples of some Good propaganda not meant to harm us, would be posters like Taco Tuesday, or help protect the environment. Posters that promote helpful things or not meant to persuade us on fake news are beneficial to us in persuading and residing us to make good decisions such as not littering. Today, though, with so make propaganda going around, it is hard to distinguish for me what I should and should not believe. It is easy to believe what the news says, but is it true? It is important to recognize that our media today has learned tricks on how to get inside out heads. Thus, it is important to seek out the truth and get several different opinions on a topic. We have to remember, thought, that propaganda is not going away. It is going to be a constant battle that we face everyday. We can't let our media persuade and manipulate us. We have to stand for what we believe, but not be tricked into believing something that isn't true. That is the danger.
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