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ANOTHER PERSPECTIVE ON MASS MEDIA PROPAGANDA

John Jay BlackDepartment of Communication

Utah State University

(Prepared for delivery before a Qualitative Division session on Philosophical Implications of theMass Media at the annual convention of the Association for Education in Journalism, Madison,Wisconsin, August 21 - 24, 1977)

Books, articles, speeches and conferencesabout journalism, whether produced by journalistsor 'outsiders', almost always contain evaluations ofhow the media face their responsibilities . Usually,the authors launch their observations from a generalpoint of view -- either a positive or negative one .They either hold that the media have enormous pow-ers or that they are merely small cogs in the machin-ery of democracy, capitalism, education, and themyriad concepts clustered around the term 'publicopinion' . The typical criticism usually starts outwith a set of general statements concerning what themass media should be and do . From there, the au-thors create their links between the media and thesophistication or ignorance of the voter, the ration-ality or irrationality of the consumer, the social ad-justment or maladjustment of the child, and the in-volvement or apathy of the citizen .

Why do the authors find it so easyy to makeconnections between the content of the media and thebehavior of people? Probably because most authors,being humans themselves, hold implicit views abouthumanity and the types of forces and controls thatmake humanity what it 'is' . On the one hand, if onebelieves people are inherently rational and open-minded, one's books and articles will reflect the'fact' that the mass media are merely small cogs inthe formation of public opinion. Such authors will'find' that people utilize many media and outsidesources of information before making purchases,voting, or entertaining and educating themselves .From that it follows that even when people do use themedia, they use them as tentative and incompleterather than arbitrary and absolute guides for theireconomic, political, cultural, and educational deci-sions .

On the other hand, the majority of authors whocriticize the media tend to believe that people in gene-ral are not completely rational or mature, and thatthe average citizen needs a great deal of assistance

from mediated sources as he goes about the businessof being a consumer, a voter, a student, and a parent .Media irresponsibility is seen by these critics (whomwe may call the non-apologists, in contrast with theapologists described in the preceding paragraph) asthe primary cause of consumer confusion, voter ig-norance and apathy, a lessening of reading, writingand cognitive skills, and everything from violence inthe streets to obscenity in and debasement of ourlanguage . Since they consciously or unconsciouslypicture humanity as troubled masses seeking guidance,the non-apologists have a vast arena upon which theycan play the game of media criticism . . . an arena offar broader scope than that available to the apologists .

Political, economic, and social conservatismor liberalism are not the only ideologies representedby journalism's critics . Even though the research ofsocial scientists may be generally free from political,economic, or social bias, the research may neverthe-less be tainted by the scientists' fundamental percep-tions, especially their perceptions of how man fitsinto the grand scheme of things . Surely a behavior-ist's media criticism will differ from a psychoanalyst's,just as criticism by an adherent of play theory (withhis belief that people manipulate their media ratherthan vice versa) will differ from criticism by one whoadheres to what has been called the "cultural norms"theory (with his belief that the media are powerfulsocial forces, constantly manipulating and moldingprivate thoughts and public behavior) . This is be-cause most researchers, subjected as they are to thesame cultural and cognitive forces that mold the lay-man, hold either explicit or implicit models of man-- man is basically good, or basically bad, or basi-

cally strong, or basically weak, etc . -- which mightcontaminate their studies of human nature . In short,there's a little bias in all of us .

Having said this, it becomes no easy matter topropose a framework to objectively analyze the per-formance of the mass media. The safest approach

may be to pick and choose one's way through the'standard' arguments, sets of expectations, codes ofbehavior, etc., regarding what journalism and themass media can be and do, and couple these argu-ments, theories and critical approaches with as muchobjective evidence as possible about actual mediaperformance and effects . The task would be over-whelming. But if one manages to utilize commonorientations and empirical evidence displayed by avariety of seemingly impartial observers, socialscientists, and media practitioners, the task of me-dia analysis becomes, at least, philosophicallyfeasible. The problem, of course, rests with thevalidity of the approaches, theories, and evidenceutilized to produce such a mode of analysis . For thesake of the present paper, evidence mustered bystudents of language and semantics, students of psy-chology and sociology and political science, and con-cerned lay critics will be considered . Commonali-ties in these approaches will be used, especiallythose most obviously value-free, to propose a meanswhereby a layman, a media practitioner, or a mediaresearcher might undertake a systematic and impar-tial analysis of mass media performance in generaland journalistic performance in particular .

PROPAGANDISTS AND PROPAGANDEES

Media standards of performance and codes ofethics, whether established by quasi-official or offi-cial agencies (censorship bureaus, courts, or legis-lative organs), by pressure groups, or by mediaorganizations themselves, seem to have had oneoverriding principle during the twentieth century .Usually expressed in terms of 'social responsibility',it can be reduced to the argument that free, open,rational behavior on the part of highly aware citizensis necessary for preserving an open society thataccepts and operates on the principles of democracy .Media practices that violate this basic premise areusually referred to as being progagandistic, biased,subjective, slanted, sensational or otherwise irre-sponsible . For the sake of parsimony, the entirebody of irresponsible media behaviors will be re-ferred to as propaganda henceforth in this paper .

Traditionally, propaganda has been consideredas the manipulation of opinion toward political, reli-gious, or military ends . The word 'propaganda' wasfirst used in 1622 in reference to the spreading of thefaith; since Catholicism was an accepted faith andtherefore considered worth spreading, the word hadpositive connotations . However, the word got its

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negative connotations during the early years of thepresent century when Americans were concernedthat Axis powers were using propaganda and psycho-logical warfare deviously . During both world wars,an important military and political role was playedby propaganda. We feared that propaganda andbrainwashing went hand in hand and therefore hadno part to play in a democratic society unless thatsociety was deeply engaged in a war for survival .

Since World War Two, as social scientists havecome to realize that communication in and of itselfdoes not have the absolute 'mind '--molding power onceattributed to it, the fear of propaganda has lessened .But the word has taken on a broader meaning, as ithas come to be associated with many areas of socialand economic life in addition to the traditional poli-tical, religious and military areas . We often hearreferences to 'propaganda' about various productsand ideas for sale . We often use the term ratherloosely to cast aspersions on ideas put out by anyonewhose motives we suspect . (It may be significantthat the United States has a United States InformationAgency; our ideological 'enemies' have propagandaagencies.) Most recently, the term propaganda hasagain surfaced in the literature of journalism vis-a-vis the kinds of media irresponsibilities discussedabove .

What elements of the mass media lend them-selves to being propagandistic? What characteris-tics of media-people (news reporters, public rela-tions and advertising and film practitioners, etc . )result in some of these people sometimes behavingas propagandists? Finally, and perhaps of mostimportance, what characteristics of media consu-mers lend themselves most readily to being propa-gandized, and how can the inculcation of a propagan-distic society be avoided?

Concerns over media propaganda are based inpart on the often stated assumption that one respon-sibility of a democratic media system is to keep thepublic open-minded -- that is, to keep people curi-ous, questioning, unwilling to accept simple patanswers to complex situations, to operate as liber-tarians, etc . 'Mental freedom,' they assume,comes when people have the capacity, and exercisethe capacity, to weigh numerous sides of controver-sies and to come to their own decisions, free ofoutside constraints . Social -psychologist MiltonRokeach, in his seminal work The Open and ClosedMind (1960), concluded empirically that the degree

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to which a person's belief system is open or closed isthe extent to which the person can receive, evaluate,and act on relevant information received from theoutside on its own intrinsic merits, unencumbered byirrelevant factors in the situation arising from withinthe person or from the outside . To him, the open-minded individual would seek out mass media thatchallenged him to think for himself, rather than me-dia that would offer the easy answers to complex pro-blems. The open-minded media consumer seeks'free' (i . e . , independent and pluralistic) media be-cause he wants to remain free .

For generations media critics have pointed tofactors in mass media that mitigate against open-mindedness . Gilbert Seldes (The New Mass Media,1957) expressed fear that the mass media in generaland television in particular had begun to inculcate inthe audience a weakened sense of discrimination, aheightening of stereotypical thinking patterns, a ten-dency toward conformity and dependence . In the longrun, Seldes argued, the mass media may discouragepeople from forming independent judgments . Hecarried his argument to the point of saying that if themass media are brakes on the 'mental' and 'emotion-al' development of their followers, they are helpingto make our social structure rigid . "This may helpto create a people who would accept a dictatorship, "he concluded (pp . 26, 50-62) .

Seldes is not alone in this respect, althoughhis view may be more extreme than most . Seldes wastalking about the news and information aspects of themedia, as was Harold Lasky, who a decade earlierhad observed that :

The real power of the press comesfrom the effect of its continous repetitionof an attitude reflected in facts which itsreaders have no chance to check, or byits ability to surround these facts by anenvironment of suggestion which, oftenhalf-consciously, seeps its way into themind of the reader and forms his pre-mises for him without his even beingaware that they are really prejudices towhich he has scarcely given a moment ofthought. (Lasky, American Democracy,1948, p. 670)

Likewise Charles Wright (Mass Communica-tions : A Sociolo ical Perspective, 1959) expressedconcern over the potential cognitive damage created

by the very function of news reporting and editing :

When news is edited for him, the in-dividual does not have to sift and sort, in-terpret and evaluate, information for him-self. He is free to accept or reject prefa-bricated views about the world around him,as presented by the mass media . But atsome point, it can be argued, the consumerof predigested ideas, opinions, and viewsbecomes an ineffectual citizen, less capa-ble of functioning as a rational man. (p. 21)

(There is, of course, an argument that peopleneed these predigested views, since they can't expe-rience all of life first-hand . By definition, mediacome between realities and media consumers, andwe are not arguing for the elimination of those me-dia. But the logic of Jacques Ellul, in his seminalwork Propaganda : The Formation of Men's Attitudes[1.965], seems compelling, as he argued that man ina technological society needs to be propagandized, tobe 'integrated into society' by means of the mass me-dia. Man with such a need gets carried along uncon-sciously on the surface of events, not thinking aboutthem but rather 'feeling' them . Since man has aspontaneous defensive reaction against an excess ofinformation and since man clings unconsciously tothe unity of his own person whenever he is faced withinconsistencies in his news media, man's natural de-fp,nse is to deny contradictions and therefore to denyhis own continuity, obliterating yesterday's news andany contradiction in his own life . Modern man, Ellulconcluded, therefore condemns himself to a life of suc-cessive moments, discontinuous and fragmented--andthe news media are largely responsible . [Ellul may beimplying that if there were no mass media to help manachieve this bifurcation, man would quickly find anothermeans to achieve it . ] The news becomes a form of propa-ganda, and no confrontation ever occurs between the e-vent andthe truth ; no relationship ever exists betweenthe event and the person, according to Ellul .

(The hapless victim of information overload,according to Ellul, seeks out propaganda as a meansof ordering the chaos . Propaganda gives him expla-nations for all the news, so that it is classified intoeasily identifiable categories of good and bad, rightand wrong, worth-worrying-about and not-worth-wor-rying--about, etc . The propagandee allows himself tobe propagandized, to have his cognitive horizonsnarrowed, according to Ellul . Propaganda in thenews media fits a panoramic pattern established by

the media practitioners, who attempt to show propa-gandees that they travel in the direction of historyand progress . Media propaganda thus must furnishan explanation for all happenings, a key to under-stand the whys and the reasons for economic andpolitical developments. "The great force of propa-ganda lies in giving man all-embracing, simple ex-planations and massive, doctrinal causes, withoutwhich he could not live with the news, "" Ellul argued,adding that man is doubly reassured by propagandabecause it tells him the reasons behind developmentsand because it promises a solution for all the pro-blems which would otherwise seem insoluble . "Justas information is necessary for awareness, propa-ganda is necessary to prevent this awareness frombeing desperate,'" Ellul concluded. [pp. 146-47])

The cognitive state of the media consumer, asdepicted by Seldes, Lasky, Wright, Ellul, andothers, is one in which the consumer has voluntarilyexposed himself to the myriad facts, details, expla-nations, and exhortations about the busy worlds ofeconomics, politics, geography, and so on to thepoint where, as described by Ellul, ""he finds him-self in a kind of a kaleidoscope in which thousandsof unconnected images follow each other rapidly . "(Ellul, p. 145) Erwin Edman was referring to news-papers in particular when he observed that they arethe worst possible way of getting a coherent pictureof life of our time . "It is a crazy quilt, a jazz sym-phony, a madness shouting in large type . " Edmansuggested that the mind of the newspaper reader, ifit could be photographed after ten minutes reading,would not be a map, but an explosion . (quoted inPeterson, Jenson and Rivers, The Mass Media andModern Society, p . 232) Given this model of man,it is little wonder some commentators see propagan-da as an inevitability -- for if man's nature is tohave a homeostatic mental set, the 'crazy quilt'patterns of information he receives from his massmedia would certainly drive him to some superiorauthority of information or belief that would allowhim to make sense of his world . At least, that is thetheory that follows from all of the above sources .

Obviously, not all commentators share thisperspective . There is at least one school of socialscience and philosophy that adheres to the belief that'homo ludens' (man at play) takes an existentialisticdelight in the 'crazy quilt' of pluralistic news, infor-mation, advertising, and persuasion . Basically apo-logists for media's inherent characteristics, theysense little of the desperation expressed by Seldes,

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Wright, Lasky, Ellul, and Edman . Homo ludens caneither rise above the propaganda through his height-ened self-awareness experiences when alone in amass (a theory directly contradictory of Ellul's), orhe doesn't take it seriously enough to be affected byit. Either way, propaganda is not much of a concernto these theorists . (A criticism of this approach ismade by Gordon in Persuasion : The Theory andPractice of Manipulative Communication, 1971 .)Between the pessimism of the first group of obser-vers, and what must be described as the optimismof the second group, lies a large group of analystswho remain uncertain about the ultimate effects ofthe media, but who continue their investigations witha 'wait and see' attitude. The latter are quite unreadyto suggest a cause-effect relationship between mediacharacteristics and audience reactions . Unfortunate-ly, their research findings to date, largely fragmentedand lacking in comprehensiveness, do not yet lendthemselves to a broad enough theoretical model ofman the propagandist and man the propagandee tosatisfy the needs of the present study .

Obviously, each analyst's model of man -- whe-ther he sees man as strong and rational or weak andmanipulable - will determine whether he calls formore or less propaganda in the media. Those be-lievers in democratic man, following the argumentsof propaganda researchers such as Qualter (Propa-ganda and Psychological Warfare, 1962), would in-

sist that the danger to libertarian man is a lack ofconflicting propaganda. Those who follow analystssuch as Ellul decry the present inevitability and ap-parently want a decrease in that propaganda -- thoughEllul never advocated a major change in the statusquo, but merely deplored it . Regardless of one'smodel of man, however, there may be a good deal ofvalidity in the observation of Ellul that :

. . . it is evident that a conflict exists bet-ween the principles of democracy -- par-ticularly its concept of the individual --and the processes of propaganda. The no-tion of rational man, capable of thinkingand living according to reason, of con-trolling his passions and living accordingto scientific patterns, of choosing freelybetween good and evil -- all this seemsopposed to the secret influences, the mo-bilizations of myths, the swift appeals tothe irrational, so characteristic of propa-ganda. (p . 233)

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PROPAGANDA TECHNIQUES IN THE NEWSMEDIA

It is appropriate at this point to investigatewhatever elements of propaganda that are said toexist in the news and information media . The treat-ment of propaganda in the entire mass media is lesspossible in these pages than is the treatment of newsmedia propaganda, but it will be noted that a greatmany of the thoughts about news media propagandacan be expanded readily to include entertainment andpersuasion media .

Such an investigation is surely no simple task .Many books and articles have pointed to this or thatpiece of 'propaganda' or 'propaganda campaigns' inthe news media . Many studies of media bias arebasically studies of media propaganda ; most criticstend to assume an intentional propaganda or bias inthe media, and some few have commented upon thepossibility of unintentional bias in these media . Thepresent investigation assumes a little of each, forthe investigation focuses on the characteristics ofthe manifest content of those news media, and anysuch investigation must be careful about assumingcause (the intentional or unintentional bias of the re-porters, editors, etc .) and effect (the possibility orlack of possibility of affecting opinion change or ac-tion) . The following short review is representativeof positions taken by propaganda students, and isnot intended to be comprehensive .

Qualter suggested that a student of propagandashould not limit himself to a review of the editorialor opinion pages of the newspaper (or, to project hisargument, to the editorial functions of other media) .

At one time it was customary to dis-tinguish the expression of opinion on theeditorial pages of a paper from the straight-forward presentation of facts on the newspages. With the growing appreciation ofthe extent to which opinion governs the se-lection and manner of presentation of news,it has been concluded that this division isunrealistic and it is now generally admittedthat the news columns can also containpropaganda. This is especially true ofnews magazines such as Time and News-week where the selection and presentationof news items is an expression of editorialpolicy . (pp. 91-92)

Even Goebbels recognized this to be true . Doob

quoted from Goebbels' diary that "the best form ofnewspaper propaganda was not 'propaganda' (i .e .,editorials and exhortation), but slanted news whichappeared to be straight . ("Goebbels' Principles ofPropaganda, " in Schramm, Process and Effects ofMass Communication, p. 524)

This need not necessarily be the result of aconscientious effort on the part of the journalist,however, if one is to believe Hohenberg's statementthat :

The temptation is great, under thepressures of daily journalism, to leap toconclusions, to act as an advocate, tomake assumptions based on previous ex-perience, to approach a story with pre-conceived notions of what is likely tohappen, To give way to such tendenciesis to invite error, slanted copy, and li-belous publications for which there islittle or no defense . An open mind isthe mark of the journalist ; the propagan-dist has made up his mind in advance .Qhe Professional Journalist, p. 330)

From Hohenberg's description, one might gen-eralize that a journalist does not have to be conscious-ly biasing his copy to earn the label of propagandist-- but it helps . And, some might add, the mediaconsumer who shouts about propaganda in his mediamight have the same types of semantic and belief sys-tems blockages that he is accusing the journalist ofpossessing. Syndicated columnist Sydney Harris ob-served that journalistic accounts of events are some-times distorted because of ignorance, sloppiness, in-completeness, or unconscious bias . But, more often,he added, when people disagree with the report of anevent they have been close to, it is less a matter ofthe reporter's deficiency than of the people's ownforeshortened perspective . "You can't see the picturewhen you are in the frame, " he concluded . ("StrictlyPersonal," Toledo Times, Aug. 14, 1972)

By and large, however, discussions of mediapropaganda insinuate that the journalist is aware thathe is behaving in a way that will bring biases to hisstory, and result in his audience's having distortedviews of the reality he is supposedly depicting . JohnMerrill has developed two different lists of ways inwhich this may take place . His first list dealt withbiases in Time magazine; his second was a more gen-eral discussion of biases and propaganda techniquesin the news media in general .

In his 1965 Journalism Quarterly article "HowTime Stereotyped Three U. S . Presidents, " Merrillevaluated the newsmagazine on the basis of six dif-ferent 'bias categories' : attribution bias, adjectivebias, adverbial bias, contextual bias, outright opin-ion, and photographic bias. His investigation wassaid to demonstrate clearly that Time operated withnegative stereotypes of President Truman, positivestereotypes of President Eisenhower, and ambivalentstereotypes (or no stereotypes) of President Kennedy .In his summary, Merrill listed twelve principal tech-niques used by Time in subjectivizing its reports :1) deciding which incident, remarks, etc., to play upand which ones to omit or play down ; 2) failing totell the whole story ; 3) weaving opinion into thestory; 4) imputing wisdom and courage and otherusually admired qualities by use of adjectives, ad-verbs, and general context or by quoting some friendof the person ; 5) dragging into the story past inci-dents unnecessary to the present report ; 6) usingone's opinion to project opinion to this person's lar-ger group -- the "one-man-cross-section device";7) imputing wide acceptance, such as "the nationbelieved" without presenting any evidence at all ; 8)transferring disrepute to a person by linking him orhis group to some unpopular person, group, cause,or idea; 9) playing up certain phrases or descriptionswhich tend to point out possible weaknesses, paint aderogatory picture or create a stereotype ; 10) crea-ting an overall impression of a person by words, animpression which is reinforced from issue to issue ;11) explaining motives for Presidential actions, and12) telling the reader what "the people" think or whatthe nation or public thinks about almost anything .(j, Autumn, 1965, pp . 563-70)

In his more recent text, Merrill has offered afar broader compendium of propagandistic character-istics of journalists . He referred to journalists aspropagandists when they 'propagate' or spread theirown prejudices, biases and opinions -- trying to af-fect the attitudes of their audiences . Merrill's listat this point is thus of purposive, manipulatory pro-paganda techniques, consisting of 1) the use of stereo-types in simplifying reality; 2) the presentation ofopinion disguised as fact ; 3) the use of biased attri-bution; 4) the process of information selection orcard stacking (a propaganda technique only when apattern of selection becomes evident, according toMerrill); 5) the use of misleading headlines, basedon the assumption that people come away from storieswith the substance of the headline -- not the story --in their 'minds' ; 6) biased photographs ; 7) censor-ship or "exercising news prerogatives" through a)

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selective control of information to favor a particularviewpoint or editorial position, and b) deliberate doc-toring of information in order to create a certain im-pression; 8) repetition of certain themes, persons,ideas, and slogans ; 9) an emphasis on the negative,selecting targets in line with preexisting dispositionsof the audience ; 10) appeal to authorities, well-knownand reputable sources ; and 11) fictionalizing, crea-tively filling the gaps in a story, making up directquotations, etc . Merrill generalized that the massmedia and their functionaries generate propagandaand spread the propaganda of others to a far greaterextent than most citizens believe . (Merrill andLowenstein, Media, Messages, and Men, pp. 221-26)

One of the most often cited lists of propagandatechniques is that of seven devices proposed by theHarvard Institute for Propaganda Analysis before andduring World War Two . While not all of these tech-niques are applicable to the news function of the massmedia, several of them are, and others are applicableto the entertainment and persuasion media . The listincluded the name calling device, the glittering gener-alities device, the transfer device, the testimonialdevice, the plain folks device, the card stacking de-vice, and band wagon device . (Institute for Propagan-da Analysis, "How to Detect Propaganda, " Propagan-da Analysis, I [Nov., 1937], pp. 1-4) All of them,to one degree or another, take advantage of people'stendencies to confuse language and its referents .Those most applicable to the news media may bename calling, when a reporter merely repeats thenames one person or group calls another, or evenresorts to creating names or labels in hopes of con-fusing people and distracting their attention from thereality ; glittering generalities, when a reporter usesbroad, sweeping statements to categorize people andevents ; and especially card stacking, in which the re-porter either stacks the deck with information to cre-ate a certain impression, or he unconsciously passesalong the stacked deck he picked up from his newssources. Reliance upon these seven techniques as atool or weapon for the layman to use against propa-ganda may result in a cynical doubting Thomas, ac-cording to Hayakawa . The realization that man can-not always be rational and avoid emotionalism isbound to result in cynicism, since the layman doesnot tend to act 'scientifically' because he lacks theintellectual tools of the scientist and tends to automa-tically jump to conclusions about 'facts' when suchconclusions are not warranted and would not be madeby the scientist. ("General Semantics and Propaganda,'"Public Opinion Quarterly [April, 1939], p. 205)

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Several other listings or discussions of propa-ganda are available and have direct application to thenews media .

J. A . C. Brown's list includes 1) the use ofstereotypes ; 2) the substitution of names ("The pro-pagandist frequently tries to influence his audienceby substituting favourable or unfavourable terms,with an emotional connotation, for neutral ones suit-able to his purpose . . . ") ; 3) selection ("The propa-gandist, out of a mass of complex facts, selects onlythose that are suitable for his purpose . . . Censor-ship is one form of selection and therefore of propa-ganda . ") ; 4) downright lying; 5) repetition ("Thepropagandist is confident that, if he repeats a state-ment often enough, it will in time come to be accept-ed by his audience . A variation of this technique isthe use of slogans and key words . . . ") ; 6) assertion("The propagandist rarely argues but makes boldassertions in favour of his thesis . . . the essence ofpropaganda is the presentation of one side of thepicture only, the deliberate limitation of free thoughtand questioning . ") ; 7) pinpointing the enemy (It ishelpful if the propagandist can put forth a messagewhich is not only for something, but also againstsome real or imagined enemy who is supposedlyfrustrating the will of his audience . . . ) ; 8) the appealto authority . (Techniques of Persuasion, pp. 26-28)Brown's list is quite similar to Merrill's, and theapplications to the mass media should be apparent .

A discussion limited exclusively to the mediais found in Robert Cirino's Don't Blame the People,in which he offered a "catalog of hidden bias, " ashis Chapter 13 is titled. Most of the examples inhis thirty-six page chapter relate to biases in thenews and information selection and handling ; a fewrelate to editorial bias . His broad categories ofbias in the news are : 1) bias in the source of news,including wire services and handouts ; 2) bias throughthe selection of news stories to be printed or aired ;3) bias through the omission of news or parts of newsstories available; 4) bias in the treatment and useof interviews, particularly in the selection of typesof people to be interviewed, and especially on televi-sion news ; 5) bias through the placement of storieson the front or back pages of the newspaper or aslead or tail stories on the air ; 6) bias through 'coin-cidental' placement or juxtaposition of stories, head-lines or pictures that subtly contrast the editors'loves and hates ; 7) bias in the headlines, especiallyconsidering the tyrannies of space and vocabularyneeded to summarize and attract attention to stories ;

8) bias in words, however subtle, used to describepersons, thoughts, or situations ; 9) bias in newsimages used to persuade audiences to hate, condemn,disapprove or laugh at persons representing a posi-tion contrary to the favored policies and special in-terests of the communicator ; 10) bias in photographselection; 11) bias in captions ; 12) the use of edi-torials to distort facts, as covers in order to per-suade the listeners to think and feel as the broadcas-ter wants them to ; 13) the hidden editorial, foundeither in advertisements that appear to be news itemsor in the personalized opinion tacked onto otherwise'objective' news stories . Cirino concluded that thegreat volume of news, the way it must be processedand the public's need to make some kind of order outof the chaos of news events, make bias inevitable .(pp . 134-179)

Although he offers no comprehensive list ofpropaganda techniques in mass media, Qualter sug-gests several ways in which the journalist may findhimself and the mass medium may find itself actingpropagandistically. The popular newspaper has de-veloped a vocabulary and literary style distinctivelyits own, designed to arouse the appropriate reaction,Qualter maintained .

The cliche thus becomes, not a mark oflaziness or ignorance, but an essentialtool in newspaper communication . Care-fully selected, it will almost automati-cally elicit the desired response from thecasual reader . It has, of course, a great-er influence on the large proportion ofreaders who do no more than skim theheadlines and the main points of a story .The constant repetition of the samephrases to cover certain situations orto convey certain situations saves thereader the effort of thought and interpre-tation . . . (pp . 90-91)

Each paper demonstrates propaganda signifi-cance, according to Qualter, when it makes its owndecisions on the importance of a given story, and thedecisions are reflected in the page on which the storyappears, its position on that page, and the size andstyle of type used in the headlines . "Devices suchas special type, illustrations or unusual layout mayall serve to attract the readers' attention," he con-cluded, noting that other factors include the lengthof the story, the manner in which it is rewritten andthe extent to which its importance is emphasized by

editorial comment and background feature articles .Other forms of propaganda in the newspaper arepaid advertisements on political themes by organi-zations, and the free copy submitted to newspapersby the public relations officers of the various in-terested groups in the community . (pp. 91-92)

Qualter's inclusion of public relations handoutsas propagandistic elements of newspapers is echoedin several fronts, including a journalism primer byNelson and Hulteng. Without discussing 'propaganda'in the news per se, they noted that public relationshas characteristics of delayed propaganda if thereaders of newspapers do not recognize that manyof the stories they are reading originated from 'in-terested sources' .

Not that the PR man minds . He knowsthat the credibility of the informationabout his client is enhanced if the readerbelieves that a working journalist ratherthan a propagandist originated the storyand wrote it . It is better to have a friendtell others how good you are than for youto do it yourself . (The Fourth Estate :An informal appraisal of the news andopinion media, p. 278)

Finally, to conclude this brief annotation ofreferences about propaganda in the news media, onecan see in a 1977 textbook for reporting students re-newed emphasis on bias and distortion in the news .Ryan and Tankard conclude a chapter on that subjectwith advice to reporters on how they can help elimi-nate bias and distortion from news copy by categor-izing information as reports, inferences or judg-ments, and by a) verifying the accuracy of a ques-tionable report with a second source ; b) avoidingthe use of personal inferences and judgments in newsstories; c) using inferences and judgments fromqualified sources with extreme care ; d) asking asource whether an inference or judgment made by afirst source seems logical and proper ; e) using aninference or judgment from an unqualified sourceonly if the person is prominent or influential and thereporter considers it important to indicate to readerswhat that person's state of mind about a subject is,and f) reporting the evidence on which a source basesa judgment . (Basic News Reporting, p. 167)

As noted in the introduction to this study, anyattempt to offer a framework that purports to objec-tively analyze the performance of the mass media isfraught with dangers. The past several pages have

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demonstrated a broad variety of arguments, hypothe-ses and orientations about how the mass media sup-posedly operate as propagandistic agencies . Someof the arguments, etc . , are contradictory . Butthere have been enough commonalities among themto integrate basic assumptions about propaganda intoa broad-based and perhaps theoretically sound pers-pective, one couched in the lexicon of the social psy-chology of belief systems and semantic orientations .

BELIEF SYSTEMS AND SEMANTIC ORIENTATIONS

In an effort to understand the basic nature ofhow people perceive the world and how they communi-cate their perceptions, social psychologist MiltonRokeach spent years developing his theory of beliefsystems . Of significance to a student of journalismis Rokeach's basic breakdown of people into categoriesof relatively open- or closed-mindedness. Rokeachdemonstrated empirically that the basic characteris-tics defining the closed-minded or dogmatic personare a) a very heavy reliance upon 'authority figures'to whom he turns for guidance in making decisionsand solidifying perceptions ; b) irrational forces,which bias his perceptions and communications ; c)a narrow time perspective, in which he overempha-sizes or fixates on the past or present or future with-out appreciating the continuity that exists among them ;d) little cognitive discrimination between differingsets of information, beliefs, and consequent actions .On the other extreme, a non-dogmatist a) evaluatesand acts on information independently on its own me-rits ; b) is governed in his actions by internal self-actualizing forces and less by irrational forces ; c)perceives the past, present and future as being in-trinsically related ; d) resists pressures exerted byexternal sources to evaluate and to act in accordancewith their wishes ; e) distinguishes between informa-tion received about the world and information receivedabout the source during a communication or persua-sion situation . (The Open and Closed Mind

Rokeach's research has been validated in nu-merous studies (see especially the extensive reviewby Vacchiano et al.), and is of use here because itoffers a relatively objective framework within whichone can analyze the behavior of both media practition-ers and consumers . (It is 'objective' in the sensethat it is a generalized framework, unemcumbered bythe socio-politico biases that pervaded earlier studiesof prejudice and authoritarianism . Rokeach's 'map'of the human 'mind' resulted from a dozen years ofwide-ranging experiments, freeing it from the singu-lar bias that may exist in more limited studies .

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Finally, an understanding of the fundamental beliefsystems of journalists should be a more valid meansof understanding their biases and behavior thanwould an understanding of their socio-politico orien-tations. The same should be true of media consum-ers.)

The growing body of research on perceptionand belief systems seems to be concluding that manconstantly strives for cognitive balance as he viewsand communicates about the world, and that manwill select and rely upon information consistent withhis basic perceptions . This holds true for the jour-nalist as well as the journalist's audience . To dootherwise runs contrary to an apparently basic humanneed, which helps explain why open-mindedness is anelusive objective for the journalist . A recent Jour-nalism Quarterly study by Donohew and Palmgreen,for instance, showed that open-minded journalistsunderwent a great deal of stress when having to re-port information they weren't inclined to believe oragree with, because the open-minded journalists'self- concepts demanded that they fairly evaluate allissues . Closed-minded journalists, on the otherhand, underwent much less stress because it waseasy for them to make snap decisions consistentwith their basic world views, especially since theywere inclined to go along with whatever informationwas given to them by authority figures . J(~fl, Winter,1971, "An Investigation of 'Mechanisms' of Informa-tion Selection," pp . 627-39, 666) In short, it appearsto be far more difficult and stressful for both journa-lists and media consumers to keep their pluralisticorientations . What Donohew and Palmgreen seem tobe telling journalists is that if they are not undergo-ing any mental stress, it may be that they aren'topening their minds long enough to allow belief dis-crepant information to enter. And, one might ima-gine, the same holds true for audiences . If they don'tundergo some 'mental' strain upon reading their dailypapers or viewing their television news or listeningto their radio news or reading their weekly newsma-gazine, it may be that they are closing their 'minds' .

This is not to say that stress and strain in andof themselves make for open-minded media behavior .They may just make for confusion, and result fromconfusion. But if journalists and news audiencesnever find themselves concerned over contradictoryinformation, facts that don't add up, opinions thatdon't cause them to stop and think, then they are be-having as Hohenberg's and Seldes' closed-mindedjournalists and members of the public, and as pur-veyors and passive receivers of propaganda .

Most of the empirical findings of belief systemsresearchers are entirely consistent with the body ofknowledge referred to as 'general semantics', asboth study how people perceive the world and howthey subsequently communicate their perceptions ormisperceptions. Recent empirical studies of seman -tic behavior have begun to validate many of AlfredKorzybski's original statements (Science and Sanity,1933) that unscientific or "Aristotelian" assumptionsabout language and reality result in semanticallyinadequate or inappropriate behavior . Studies ofchildren and adults trained in general semanticsprinciples have demonstrated that semantic aware-ness results in such diverse achievements as improv-ed perceptual, speaking, reading, and writing skills(Berger, Glorfield, Haney, Livingston, Ralph, True,Weaver, Weiss, Westover), generalized intelligence(Haney, Steele), decreased prejudice (John Black),decreased dogmatism (J . J. Black, Goldberg), anddecreased rigidity (J.J . Black) . These studies offersubstantive refutation to early criticisms of generalsemantics as an overly-generalized and pedantic sys-tem of gross assumptions about language behavior .From the studies emerges a series of semantic pat-terns typifying the semantically 'sane' or 'un-sane'individual, patterns reflective of Rokeach's typologiesof the open-minded or closed-minded individual and ofpropaganda analysts' descriptions of the non-propagan-distic or propagandistic individual .

Highlighting general semanticists' descriptionsof 'sane' language behavior are such concepts as1) awareness that our language is not our reality, butis an inevitably imperfect abstraction of that reality,and that tendencies to equate language and reality(through the use of the verb "to be" as an equal sign)are setting up false-to-fact relationships . This isseen in the "intensional 'is-of-identity', " and is to bereplaced by "extensionalized" analysis and descrip-tion of reality as we perceive it ; 2) awareness thatthe use of "to be" to describe something usually tellsmore about the observer projecting his bias than itdoes about the object described . This is seen as the"intensional 'is-of-predication"' and is to be replacedby "extensionalized" awareness of our projections ;3) awareness that people and situations have unlimitedcharacteristics, that the world is in a constant pro-cess of change, that our perceptions are limited andthat our language cannot say all there is to be saidabout a person or situation . This is seen in attemptsto replace a dogmatic "allness orientation" with amulti-valued orientation that recognizes the "etc . , "or the fact that there is always more to be seen and

observed and described than we are capable of seeing,observing, or describing ; 4) awareness that a fact isnot an inference and an inference is not a value judg-ment, and subsequent awareness that receivers ofour communications need to be told the differences ;5) awareness that different people will perceive theworld differently, and we should accept authorityfigures', sources', and witnesses' viewpoints as be-ing the result of imperfect human perceptual proces-ses, and not as absolute truth, and 6) awareness thatpersons and situations are rarely if ever two-valued ;that propositions do not have to be either 'true' or'false', specified ways of behaving do not have to beeither 'right' or 'wrong', 'black' or 'white', thatcontinuum-thinking or an infinite-valued orientationis a more valid way to perceive the world than anAristotelian two-valued orientation .

Numerous other semantic formulations exist,but this half-dozen can begin to offer a frameworkfor semantic analysis . As noted above, awarenessand application of these formulations have resulted inempirically improved levels of perception, reading,writing, speaking, generalized intelligence, andopen-'mindedness' . And, as in the case of beingopen-'minded', it can be seen that being semantically'sane' or sophisticated is not the easiest way to gothrough life, because it tends to result in a mass ofoften contradictory perceptions and language behaviorthat the semantically unsophisticated or 'un-sane'individual never has to worry about . But such is theresponsibility of the professional journalist, and thefate of the mature media consumer .

PROPAGANDA--A NEW DEFINITION

At this juncture, insights from propaganda ana-lysts, journalistic critics, social psychologists andgeneral semanticists can be amalgamated into a rea-sonably objective insight into journalistic perfor-mance . . . both the performance of journalists andmedia consumers .

Taken in their extremes (and recognizing thatpeople fall somewhere along the continuum at anygiven time, rather than resting at a pole), the pic-tures of propagandists/propagandees and non-propa-gandists/non-propagandees as uncovered by the pre-ceding discussion show very definite patterns of be-havior .

On the one hand, the dogmatist (typical of bothpropagandist and propagandee) may be characterizedas having a heavy reliance upon authority figures, a

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narrow time perspective, a tendency to make irra-tional evaluations, and display little sense of discri-mination between differing sets of information . Onthe other, the non-dogmatist (typical of both non-propagandist and non-propagandee) faces a constantstruggle to remain open-'minded' as he evaluatesand acts on information independently of its own me-rits, is governed by self-actualizing attitudes ratherthan irrational ones, doesn't get hung up on what isbeing said or by whom, recognizes contradictions,incomplete pictures of reality, and the interrelation-ship of past, present and future .

The above typologies help lead us to an originaldefinition of propaganda, one that can be applied notonly to mass media studies but to a broad range ofcommunications behavior in everyday life . The defi-nition is broad enough to apply to creators of mes-sages, the messages themselves, the media in whichthe messages are carried, and the receivers of thosemessages. It goes as follows :

While it may or may not emanate from individuals orinstitutions with demonstrably closed belief systems,the manifest content of propaganda contains charac-teristics one associates with dogmatism ; while itmay or may not be intended as propaganda, this typeof communication seems non-creative and seems tohave as its purpose the evaluative narrowing of itsreceivers. While creative communication displaysexpectations that its receivers should conduct furtherinvestigations of its observations, allegations, andconclusions, propaganda does not appear to do so .Rather, propaganda is characterized by at least thefoll owing :

1) a heavy or undue reliance on authority figuresand spokesmen, rather than empirical validation, toestablish its truths or conclusions ;

2) the utilization of unverified and perhaps un-verifiable abstract nouns, adjectives, and adverbs,rather than empirical validation, to establish itstruths, conclusions, or impressions ;

3) a finalistic and fixed view of people, institu-tions, and situations, divided into broad, all-inclusivecategories of in-groups and out-groups (friends andenemies), situations to be accepted or rejected inwhole ;

4) a reduction of situations into readily identi-fiable cause-effect relationships, ignoring multiplecausality ;

5) a time-perspective characterized by an un-der- or over-emphasis on the past, present, or futureas disconnected periods, rather than a demonstrated

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consciousness of time flow, and6) a greater emphasis on conflict than on coop-

eration among people, institutions, and situations .

This definition allows for an investigation ofmass media behavior in its full range . News mediain particular (plus, of course, advertising, publicrelations, photography, editorials, entertainment,etc .) can be investigated as falling somewhere alonga propaganda--non-propaganda continuum . Sincemost people expect the advertisements, public rela-tions programs, editorials and opinion columns to bebiased and persuasive, they may tend to avoid analy-zing these items for propagandistic content ; but thearguments in the present paper hold that ads, publicrelations programs, editorials and opinion columnscan meet their basic objectives without being propa-gandistic . Indeed, persuasive media that are propa-gandistic, as defined herein, would appear to be lesslikely to attract and convince open-'minded' mediaconsumers than they would to reinforce the biasesof the true believers .

CONCLUSIONS

We are not suggesting that the necessity formediating reality inevitably results in propaganda .Far from it. But we might suggest that when thereis a pattern of behavior on the part of media practi-tioners that repeatedly finds them jumping to conclu-sions, acting as advocates, making assumptionsbased on previous experience rather than the evidenceat hand, and approaching their assignments with pre-conceived notions of what is happening and how theevent should be depicted . . . when they have this pat-

REFERENCES

tern of behavior, we can say they are acting as pro-pagandists. THEY MAY BE DOING IT UNCON-SCIOUSLY. They may not be attempting to propagan-dize or ever be aware that their efforts can be seenas propagandistic . (In this sense our definition ofpropaganda differs from many standard ones .) It maywell be that their view of the world is such that theirwork habitually follows propagandistic patterns .

But this doesn't excuse them .

Nor does it excuse the media audience memberwho readily accepts the distorted pictures of reality .Surely, if people want spokesmen and authority fi-gures to run their lives, they'll swallow what they'retold by 'our usually reliable sources' . If they wantto believe in simple explanations for complex issues,they can find them . If they want to believe in simpleexplanations for complex issues, they can find them .If they want to believe that everybody of one race orsex or religion behaves one way, that things neverchange, that everything is a conspiracy, that thenewest and most heavily advertised products are in-deed panaceas, they'll find enough evidence in theirmass media to perpetuate their beliefs . If they wantto subscribe to only one type of newspaper, magazine,book club, or view only one type of television programor movie or listen to only one type of music, reject-ing all others, they are probably acting as unwittingpropagandees .

More than one observer has noted that no so-ciety has ever had a media system much better orworse than the society deserved . That may be some-thing to think about .

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Black, John A . " A Language Approach to Prejudice . " ETC., XXIX (March, 1972), 9-11 .

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Brown, J. A . C . Techniques of Persuasion : From Propaganda to Brainwashing. Harmondsworth, Middlesex,England: Penguin Books, Limited, 1963 .

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Glorfield, Louis E . "Effects of a Limited Semantics Methodology on the Writing Improvement of CollegeFreshmen." Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Denver, 1966 .

Goldberg, Alvin . "The Effects of a Laboratory Course in General Semantics . " ETC . , XXII (March, 1965,19-24 .

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Haney, William V . "The Uncritical Inference Test : Applications . " General Semantics Bulletin, Nos . 28-29(1962-63), 34-37 .

Harris, Sydney J . "Strictly Speaking." Toledo Times, August 14, 1972 .

Hayakawa, S . I. "General Semantics and Propaganda . " Public Opinion Quarterly, III (April, 1939), 197-205 .

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Hohenberg, Johm. The Professional Journalist : A Guide to the Practices and Principles of the News Media .2nd ed. San Francisco: Rinehart Press, 1969 .

Institute for Propaganda Analysis . "How to Detect Propaganda." Propaganda Analysis, I (November, 1937),1-4 .

Korzybski, Alfred H . Science and Sanity . An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics .1933 . 4th ed., 1958. Lakeville, Conn . : The International Non-Aristotelian Library Publishing Company .

Lasky, Harold . American Democracy . New York: Viking Press, 1948 .

Livingston, Howard . "Can the Effects of General Semantics Be Measured?" ETC. , XXIII (June, 1966)254-58 .

Merrill, John C . "How Time Stereotyped Three U .S. Presidents . " Journalism_ Quarterly, LXII (Autumn,1965), 653-70 .

Merrill, John C . and Lowenstein, Ralph L . Media, Messages, and Men: New Perspectives in Communication.New York: David McKay Company, Inc ., 1971 .

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Peterson, Theodore ; Jenson, Jay ; and Rivers, William . The Mass Media and Modern Society . New York :Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1965 .

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Qualter, Terrence H . Propaganda and Psychological Warfare . New York: Random House, 1962 .

Ralph, Ruth S . "Measuring Effects of General Semantics on Personality Adjustment in Elementary School . "ETC. , (March, 1972), 13-19 .

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BIOGRAPHY

studies in Australia on a Rotary Foundation Fellow-ship for International Understanding . The PhD injournalism and sociology was awarded to him by theUniversity of Missouri. Seven years of teachingjournalism at Bowling Green State University (Ohio)were followed by work at Utah State University, wherehe currently holds the rank of associate professor .Dr. Black has worked professionally for four news-papers In Ohio and Missouri, has presented manypapers to professional groups dealing with generalsemantics, propaganda, mass communication theoryand methodology and is presently under contract to

John Jay Black received his BA in English from

Wm. C . Brown to produce a textbook in mass com-Miami University at Oxford, Ohio and his MA in jour-

munication. In a letter to us he noted, "I utilizenalism from Ohio University. He did additional MA

G. S. in much of my teaching and writing . . . 11