propaganda

  1. Some years ago I watched amazing documentary by Adam Curtis called The Century of Self. Nephew of Sigmund Freud - Edward Bernays - was a villain in that documentary. I’ve got chills when I saw him talking about propaganda and marketing.

    This year I decided to read Bernays’ book and I must say that I was very suprised. After reading his own words - he doesn’t seem to be this evil person who “made women smoke.”

    He seemed smart, ahead of his time, had concerns about misuse of propaganda/PR/marketing. But he said that there is no guarantee against misuse. And it makes sense to me as technologist. It is exactly the same with technology - can be used for good or for bad.

    Edward Bernays

  2. Personal account of Spanish war by George Orwell.

    Couple of insights:

    • Stalinist tactics used in Spain were as terrible as in USSR
    • Press is extremely important in influencing events

    What was interesting is that Orwell few times pointed out that his account is not fully objective and that reader should not believe his words without verification. This is great example of professionalism. Orwell recognizes both his subjectivity but also his duty to the public. Seems like not many people back then and now do this.

    Also, I really like that Orwell was optimistic even in the end. He was wounded, needed to leave country, but at the end he still believed in human nature and better future.

     George Orwell
  3. Television is the new state religion run by a private Ministry of Culture (the three networks), offering a universal curriculum for all people, financed by a form of hidden taxation without representation. You pay when you wash, not when you watch, and whether or not you care to watch.
    George Gerbner television
  4. These ideas - that people create meanings by the names they use, and we are free to rejects the names that are given - are central to language education, and are one’s principal source of defense against a culture in which propaganda is the largest industry.
    Neil Postman
  5. Whatever else we bring into the new century, we will certainly feature the greatest array of propagandistic techniques in the history of humankind.
    Neil Postman
  6. These subjects are about the relationship between language and reality; they are about differences between kind of statements, about the nature of propaganda, about the ways in which we search for truths, and just about everything else one needs to know in order to use language in a disciplined way and to know when others aren’t.
    Neil Postman
  7. It is impossible to read through the reports in the Communist Press without realizing that they are consciously aimed at a public ignorant of the facts and have no other purpose than to work up prejudice.
    George Orwell
  8. Evidently the official version of the Barcelona fighting was already fixed upon: it was to be represented as a “fifth column” Fascist rising engineered solely by the P.O.U.M.
    George Orwell