Week 15: EOTO Pt.1 - propaganda

I chose Propaganda for this blog because I thought it was the most interesting option and is very relevant in current events. The other cool thing about propaganda is that it has been around forever and is probably being spread now more than ever. 


With Technology making mass communication so easy propaganda is at an all time high in reach. Propaganda is defined as "information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view" (Google dictionary). We living in a time where propaganda is being used more than ever. Propaganda can be a good thing and a bad thing. It can be used to serve justice but it can also be used for slander. The most common propaganda in the USA currently is probably anti-Trump propaganda. I don't care one way or the other about politics but I have been seeing a lot of propaganda basically blaming Trump for the Coronavirus pandemic. This is where propaganda can be dangerous. Right now we are living through an historical event and we need each other now more than ever and people are wasting their time spreading false info to push others down because they disagree with their views. 

I think propaganda is bad for society as a whole. A vast majority of it is negative and it really divides people. What people who promote propaganda don't seem to understand is that the only people who are going to see that propaganda and agree with it are already on their team. Where it get's tricky is when lies are sprinkled into this propaganda and people who wouldn't normally think poorly about some one or some event, are tricked and end up promoting lies that they are unaware of. 


The fact that it easily can reach so many people is what concerns me. It's hard to tell whats real and not real on the internet these days to begin with, so it is relatively easy to get fooled while scrolling through social media and people need to be careful. 


As an example, there are many people who think that Kim Jong Un is dead right now. It even trended on Twitter. There hasn't been a single report from a reliable source saying that he has died but many thousands of people believe him to be dead based off of propaganda being spread continuously.

Propaganda can be great and help people come together to fix social and political injustices, but unfortunately like I mentioned most propaganda is a waste of time in my opinion. As long as we have competing groups with competing views propaganda will exist. In fact as years pass and the World's social media presence continues to rapidly grow, propaganda will only grow stronger and stronger.

what is propaganda?
Propaganda in the digital world