Propaganda Techniques

Book excerpt: Propaganda Techniques is a book designed to illustrate several of the many ways politicians, advertising writers and countless promoters try to control our thoughts. The readers of this book will become more aware of the countless and subtle ways in which they are being manipulated every day. Although initially this book was intended for use by teachers and students, I soon realized it would be useful for people in many other fields. Journalists, business people, sales people, police, counselors, advertisers, politicians, medical personnel and lawyers are just a few of the groups that would find this book useful. General readers would also find it stimulating and provocative. The eighty-nine selected techniques explained in the book are divided into seven sections; Faulty Logic Diversion and Evasion Appealing to the Emotions Using Falsehoods and Trickery Playing on Human Behavioral Tendencies, Mental Capacities and Processes Speaking or Writing Styles Reason or Common Sense The exercises at the end of the book will help the reader gain practice in using the propaganda techniques. The first exercise is for simplification of a persuasive message. A complex message loses effectiveness because most people lack the stamina to wade through a great deal of information to get to the point. The exercise for simplification calls for writing a summary of the Declaration of Independence so that the document will be reduced to a few paragraphs while maintaining the perceived intent of the author. This work should be very useful to all those trying to develop critical thinking skills.