About This Photo
Propaganda and Advertising
The message of this poster was to explain the propaganda techniques and give examples when available. I gave a brief description of the technique used in the propaganda poster or advertisement, then put the advertisement near this explanation. I showed an ad for Omega watches, which called them Michael Andretti’s choice for an endorsement. Plain Folks Appeal is evident in an ad for Union Pacific railroad, which calls their train cars “nice little houses.” A TWA Stratoliners ad was my example for glittering generalities because it claimed, “TWA now offers Fastest, Smoothest Non-Stops to Chicago,” but offered no evidence to back up those claims. I used an ad for Majestic radio tubes which claimed that 90% of radio trouble is tube trouble to illustrate misleading numbers. Nobody knows what exactly causes the tube trouble; so Majestic radio tubes may not solve the problem. The Bandwagon Appeal is shown in a Chinese propaganda poster, which shows a large group of people waving the Red Books, yelling “Long Live Chairman Mao!” The poster suggests that everyone supports Mao, so you should, too. Another Chinese propaganda poster illustrated the technique of card stacking. It claims, “Only socialism can help China, only socialism can develop China.” It makes no mention of the dangers and hardships of socialism that Russia had already experienced. I also explained the techniques of stereotyping, name-calling, and personal appeal.
I included a list of three questions to always ask yourself when viewing an advertisement or potential propaganda poster. They are: Is the information based upon fact or opinion? Who or what is the source of the information? What biases does the source represent? I think this will make the audience less likely to be wrongfully convinced by an advertisement or propaganda poster.
I did not use propaganda on this poster because I didn’t think it would be fitting to use a technique I just explained. I think if people noticed the propaganda that I used to explain propaganda, the poster could be considered not useful. I asked the audience to think about biases and fact versus opinion, so if they noticed a bias, they might ignore the rest of the poster.
I combined the propaganda and advertising posters because I thought they were so similar, I could make the two posters better by combining them into one. I thought they would be somewhat repetitive if there were two, since general advertisements use most of these propaganda techniques.
