You don’t get your information from propaganda. Your sources are good and objective and unbiased. You have a good and unbiased view of the overall political situation because you know what both sides think, and you’re clear that your side is more sensible.
So, let’s talk about why they are such sheeple and believe propaganda.
First, effective propaganda inoculates its viewers against criticism of the in-group, and it does so in two ways. Inoculation is the rhetorical tactic of presenting your audience with weak versions of out-group arguments—straw men, really—and persuading your audience that they shouldn’t even listen to the other side because their arguments are so bad.
Imagine that you believe that people should be able to have guns in easy access in case there are break-ins, and you can cite statistics about people who have protected their home that way. A medium opposed to gun ownership of any kind engaged in inoculation wouldn’t mention any statistics about people protecting themselves, and would say that, anyone who wants to have guns in their home for personal protection wants to take guns everywhere, including airplanes, and that would be incredibly dangerous, so it’s clearly a stupid argument. But they wouldn’t just say that—they would have a “debate” between people who want to ban all guns and some dumb jerk who says people should be able to take guns on airplanes.
So, viewers of that program would sincerely believe that they’d seen “both sides” of the debate when, actually, they’d watched propaganda. Really effective propaganda appears to present “both sides” by having stooges who argue for really dumb counter-arguments and actually confirm stereotypes about “those people.”
Second, propaganda spends a lot of time telling you how awful the other side is and (and this is the important point), saying they are so awful that you shouldn’t even look at them.
Vehement political criticism, as opposed to propaganda, spends a lot of time telling you how awful the other side is and (and this is the important point) providing links so you can see for yourself. What makes propaganda different from vehement political criticism is that propaganda says, “Rely on us for understanding what they believe” and vehement political criticism insists you read the primary material.
If you are watching media that spends a lot of time telling you how awful the other side is, and that has spokespeople who claim to represent that other side—instead of linking to the other side—you’re watching propaganda.
As Aristotle said, all things being equal, the truth will tend to emerge. And, oddly enough, one of the ways you can tell if a source is propaganda is by Aristotle’s rule—they make sure all things aren’t equal. They know that they have very fragile arguments that will crinkle up and die if exposed to the light of counter-arguments with data, and that’s why they spend so much time in inoculation. They don’t say, “Those people are idiots—go and look at what they’re saying.” They say, “Don’t go look at those sites or listen to those arguments because we will tell you what they are and they’re dumb.”
Any medium that says there is an out-group that is evil, and you should never listen to them, and doesn’t link to their arguments is propaganda.[1]
But, by refusing to link to their opposition, they’re making an admission too–that their claims can’t withstand scrutiny. Propaganda always throws around the term “objective” (it would be interesting to see whether Hitler or Stalin used that term more–it might be a dead heat). Claiming to be objective doesn’t mean you are. Having a good argument means that it can withstand argument–good arguments don’t need inoculation.
I’ve crawled around dark corners of social media, and the worst arguments in all sorts of enclaves have links to claims that support them, but never links to the opposition. They can support what they claim. Anyone can support any claim.
People think that propaganda is rhetoric that is obviously wrong and that has no evidence. But, were that propaganda, it would never work. Propaganda always has evidence and citations. What it doesn’t have is links to opposition sources; it doesn’t have fair representations of the opposition. It doesn’t make falsifiable claims.
The whole point of propaganda is not just to persuade people of your particular claims (since a lot of those claims change for political purposes), but that some media are reliable, and others are too toxic to touch. Propaganda isn’t about “believe this” as much as it is about “never listen to anyone who isn’t in-group.”
If you are relying on your source for what “they” believe, you are drinking deep at the well of propaganda. I hope that Flavor-Aid doesn’t stain your teeth.
[In case you’re wondering why I don’t have links in this post, it’s because my claim is that propaganda misrepresents the opposition and doesn’t link to them. I found, when I started making links, that I was still enforcing the notion that there are two sides, or that propaganda is an either/or rather than a continuum–that I had an opposition whom I should represent fairly. Since I really don’t want to endorse one “side” or another, as much as make a general point about argumentation, I thought that it would make more sense to strip off the links.]