Propaganda?

Recently, I've discussed and looked at significant propaganda in one of my classes. It's become clear through videos and discussion that propaganda is not only a widespread and influential power, but it also acts in essentially all sides of a conflict. I can't imagine that there is anyway to safely identify propaganda other than to continuously investigate the information we take in. The first part of any analysis needs to look for the subject's bias and identify the founding facts that make such an argument possible.

In exploring blogs online, I first stumbled across Hot Potato Mash and his criticism of Fox News. It's clear from the embedded videos that the Fox corporation was in support of the war effort (see the bottom video) and this sort of agenda in a media source is important to consider. As such a critical information outlet, Fox certainly has more control than it claims and shows that we need to consider all of our news sources equally.

Another video worth discussing here is the second in which a child identifies religion as the reason for wars. There are multiple issues here. First, the child is being used as propaganda tool against religion and probably has relatively minimal idea of the political reasoning (did you know the difference between Republican and Democrats at that age?). And yet, to control YouTube (as O'Reilly appears to be suggesting) is a violation of our freedom of speech. it seems that both sides are utilizing propaganda here. Additionally, the source is in question as some YouTube commenters explain that it was a joke.... not funny?

I searched the web for the most recent occurrence of propaganda and couldn't avoid the story of the 15 British soldiers that were released from Iran last week. The soldiers were given permission to sell their stories to the private sector and as such were deemed "propaganda pawn[s]" by Muslim Public Affairs Committee of the United Kingdom. Many view these stories as way to make Iran look violent in order to stir public opinion against the country. Particular attention is paid to Faye Turney, the only captured female; her gender is commonly pointed out in what seems to be hype.

The outcry from this privatization was overwhelming and it's worth noting that British soldiers we recently banned from telling their stories. But how much of a difference will this make? And will the restriction go away once the outcry dies down? Anyway you look at it, these 15 individuals were already given permission and will be telling their stories; the damage may already be done.

We can't avoid propaganda, but we can, and should, be critical of all the information we take in. It is our responsibility to determine the validity and spin of our news such that we can generate more informed opinions of world issues...