Propaganda Research Paper

Kyrstin Riley
Dr. Evenson
English 101
5 April 2011
Fighting For the Right Propaganda is all around us. “For good or evil, propaganda pervades our daily lives, helping to shape our attitudes on a thousand subjects” (Cross 123). Propaganda unknowingly reinforces our own opinions, from everyday subjects like the movies we see to world-wide issues such as our next presidential leader. There are millions of issues surrounding our world, most that have organizations fighting for their cause. These organizations use propaganda to attack either your brain or heart in order to gain support. PETA, which is an acronym that stand for people for the ethical treatment of animals, is a famous non-profit organization working towards ending animal cruelty.
The irrelevancy of the plain-folks appeal is that even though it may be true that both animals and ourselves are animals and are made up of the same body parts doesn’t necessarily mean that both groups have the same rights. This begs the question, is the equality between animals and ourselves actually as relevant and sizable as PETA makes it out to seem? Another device Cross points out is glory by association, which the propagandist uses to try and transfer the positive feelings of something we love and respect to the group or idea they wants us to accept. In the campaign poster, PETA uses glory by association by taking society’s feelings about the animals we love from the outside looking in and associates those heart felt feelings with the idea that they are living creatures and have as much of a right to life as we do. In order to avoid letting glory by association get the best of our minds, suspension of judgement is necessary until you can come up with an opinion eliminating emotion from the equation. The last device Cross points out is testimonial, which mean to have some loved or respected person give support for a given product
In the excerpt we read, they discuss how we use words and the powers that slanted and charged language effects the way we perceive the language surrounding us. “Before it is expressed in words, our knowledge, both inside and out, is influenced by the principle of selection” (Birk & Birk 351). PETA is a well-known organization, which means that a majority of society has enough knowledge about the cause to develop an opinion concerning their beliefs. That knowledge therefore puts the principle of selection in play when viewing this ad. Therefore if your opinion of the organization is either positive or non-existent, the emotions you should feel when you think about the cause they are fighting for would encourage support. Otherwise, if stored knowledge developed a negative opinion, the purpose of the campaign could be defective. The principle of selection can unintentionally make or break a campaign like this one. “Slanting by use of the devices of emphasis is unavoidable, for emphasis is simply the giving of stress to subject matter, and so indicating what is important and what is less important” (Birk & Birk 353). Therefore in the campaign ad slanting by use of emphasis is used within the bold, capital letters “ALL ANIMALS” that emphasizes the importance of the fact that technically humans are animals as well. It was