PropagandaAn Overview of Propaganda, its techniques,

and relation to Orwell’s Animal Farm

Consider the following posters:

- What message is being sent to the people? - What techniques are being used?

What is propaganda?

Propaganda is information, especially that of a biased or misleading

nature, used to systematically promote or publicize a particular

political cause or point of view

- It includes the manipulation and control of language to produce

“half-truths” or flat out lies in order to gain support of a person,

product, or cause.

- Propaganda often transmits more than one message, depending

on what the recipient wishes to hear or is told to hear.

Types of Propaganda

Propaganda is an essential ingredient in successful totalitarian

regimes. There are two main types we will examine in this unit:

● Political Propaganda--attempts to gain and keep support and

voters

● War Propaganda Propaganda--Emerged with WWI and

helped to win the war by motivating support on the home

front

Examples (one modern, two historical)

Political PropagandaWWII - Disney Video Propaganda

WWI - Poster Form Propaganda

Propaganda Techniques (in Animal Farm and in media today)

1. Bandwagon: Doing something that everyone else is

doing. It appeals to a person’s need to belong.

2. Loaded Words and Images: Words that immediately

bring an emotional response and relies on the act of

transferring the feelings we have for a given symbol

onto the advertised product, person, or cause.

Propaganda Techniques

3. Unproved Assertions: These are

generalizations or enthusiastic statements that

something is good or the “best” without using

reasons, statistics, examples, or other evidence to

back up the claim

4. Ego-Tripping: Also called Snob Appeal, it

targets to a person’s desire to be better looking,

stronger, smarter, or generally appeals to our

desire for “the good life”.

Propaganda Techniques

5. Name-calling: Using derogatory language or

words with a negative connotation in order to arose

prejudice or dislike for a particular product, person,

group, or cause.

6. Scapegoating / Pinpointing the Enemy:

Attributing problems to common enemy in the form

of a particular person, group, etc. without regard to

the truth of the accusation.

7. Slogans: Simple, catchy words and phrases that stick in

people’s minds but often without giving all the important

details of a person or product.

8. Name-dropping: Famous athletes, television and film

stars or other respected personalities speak for a product or

a cause, even though they are not authorities on the subject.

Include testimonials in which a person claims that a

product, person or cause has been beneficial to them

Propaganda Techniques

9. Glittering Generalities: When a commercial

uses flashy colors and words to gain the

attention of the audience. Involves catchy music

or an enthusiastic announcer.

10. Plain Folk: Trying to appeal to the common

values of a population ie. Patriotism. Using

what appear to be normal people testifying that

a product works for them.

Propaganda Techniques

11. Fear: Exploiting people’s fears, usually in the

form of a false dilemma, in order to gain support

for a course of action or decision

12. Scientific Claims: Using technical jargon and

statistics to support a claim or send the message

that evidences proves a product does what it’s

supposed to or is the best at what it does.

*Milk example in Animal Farm

Propaganda Techniques

Activity: Posters Identification Activity

Directions: Identify the propaganda technique used in the examples. For the posters, make a guess as to the country of origin and the purpose of the posters.

Identification Activity

1. When justifying the pigs’ hoarding of the milk and apples, Squealer says, “Do you know what would happen if we pigs failed in our duty? Jones would come back! Yes, Jones would come back! Surely, comrades,” cried Squealer almost pleadingly, skipping from side to side and whisking his tail, “surely there is no one among you who wants to see Jones come back?”

Identification Activity

2. Snowball explains away the objections of the birds to the maxim: Four legs good, two legs bad. “A bird’s wing, comrades,” he said, “is an organ of propulsion and not of manipulation. It should therefore be regarded as a leg.”

Identification, Posters

China; Mao Zedong. Supported by Russia during the Cold War

Mao Zedong; leader of hte people.

Identification, Posters

Chinese Poster; showing its citizens how divied the US was

North Korean Propaganda Poster; standing up the west.

Propaganda Poster/Media Creation Assignment