Society Thinks For Themselves! Oh Wait, nvm...

A knowledgeable business man will tell you that in marketing and advertising, nothing is done by accident. The subliminal messages or propaganda used in modern advertising and corporately funded news are becoming more existent and even stronger day by day. Propaganda is said to be information that is spread for the purpose of promoting some cause and aimed at influencing the thoughts and behaviours of a large number of people (wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn).


Moreover, the main differences of propaganda and subliminal messages in the corporate world is that propaganda will more or less attempt to shape the way you perceive or feel about a certain issue without you even noticing it, and has become a very important tool in the use of public relations. “The best PR is never noticed” (Stauber, J & Rampton), is an excellent way of describing how effective propaganda is blended into our commercials and advertisements and we as the viewers take it all in as either truth, or as basic information. It can also come in the form of simple persuasion, which was easiest to see in campaign adds for World War I and World War II. Everybody has seen the adds with Uncle Sam, "I Want You", as well as the advertisements encouraging women to enter the war (both seen below).







These adds can seem very subtle and positive, encouraging the population to join the war effort and to be on the "good side". However one must look at these and see how aggressive the advertisement really is. Seeing either one of these adds would make not joining the war effort seem either cowardly, or in the case of the second picture, useless.

However using propaganda in everyday advertising can be that much more aggressive. For instance the photo below was taken in Iran of apparent missile fire. However as one can see by the outlining the picture has been altered, and more missiles have been placed into the picture. This of course makes the image that much bigger and of course in the news, it would be that much more important.










What this really implies about our society today is that companies are starting to realize that consumers and the general public are starting to think for themselves, and are getting much smarter than they used to be. Therefore companies are now trying to trick us into thinking a certain way about something or to buy something, then the old fashioned way of advertising with factual information. The use of propaganda is making it much harder to society to think for themselves, which is exactly what the companies want.








Stauber, J & Rampton, S. Toxic Sludge Is Good For You. Canada: Common Courage Press, 1995.