Leap 1
As a commuter working in New York City, I am witness to all avenues of propaganda whether I choose to engage or not. In New York City, propaganda screams in your face. I mean that both figuratively and literally. From the minute you walk off the subway you are instantly faced with posters, graffiti, and stickers on walls all pushing a personal agenda. Walking up the stairs to the street, you see picket signs accompanied by a booming voice from a megaphone typically preaching about the end of the world and how we need to “get right with our lord.” Even as I head home, the long island rail road is plastered with propaganda ranging from raising awareness for taking action against suspicious activity, to advertising online universities.
As if my daily commute wasn’t enough, forms of propaganda bombard me while I am at the gym. The gym I belong to pushes their line of supplements through propaganda. They use before and after pictures of members of the gym in order to entice other members to buy not only their supplements but also a premium membership to gain access to all their classes. Along with that, they make their trainers wear clothes and use products such as their particular foam rollers so that the members can see them using them. This can influence consumers to purchase their goods because they feel as if they need to do as the professional trainers do.
While at home, I am witness to countless forms of propaganda used for consumer purposes. Commercials are used to push an agenda whether it’s to buy someone’s goods or services, or donate to a good cause. There are a few commercials that come to mind such as all of Shaq’s commercials for the General, Gold bond and Buick. In the commercials for Buick, it is demonstrated that even a man as large as Shaq can fit comfortably in their automobiles. This can be considered propaganda because well never know whether or not he actually fits into the car comfortably but the commercial is set up to convince us he does. Another commercial where a company uses Shaq to market a product is Gold Bonds. Because Shaq is an athlete it is a natural assumption that he would sweat and know about how to prevent or aid that situation. Gold Bond uses Shaq in a commercial to demonstrate the cooling effect of their dry spray using his goofy humor to persuade us that the product is not only good to use, but gentle. Example of commercials used to help generate donations would be commercials for St. Jude or the really sad commercials you see with rescued animals with the song Angel playing in the background.
Propaganda not only affects my life from a consumer standpoint, but also from a political point of view. It is clear that Donald Trump was able to master twitter and use that to his advantage in order to win the election. Trump was bashed for using twitter as a tool to gain the attention of what most people would label as the “millennials” but in turn it seem to have worked out given the fact that he wont the election. This goes to show us the power that propaganda can have, and just how many of the population it can affect. Just the other day Trump used twitter to degrade his former running opponent by retweeting a GIF of him hitting a golf ball causing her to trip and fall on to Air force One.
Another form of propaganda that has been plastered all over not only social media, but the news as well is the BLM movement. You can google BLM (black lives matter) and find many instances of this movement and plenty of blogs, and articles covering topic. But just recently, there was a riot that broke out in St. Louis after a white police officer was proven innocent in the shooting of a black male who was thought to be heroine dealer. The BLM movement can be seen a propaganda in the sense that they are rioting and separating two types of people. This movement has in turn started something that you now frequently see on Facebook, people filming cops. People filming cops I’m sure has been going on for sometime, however, the fact that people now feel like they have to do it for their own safety is the stigma that has been created do to the propaganda put out by the BLM movement.
Another very relative use of propaganda can be seen in the news. Just recently, the U.S. was hit by three hurricanes. These hurricanes left parts of Texas, Florida, and Caribbean in ruins. Through the news, radio, and celebrities social media accounts awareness was spread. Frequently on the radio I hear advertisements for the Red Cross to donate money to help these victims. Members of the Huston Rockets ran charity events and donated millions of dollars themselves in order to help persuade others to help as well.
Perhaps the largest connection to our course readings and real life I was able to make would be related to Holidays term “trading up the chain.” There is a player in the NBA named Kyrie Irving. He knew how the media had a tendency to blow things out of proportion so he decide to take it into his own hands and manipulate the mass media. Kyrie Irving essentially planted a false story to a reporter stating that he truly thought the world was flat. This sent the media into a frenzy, it was all over social media, blogs, ESPN, anywhere that sports was a topic of conversation were talking about this. Kyrie had an effect on the world, according to one middle school teacher, his students actually believed in Kyrie Irving’s theory mostly because they look up to him. This goes to show you the power that a celebrity can control over an audience. Also, this is scary because it showed just how easy it is to divert a nations attention to such a trivial matter like whether or not a pro athlete truly believed the world was flat rather than say the BLM movement, or how Lebron James had just had his house vandalized.
In today’s world, it is nearly impossible to walk through daily life without becoming subject to the main forms and purposes of propaganda. Whether it be to sway our decision on a matter of right and wrong, black or white, or to buy a particular product, we will constantly be surrounded by it. The recent explosion of social medias capability and reach will insure the survival of propaganda for a very long time to come.
https://www.aol.com/article/news/2017/09/18/more-than-80-arrested-as-riot-police-break-up-st-louis-protest-over-officers-acquittal/23213091/
http://ftw.usatoday.com/2017/07/kyrie-irving-earth-flat-truther