G. Thomas Goodnight
Com 413 #20627R
Wed 6:30-9:20 pm ASC 230
Propaganda, Ideology, and Public Controversy
What is truth? Around the globe, state governments, private industries, and civic groups produce propaganda that enacts ideology and spurs controversy—through intentional strategies, accidental entanglements, and acts of resistance. Our course will map major moments in the development of propaganda as a communications apparatus, identify the discursive and media presentations of ideologies as they define thought and engage in struggle, and finally read the pop ups of contemporary controversies. In the past, propaganda campaigns were aimed at targets outside the nation. With social media, novel interactions among communication apparatus, norms, and global actors generate new puzzles to solve. The course equips students with knowledge of prior techniques of influence and struggle in order to unlock routes of intervention into contemporary practices.
Materials for Class: Please purchase and read: Edward Bernays, Propaganda New York: Brooklyn 2005 (1928). Jacques Ellul, Propaganda. Vintage: New York, 1965. Vincent Geoghegan and Rick Wilford (eds.) Political Ideologies: An Introduction. London: Routledge, 2014. Naomi Oreskes & Erik M. Conway, Merchants of Doubt, New York: Bloomsbury, 2011. Article readings are available at the USC web site. Videos are available on YouTube.
Class Preparation: The seminar will feature 2 hours of lecture and 1 of discussion, prior to spring break. After spring break, we will flip to student presentations and an hour of lecture. Students are asked to keep a journal where a file is kept, a half-page paragraph typed concerning a description of the artifact and a response. The journal is to be turned in at the end of the course—with a 2-3 page reflection that defines key concepts developed through discussion.
Project Presentation: The syllabus presents a choice among projects. Preferences will be gathered early in the semester. I will hold a conference with each student to help shape the project. At the end of the first month, a research plan for the project should be turned in, with commentary, and the report scheduled for in class presentation after spring break. Watch/read materials developed. In class presentation will feature discussion and review by the class on how to improve, revise, or extend the work. The presentation should be turned to a paper of sufficient length to address the topic (8 to 12 pages)
Grading: Journal & Final Reflection 30% Class Presentation 30%
Final Paper 30% Class Participation 10%
Learning Objectives: Propaganda is a technique, ideology is a frame, controversy is a disturbance. Trajectories are produced over time as campaigns, movements, protests, or styles. The course works with these forces as they spur collaboration and resistance among the documented and undocumented in creating and revering rhetorical events and action that orient and disorient nations, populations, groups, parties and peoples. This analysis is undertaken in order to learn to: 1. Think independently to the truth of a matter.2. Identify the process and production of propaganda campaigns.3. Understand and critique the discourse and strategies of ideology.4. Map short and long term trajectories of contemporary controversies
Propaganda, Ideology, and Public Controversy
1. W Jan 9 Inquiry& Interventions into the Public Sphere
Mark Twain, “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Caleveras County.”
John Milton, Aereopagetica 1644
John Stewart Mill, The Market Place of Ideas, On Liberty 1859
MacKenzie, “The Meaning of Ideology.” PI 1-19.
WATCH (pragmatism)
2. W Jan 16 Propaganda and the First World War
Woodrow Wilson’s War Message to Congress, April 2, 1917.
Alan Finlayson, “Nationalism,” PI 100-118.
WATCH: (propaganda)
(propaganda)
(peace movement)
3. W Jan 23 Propaganda: Social Needs and Private Pleasures
Edward Bernays, Propaganda, 1-108.
Walter Lippman, Public Opinion, Chapters 1-5.
John Dewey, The Public and Its Problems, Chapter 3.
WATCH: (Bernays)
(Axel Honneth)
4. W Jan 30 The Second World War
Franklyn D. Roosevelt, “Four Freedoms Speech,” January 6, 1941
Rick Wilford, “Fascism,” PI, 122-149.
Jacques Ellul, Propaganda, 1-154.
WATCH:
(Goebbels)
(Propaganda and War)
Winston Churchill Address to Congress 1941
5. W Feb 7 The Communications Industry. Persuasion & Resistance
Christopher Simpson, The Science of Coercion: Communication Research & Psychological Warfare, 1945-1960.
(Iron Curtain Speech, Churchill)
Harry Truman, March 24, 1947.
The Marshall Plan
Cartoon of America
6. W Feb 14 Soviet Propaganda
Vincent Geoghegan, “Socialism,” PI 72-95.
Jacques Ellul, Propaganda 163-204.
WATCH:
Animated Soviet Propaganda
7. W Feb 21 The Middle Ground: Conservative and Liberals
Andrew Shorten, Liberalism, PI 19-46.
SefanAndreasson Conservatism, PI, 47-69.
P. T. Barnum, “The Art of Getting Money,”
Andrew Carnegie, “The Road to Business Success,”
Goodnight, The Liberal and the Conservative Presumptions
WATCH: TBD
8. W Feb 28 Populism vs Multiculturalism
William Jennings Bryan, Cross of Gold Speech
Caroline Walsh, “Multiculturalism,” 239-262.
READ:
WATCH: TBD
9. W Mrc7 Progressivism vs Anarchism
LAURENCE Davis, “Anarchism,” 213-234.
WATCH: TBD
W Mrc 14 No Class. Spring Break Question: What are Culture Wars gone Digital?
10. W Mrc21 COMMUNICATIVE ACTIVISM Feminist and Ecology Campaigns
Rick Wilford, “Feminism,” PI 179-209. John Barry “Green Political Theory, PI 153-174.
WATCH: TBD Class Reports. 1 & 2
11. W Mrc28 MANUFACTURED CONTROVERSIES Risk and Denials
Orestes, Merchants of Doubt, select parts of the book.
WATCH: TBD Class Reports. 3 & 4
12. W Apr 4 WHOSE EXTREMISM? Arguments over Identity
Jaylon Agar, “Political Ideology and Secularism,” 263-288,
WATCH:
Class Reports 5, 6 & 7
13. W Apr 11DISINFORMATION AND TROLLING False information and pseudo-events.
READINGS: TBD Class Reports. 8, 9, 10.
WATCH: TBD
14. W Apr 18Network Fake News & the Echo Chamber News-views and personalities.
READINGS: TBD Class Reports, 11, 12, 13
WATCH: TBD
15. W Apr 25 Memes, Money and the 1 Minute Films Publicity Pops & Talking Points.
READINGS: TBD Class Reports 14, 15, 16
WATCH: TBD
Moya Lloyd, “The End of Ideology, 289-309.
PROJECTS FOR PRESENTATION—
Procedure: By the second week of the class you should submit a one paragraph case study to be presented to class. The case should outline the propaganda apparatus in play, the ideologies struggling to dominate the other, and the time line where episodes of controversy become triggered. I will read quickly and (1) approve as is but suggest improvements, (2) approve contingent on further development, (3) disapprove and suggest another topic. In presenting the topic, you may hedge bets and suggest alternative ways of development. A presentation will be evaluated on the importance of the questions being asked, the plan for gathering illustrations and examples that speak to the question, the scheme of analysis and work on the project. These factors should contribute to a successful semester of research for you, a good report to the class (you will need to provide views and short reads before the presentation) and commentary that will help with final paper. Think of the class as a working group that moves from a history of communications to sort out the present potential and constraints that we now face.
10. W Mrc21 COMMUNICATIVE ACTIVISM: In this section, we are looking for specific controversies raised by multicultural, feminist or green concerns. Examples include protests for the oil pipe line in Nebraska, the sock eye salmon preserve, reducing the budget or size of national parks. Communicative activism aimed at raising awareness of sexism, racism or transgender rights. How do the networks of communication become challenged—where logos, advertising, and customers become potential members in a resistance propaganda campaign.
11. W Mrc28 MANUFACTURED CONTROVERSIES In this section, we examine the spread of doubt into scientific consensus. The use of requests for study to delay, weaken or obfuscate issues. To what extend is gun control, birth, and vaccinations a biopolitics of propaganda. The opioid crisis has aspects of a crisis, manufactured by whom with what outcomes. The Black Lives Matter campaign does not fall into a single category. How do responses to protests of police violence, immigration deportation, refugee accommodation feature as a made for publicity controversy?
12. W Apr 4 WHOSE EXTREMISM? The issue of who is central and who on the periphery generates a host of controversy. Identify debates over museum exhibits, monuments, and memorials. What are the debates over naming and being named an extremist—as opposed to a radical, maverick, or revolutionary? What are the “culture wars” as they function for symbolic contestation.
13. W Apr 11DISINFORMATION AND TROLLING What is the controversy over Russian manipulation of the internet? How do media oligopolies defend their role in the last election? What is trolling and why do such strategies appear to work. Identify sources of conspiracy argument in the alt-right. Is there an alt-left?
14. W Apr 18Network Fake News & the Echo Chamber What is the debate over post-truth, fact check, and real news? How do news stations cater to ideological appetites with topics that suggest a roster of propaganda aims at work? What is an echo chamber, filtering, and other devices to feed the public what it wants? What is a fact and how do such things play in the economy of attention.
15. W Apr 25 Memes, Money and the 1 Minute Films How are threats to fund primary oppositions rendered effective? What is the role of talk radio in spreading propaganda? Does youtube supplement, differ or become irrelevant to audiences? What organizations furnish the technical apparatus for making short films, commercials, or adds to influence publics at key times. Identify strategies of micro-targetting and resonance.
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