As an English scholar studying various texts, you need to know how to differentiate between texts that are impartial (neutral and give facts only)and texts that are biased (one sided and often manipulated to suit the writer’s point of view). When communicated via mass media, biased information is termed: propaganda.

English students are most likely to meet bias and propaganda in their literature texts (plays, novels, short stories and poetry), oral texts such as speeches as well as in film studies, cartoons, advertisements, newspaper articles and comprehension passages. Some bias is unintentional and is as a result of the writer or speaker’s ignorance, personal experiences or limited facts. A lot of it however is intentional and is deliberately meant to deceive and alter the recipient’s state of mind in favour of the propagandist’s point of view.

Bias in some common literature texts

In the Merchant of Venice, we see Shylock (a Jew) and Antonio (a Christian) both having pre-conceived negative stereotypes about each other’s religion. This causes them to have unkind and biased comments about each other. In Othello, Desdemona’s father, Brabantio, arrives at the conclusion that the only way that his daughter could have fallen for a black man from Africa is if that man used witchcraft.  Squealer in Animal Farm is a master propagandist who paints a rosy picture of a very successful and productive farm led by the pigs. He justifies the privileges that the pigs reserve only for themselves on the farm such as sleeping on beds and eating the windfalls. He tells the rest of the animals that because the pigs are the brains of the farm, they must be the ones who consume the apples because their brains need that kind of nutrition.

 Bias in advertising

 

In the advert above, Samsung twists the comments Apple is said to have made about the Samsung Galaxy cellphone being the same as Apple's iphone. Samsung implies in this advert that buying a Galaxy S3 will get you a similar phone as the iphone, only at a lower price and with the advantage of more features and a better product. The side by side visual portrayal of the two cellphones shows the Samsung Galaxy as a bigger sized cellphone, again suggesting its superiority. The truth however is that for Samsung’ s claimse to be believed, they needed to show us a detailed comparison of the features of the Galaxy S3 and those of a specific iphone model. Samsung has deliberately omitted mention of the context under which Apple admitted the similarity of the Galaxy to their own product. The fact that the Samsung Galaxy S3 appears bigger than as unspecified iphone model in the graphic, does not make it a better cellphone. Questions should also be raised as to why Samsung would want to use a rival product as a measure of excellence instead of letting their product's features speak for themselves.

Propaganda in politics

Below are two famous spin doctors (professional propagandists). Reading more about these men will help you to understand how propaganda plays a huge yet controversial role in politics.

1) Muhammad Saeed al-Sahhaf  (Comical Ali)

    (Former Iraqi information minister during the Saddam Hussein era)

 

Comical Ali made a name for himself internationally in the 2003 Iraqi War through his televised propaganda broadcasts. He was known for his statements about the Americans allegedly suffering sound defeat at the hands of the Iraqi army. This was however not true, as were most of the statements he made on television. Here is an example of such a statement quoted from http://www.welovetheiraqiinformationminister.com

' “August 11 - The LA Times reports that the Iraqi military was itself fooled by the creative reporting of furloughed Iraqi Information Minister Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf (M.S.S.):

"After the information minister claimed that Iraqi forces had retaken the Baghdad airport from U.S. troops, two former commanders said, Republican Guard Gen. Mohammed Daash was dispatched to check out a rumor that four or five American tanks had survived the Iraqi counterattack. Daash returned to his headquarters in a panic. "Four or five tanks!'' the commanders quoted Daash as telling his fellow generals."Are you out of your minds? The whole damn American Army is at the airport!'' '

 2) Joseph Goebbels – The Nazi Minister of Propaganda during Hitler’s government



Goebbels took total control of German media and controlled what was aired on the radio and what was printed in the newspapers. He was also a gifted speaker who together with Hitler was able to gain support from many Germans for their Nazi principles even though they were racist, xenophobic and full of hate. Here is what he is quoted as having once written about his boss and close friend, Hitler:

“We saw and experienced the Führer as a speaker at the Party Rally of Freedom in 1935. He spoke fifteen times within a period of seven days. Not once did he repeat a thought or a phrase. Everything was new, fresh, young, vital, and compelling. He spoke in one way to officials, another to the S.A. and S.S. men, one way to the youth and another to the women. In his major speech on culture, he explained the deepest secrets of the arts, and his speech to the Wehrmacht was understood by the last soldier in the last battalion. The entire life of the German people was spanned by his speeches. He is a proclaimer of the word who can express its thousand-fold nature through the grace of God.”

What are your views about propaganda? Which other examples of propaganda have you come across in both the print and electronic media? Your comments are welcome