Speech 450
Propaganda
Sociological Propaganda
Jacques Ellul on Sociological Propaganda.
Paul Connolly on Prejudice in Northern Ireland.
Ellul, Jacques. Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes. Trans. Konrad Kellen and Jean Lerner. New York: Knopf, 1966. 62-68.
Political Propaganda and Sociological Propaganda
First we must distinguish between political propaganda and sociological propaganda. We shall not dwell long on the former because it is the type called immediately to mind by the word propaganda itself. It involves techniques of influence employed by a government, a party, an administration, a pressure group, with a view to changing the behavior of the public. The choice of methods used is deliberate and calculated; the desired goals are clearly distinguished and quite precise, though generally limited. Most often the themes and the objectives are political, as for example with Hitler's or Stalin's propaganda. This is the type of propaganda that can be most clearly distinguished from advertising: the latter has economic ends, the former political ends. Political propaganda can be either strategic or tactical. The former establishes the general line, the array of arguments, the staggering of the campaigns; the latter seeks to obtain immediate results within that framework (such as wartime pamphlets and loudspeakers to obtain the immediate surrender of the enemy).
But this does not cover all propaganda, which also encompasses phenomena much more vast and less certain: the group of manifestations by which any society seeks to integrate the maximum number of individuals into itself, to unify its members' behavior according to a pattern, to spread its style of life abroad, and thus to impose itself on other groups. We call this phenomenon "sociological" propaganda, to show, first of all, that the entire group, consciously or not, expresses itself in this fashion; and to indicate, secondly, that its influence aims much more at an entire [62/63] style of life than at opinions or even one particular course of behavior.1
Of course, within the compass of sociological propaganda itself one or more political propagandas can be expressed. The propaganda of Christianity in the middle ages is an example of this type of sociological propaganda; Benjamin Constant meant just this when he said of France, in 1793: "The entire nation was a vast propaganda operation." And in present times certainly the most accomplished models of this type are American and Chinese propaganda. Although we do not include here the more or less effective campaigns and methods employed by governments, but rather the over-all phenomenon, we find that sociological propaganda combines extremely diverse forms within itself. At this level, advertising as the spreading of a certain style of life can be said to be included in such propaganda, and in the United States this is also true of public relations, human relations, human engineering, the motion pictures, and so on. It is characteristic of a nation living by sociological propaganda that all these influences converge toward the same point, whereas in a society such as France in 1960, they are divergent in their objectives and their intentions.
Sociological propaganda is a phenomenon much more difficult to grasp than political propaganda, and is rarely discussed. Basically it is the penetration of an ideology by means of its sociological context. This phenomenon is the reverse of what we have been studying up to now. Propaganda as it is traditionally known implies an attempt to spread an ideology through the mass media of communication in order to lead the public to accept some political or economic structure or to participate in some action. That is the one element common to all the propaganda we have studied. Ideology is disseminated for the purpose of making various political acts acceptable to the people.
But in sociological propaganda the movement is reversed. The existing economic, political, and sociological factors progressively allow an ideology to penetrate individuals or masses. Through the [63/64] medium of economic and political structures a certain ideology is established, which leads to the active participation of the masses and the adaptation of individuals. The important thing is to make the individual participate actively and to adapt him as much as possible to a specific sociological context.
Such propaganda is essentially diffuse. It is rarely conveyed by catchwords or expressed intentions. Instead it is based on a general climate, an atmosphere that influences people imperceptibly without having the appearance of propaganda; it gets to man through his customs, through his most unconscious habits. It creates new habits in him; it is a sort of persuasion from within. As a result, man adopts new criteria of judgment and choice, adopts them spontaneously, as if he had chosen them himself. But all these criteria are in conformity with the environment and are essentially of a collective nature. Sociological propaganda produces a progressive adaptation to a certain order of things, a certain concept of human relations, which unconsciously molds individuals and makes them conform to society.
Sociological propaganda springs up spontaneously; it is not the result of deliberate propaganda action. No propagandists deliberately use this method, though many practice it unwittingly, and tend in this direction without realizing it. For example, when an American producer makes a film, he has certain definite ideas he wants to express, which are not intended to be propaganda. Rather, the propaganda element is in the American way of life with which he is permeated and which he expresses in his film without realizing it. We see here the force of expansion of a vigorous society, which is totalitarian in the sense of the integration of the individual, and which leads to involuntary behavior.
Sociological propaganda expresses itself in many different ways--in advertising, in the movies (commercial and non-political films), in technology in general, in education, in the Reader's Digest; and in social service, case work, and settlement houses. All these influences are in basic accord with each other and lead spontaneously in the same direction; one hesitates to call all this propaganda. Such influences, which mold behavior, seem a far cry from Hitler's great propaganda setup. Unintentional (at least in the first stage), non-political, organized along spontaneous patterns and rhythms, the activities we have lumped together (from a concept that might be judged arbitrary or artificial) are not [64/65] considered propaganda by either sociologists or the average public.
And yet with deeper and more objective analysis, what does one find? These influences are expressed through the same media as propaganda. They are really directed by those who make propaganda. To me this fact seems essential. A government, for example, will have its own public relations, and will also make propaganda. Most of the activities described in this chapter have identical purposes. Besides, these influences follow the same stereotypes and prejudices as propaganda; they stir the same feelings and act on the individual in the same fashion. These are the similarities, which bring these two aspects of propaganda closer together, more than the differences, noted earlier, separate them.
But there is more. Such activities are propaganda to the extent that the combination of advertising, public relations, social welfare, and so on produces a certain general conception of society, a particular way of life. We have not grouped these activities together arbitrarily--they express the same basic notions and interact to make man adopt this particular way of life. From then on, the individual in the clutches of such sociological propaganda believes that those who live this way are on the side of the angels, and those who don't are bad; those who have this conception of society are right, and those who have another conception are in error. Consequently, just as with ordinary propaganda, it is a matter of propagating behavior and myths both good and bad. Furthermore, such propaganda becomes increasingly effective when those subjected to it accept its doctrines on what is good or bad (for example, the American Way of Life). There, a whole society actually expresses itself through this propaganda by advertising its kind of life.
By doing that, a society engages in propaganda on the deepest level. Sociologists have recognized that, above all, propaganda must change a person's environment. Krech and Crutchfield insist on this fact, and show that a simple modification of the psychological context can bring about changes of attitude without ever directly attacking particular attitudes or opinions. Similarly, MacDougall says: "One must avoid attacking any trend frontally. It is better to concentrate one's efforts on the creation of psychological conditions so that the desired result seems to come from them naturally." The modification of the psychological climate [65/66] brings about still other consequences that one cannot obtain directly. This is what Ogle calls "suggestibility"; the degree of suggestibility depends on a man's environment and psychological climate. And that is precisely what modifies the activities mentioned above. It is what makes them propaganda, for their aim is simply to instill in the public an attitude that will prepare the ground for the main propaganda to follow.
Sociological propaganda must act gently. It conditions; it introduces a truth, an ethic in various benign forms, which, although sporadic, end by creating a fully established personality structure. It acts slowly, by penetration, and is most effective in a relatively stable and active society, or in the tensions between an expanding society and one that is disintegrating (or in an expanding group within a disintegrating society). Under these conditions it is sufficient in itself; it is not merely a preliminary sub-propaganda. But sociological propaganda is inadequate in a moment of crisis. Nor is it able to move the masses to action in exceptional circumstances. Therefore, it must sometimes be strengthened by the classic kind of propaganda, which leads to action.
At such times sociological propaganda will appear to be the medium that has prepared the ground for direct propaganda; it becomes identified with sub-propaganda. Nothing is easier than to graft a direct propaganda onto a setting prepared by sociological propaganda; besides, sociological propaganda may itself be transformed into direct propaganda. Then, by a series of intermediate stages, we not only see one turn into the other, but also a smooth transition from what was merely a spontaneous affirmation of a way of life to the deliberate affirmation of a truth. This process has been described in an article by Edward L. Bernays: this so-called "engineering approach" is tied to a combination of professional research methods through which one gets people to adopt and actively support certain ideas or programs as soon as they become aware of them. This applies also to political matters; and since 1936 the National Association of Manufacturers has attempted to fight the development of leftist trends with such methods. In 1938 the N.A.M. spent a half-million dollars to support the type of capitalism it represents. This sum was increased to three million in 1945 and to five million in 1946; this propaganda paved the way for the Taft-Hartley Law. It was a matter of "selling" the American economic system. Here [66/67] we are truly in the domain of propaganda; and we see the multiple methods employed to influence opinion, as well as the strong tie between sociological and direct propaganda.
Sociological propaganda, involuntary at first, becomes more and more deliberate, and ends up by exercising influence. One example is the code drawn up by the Motion Picture Association, which requires films to promote "the highest types of social life," "the proper conception of society," "the proper standards of life," and to avoid "any ridicule of the law (natural or human) or sympathy for those who violate the law." Another is J. Arthur Rank's explanation of the purpose of his films: "When does an export article become more than an export article? When it is a British film. When the magnificent productions of Ealing Studios appear in the world, they represent something better than just a step forward toward a higher level of export...." Such films are then propaganda for the British way of life.
The first element of awareness in the context of sociological propaganda is extremely simple, and from it everything else derives. What starts out as a simple situation gradually turns into a definite ideology, because the way of life in which man thinks he is so indisputably well off becomes a criterion of value for him. This does not mean that objectively he is well off, but that, regardless of the merits of his actual condition, he thinks he is. He is perfectly adapted to his environment, like "a fish in water." From that moment on, everything that expresses this particular way of life, that reinforces and improves it, is good; everything that tends to disturb, criticize, or destroy it is bad.
This leads people to believe that the civilization representing their way of life is best. This belief then commits the French to the same course as the Americans, who are by far the most advanced in this direction. Obviously, one tries to imitate and catch up to those who are furthest advanced; the first one becomes the model. And such imitation makes the French adopt the same criteria of judgment, the same sociological structures, the same spontaneous ideologies, and, in the end, the same type of man. Sociological propaganda is then a precise form of propaganda; it is comparatively simple because it uses all social currents, but is slower than other types of propaganda because it aims at long-term penetration and progressive adaptation.
But from the instant a man uses that way of life as his criterion of good and evil, he is led to make judgments: for example, any[67/68]thing un-American is evil. From then on, genuine propaganda limits itself to the use of this tendency and to leading man into actions of either compliance with or defense of the established order.
This sociological propaganda in the United States is a natural result of the fundamental elements of American life. In the beginning, the United States had to unify a disparate population that came from all the countries of Europe and had diverse traditions and tendencies. A way of rapid assimilation had to be found; that was the great political problem of the United States at the end of the nineteenth century. The solution was psychological standardization--that is, simply to use a way of life as the basis of unification and as an instrument of propaganda. In addition, this uniformity plays another decisive role--an economic role--in the life of the United States; it determines the extent of the American market. Mass production requires mass consumption, but there cannot be mass consumption without widespread identical views as to what the necessities of life are. One must be sure that the market will react rapidly and massively to a given proposal or suggestion. One therefore needs fundamental psychological unity on which advertising can play with certainty when manipulating public opinion. And in order for public opinion to respond, it must be convinced of the excellence of all that is "American." Thus conformity of life and conformity of thought are indissolubly linked.
But such conformity can lead to unexpected extremes. Given American liberalism and the confidence of Americans in their economic strength and their political system, it is difficult to understand the "wave of collective hysteria" which occurred after 1948 and culminated in McCarthyism. That hysteria probably sprang from a vague feeling of ideological weakness, a certain inability to define the foundations of American society. That is why Americans seek to define the American way of life, to make it conscious, explicit, theoretical, worthy. Therefore the soul-searching and inflexibility, with excessive affirmations designed to mask the weakness of the ideological position. All this obviously constitutes an ideal framework for organized propaganda.
1 This notion is a little broader than that of Doob on unintentional propaganda. Doob includes in the term the involuntary effects obtained by the propagandist. He is the first to have stressed the possibility of this unintentional character of propaganda, contrary to all American thought on the subject, except for David Krech and Richard S. Crutchfield, who go even further in gauging the range of unintentional propaganda, which they even find in books on mathematics.
Connolly, Paul. National Public Radio, August 17, 2002.
discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1148495
Prejudice in Northern Ireland
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
We like to think of childhood as a time of innocence, but an Irish sociologist reports that three-year-old children are old enough to learn prejudice. Paul Connolly and other researchers at the University of Ulster studied children in Northern Ireland where Catholics and Protestants have battled for generations. They conclude that children absorb their parents' biases almost as soon as they can talk. Paul Connolly joins us now from Belfast.
Mr. Connolly, thanks very much for speaking with us.
Dr. PAUL CONNOLLY (University of Ulster): Hello.
INSKEEP: What prompted you to study this particular aspect of childhood in Northern Ireland?
Dr. CONNOLLY: Well, for a long time here in Northern Ireland we've had anecdotal evidence of people working with young children saying that already by the time children just start preschool they're already exhibiting prejudices and negative attitudes towards each other. What we wanted to do was just have a baseline piece of research, understand are children prejudiced at this age, and if so, in what ways?
INSKEEP: And these are two highly segregated communities, are they not?
Dr. CONNOLLY: They are. The basic picture there in Northern Ireland is you have two main groups, Protestants who want to remain part of Britain, the United Kingdom, and Catholics that would like Northern Ireland to be part of the united Ireland. What you have today is that 75 percent of people live in either a Catholic or a Protestant area, so they live in segregated ways. In terms of schooling 96 percent, nearly all children, go to either a Catholic or a Protestant school. So in many ways, whether it's education, where people live, their social activities, people live in segregation.
INSKEEP: Now you studied children aged three to six. How do you tell if they're prejudiced?
Dr. CONNOLLY: What we've tried to do is to let children speak for themselves, so we chose 352 children randomly across Northern Ireland, and for each one we showed them a whole range of different things, pictures of Orange marches, of Irish dancers, of various things that they see around here in Northern Ireland.
INSKEEP: Before we continue, I want to ask you about the significance of the things you just mentioned. You just said Orange marches. These are Protestant groups marching through Northern Ireland.
Dr. CONNOLLY: Well, in terms of Orange marches, that's where Protestants, that's part of their tradition to march. Orange Order is a religious order, which is a Protestant order, and for centuries now they've marched at various times of the year. And there's been a conflict more recently where the Catholic community has said, "Enough's enough. We don't want Orangemen walking through our areas."
INSKEEP: Irish dancing?
Dr. CONNOLLY: This is a cultural activity which is associated mainly with the Catholic community. Things like language, Irish language and various parts of Irish culture, music and dancing, would be all symbols which traditionally have been associated with the Catholic community. And we show them a whole range of things. That was just one thing we showed them. We showed them different flags, the Irish tri-color flag and the British Union Jack, pictures of police Land Rovers. And interestingly, at the age of three, Catholic children were twice as likely to say, "We don't like the police," than Protestant children, which is a significant finding because the police force here has always been seen as a Protestant police force there to maintain the dominance of Protestants over Catholics.
Also, Catholic children were much more likely to say, "I didn't like Orange marches" than Protestant children. And also at the age of three, Catholics went for the Irish tri-color flag and Protestants went for the British Union Jack. So a very early age, they're already picking up the cultural habits of their families and communities.
And what we found beyond that was really beyond the ages of five and six, they were much more likely to identify with one community over the other, to see themselves actually as Catholic or Protestants. And by the age of six, one in five children actually made what we call sectarian statements--negative statements about the other side.
INSKEEP: Let me read a couple of those statements. I'm looking at a copy of your study here, Paul Connolly.
Dr. CONNOLLY: Yes.
INSKEEP: There's a Catholic girl, age six, who said, among other things, "They're Protestants and they're bad because they want to kill Catholics."
Dr. CONNOLLY: Yeah.
INSKEEP: There's a Protestant girl, age four here, who says, "Catholics are the same as masked men. They smash windows."
Dr. CONNOLLY: Those types of negative statements were less likely to be found amongst the three- and four-year-olds, but the other interesting fact is that the prejudice jumped up at the ages of five and six, and that's the first two years of compulsory schooling here in Northern Ireland. And remember, 96 percent of schools are either Catholic or Protestant, and what we argue really is that schools indirectly, by virtue of being segregated, encourage this type of stereotyping and ignorance.
INSKEEP: I'm also curious to learn if you've found any difference between the biases of Catholics and Protestants, since each group is clearly in a different situation in Northern Ireland.
Dr. CONNOLLY: Interestingly we found that there were no overall differences. That Catholic children were as likely to be prejudiced as Protestant children. The differences we did find was in terms of gender. That boys were much more likely to make negative comments than girls; and also in terms of social class, that children from sort of manual working-class backgrounds were more likely to make negative sectarian comments than those from middle-class backgrounds. Our argument really in this whole study is that if we're gonna do something positive to try and change attitudes, we need to be doing it in the preschool age, because by the time they're 10 or 11, my view is that their attitudes are already set in stone. You're gonna have a very difficult time trying to change people's awareness and so on. We need to get there much younger.
INSKEEP: What can you do for them at an earlier age?
Dr. CONNOLLY: Well, what we argue in the report is that if this is a very formative time in the early years when children are picking up these attitudes, then we must try and make sure that they have a broader curriculum; that they're able to experience a whole range of different cultures and traditions. They don't just fall into this sort of straitjacket of just preferring their own symbols and so on and not ever understanding or experiencing anybody else's. They need to understand not just there are Catholics and Protestants, but also we have Chinese people here, Asian people, black people, and understand that life is much more diverse and to be celebrated. And we can do that in the early years through nursery and preschool. And certainly by the age of five and six, from our interviews, they're also competent enough to be able to at least start talking about their prejudices. Get them to think about and to understand that actually some of the things they're saying are wrong, and they affect people in bad ways. And children are able to respond positively to that type of approach.
INSKEEP: Dr. Paul Connolly is a senior lecturer in sociology at the University of Ulster in Belfast.
Dr. Connolly, thanks very much for taking the time.
Dr. CONNOLLY: Thank you.