Propaganda in the United States
In the United States, propaganda is spread by both government and non-government entities. Throughout its history, to the present day, the United States government has issued various forms of propaganda to both domestic and international audiences. The US government has instituted various domestic propaganda bans throughout its history, however, some commentators question the extent to which these bans are respected.[1]
In Manufacturing Consent published in 1988, Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky argue that the mass communication media of the U.S. "are effective and powerful ideological institutions that carry out a system-supportive propaganda function, by reliance on market forces, internalized assumptions, and self-censorship, and without overt coercion".[2]
Domestic
Politico noted the ineffectiveness of domestic propaganda bans. "Officials get around the restriction on publicity agents by giving public relations staff such titles as “health communications specialist” or they outsource the spinmeister work to private communications firms. During an effort to cut back on PR in the administration of Harry Truman, the Air Force even classified some public affairs officers as chaplains."[1]
Mexican–American War
World War I
The first large-scale use of propaganda by the
The 1915 film
World War II
During World War II, the United States officially had no propaganda, but the
From 1944 to 1948, prominent US policy makers promoted a domestic propaganda campaign aimed at convincing the U.S. public to agree to a
Another means was the United States Office of War Information that Roosevelt established in June 1942, whose mandate was to promote understanding of the war policies under the director Elmer Davis. It dealt with posters, press, movies, exhibitions, and produced often slanted material conforming to US wartime purposes.[12]
Cold War
Propaganda during the Cold War was at its peak in the early years, during the 1950s and 1960s.[13] The United States would make propaganda that criticized and belittled the enemy, the Soviet Union. The American government dispersed propaganda through movies, television, music, literature and art. The United States officials did not call it propaganda, maintaining they were portraying accurate information about Russia and their Communist way of life during the 1950s and 1960s.[14] The United States boycotted the 1980 Olympics held in Moscow along with Japan and West Germany, among many other nations. When the Olympics were held in Los Angeles in 1984, the Soviets did the same as the United States did to them and did not show up for the games. In terms of education, American propaganda took the form of videos children watched in school; one such video is called How to Spot a Communist.[15]
Operation Mockingbird
Operation Mockingbird was an alleged large-scale program of the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) that began in the early years of the Cold War and attempted to manipulate domestic American news media organizations for propaganda purposes. According to author Deborah Davis, Operation Mockingbird recruited leading American journalists into a propaganda network and influenced the operations of front groups. CIA support of front groups was exposed when an April 1967 Ramparts article reported that the National Student Association received funding from the CIA.[16] In 1975, Church Committee Congressional investigations revealed Agency connections with journalists and civic groups.
War on Drugs
There has been an abundant amount of propaganda in the half-century-long "
Between 1971 and 2011, the U.S. spent more than $2.5 trillion fighting the war on drugs. Nixon also dramatically increased the presence of federal drug control agencies, and pushed through measures such as mandatory sentencing and no-knock warrants.[18] The
The
Gulf War
Shortly after Iraq's
Among many other means of influencing US opinion, such as distributing books on Iraqi atrocities to US soldiers deployed in the region, "Free Kuwait" T-shirts and speakers to college campuses, and dozens of video news releases to television stations, the firm arranged for an appearance before a group of members of the
The story helped tip both the public and Congress towards a war with Iraq: six Congressmen said the testimony was enough for them to support military action against Iraq and seven Senators referenced the testimony in debate. The Senate supported the military actions in a 52–47 vote. However, a year after the war, this allegation was revealed to be a fabrication. The young woman who had testified was found to be a member of Kuwait's Royal Family and the daughter of Kuwait's ambassador to the US.[27] She had not lived in Kuwait during the Iraqi invasion.
Iraq War
In early 2002, the
The Shared Values Initiative was a public relations campaign that was intended to sell a "new" America to Muslims around the world by showing that American Muslims were living happily and freely, without persecution, in post-9/11 America.[31] Funded by the United States Department of State, the campaign created a public relations front group known as the Council of American Muslims for Understanding (CAMU). The campaign was divided in phases; the first of which consisted of five mini-documentaries for television, radio, and print with shared values messages for key Muslim countries.[32]
Ad Council
The Ad Council, an American non-profit organization that distributes public service announcements on behalf of various private and federal government agency sponsors, has been labeled as "little more than a domestic propaganda arm of the federal government" given the Ad Council's historically close collaboration with the President of the United States and the federal government.[33] According to the Ad Council official website they aim to make sure advertisements are not as biased and do not harm any individuals.[34] They have a myriad of published press releases and news articles relaying around different topics in the United States.[35] The Ad Council has a goal to change the lives of people through advertisement through various case studies and real stories.[36] This non-profit organization continues to give public service announcements with the hope to relay information without opinion and raise awareness on issues. The Ad Council continues to distribute announcements from the White House regarding all political information and debates.
Smith-Mundt Modernization Act
In 2013, the
Some advocates of repealing the anti-propaganda law did so in the name of "transparency", an approach that The Atlantic called "a remarkably creative spin".[39] Michael Hastings suggested that the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act would open the door to the dissemination of Pentagon propaganda to domestic audiences,[37] while a Pentagon official told Hastings that "'senior public affairs' officers within the Department of Defense want to 'get rid' of Smith-Mundt and other restrictions because it prevents information activities designed to prop up unpopular policies—like the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan."[40]
COVID-19 pandemic
] maintained this was to combat widespread media criticism stating that he failed to act quickly enough to stop the spread of COVID-19.International
Through several international broadcasting operations, the US disseminates American cultural information, official positions on international affairs, and daily summaries of international news. These operations fall under the
During the Cold War, the United States ran
In 2006, The Pentagon announced the creation of a new unit aimed at spreading propaganda about supposedly "inaccurate" stories being spread about the Iraq War. These "inaccuracies" have been blamed on the enemy trying to decrease support for the war. Donald Rumsfeld has been quoted as saying these stories are something that keeps him up at night.[46]
Psychological operations
The US military defines psychological operations, or PSYOP, as:
planned operations to convey selected information and indicators to foreign audiences to influence the emotions, motives, objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of foreign governments, organizations, groups, and individuals.[47]
Some argue that the
There's always going to be a certain amount of bleed-over with the global information environment.[52]
The Pentagon acknowledged in a newly declassified document that the US public is increasingly exposed to propaganda disseminated overseas in psychological operations. But the document suggests that the Pentagon believes the US law that prohibits exposing the public to propaganda does not apply to the unintended blowback from such operations.[53]
Former US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld approved the document referred to, which is titled "
Several incidents in 2003 were documented by Sam Gardiner, a retired Air Force colonel, which he saw as information-warfare campaigns that were intended for "foreign populations and the American public." Truth from These Podia,[56] as the treatise was called, reported that the way the Iraq War was fought resembled a political campaign, stressing the message instead of the truth.[51]
Social media
In 2011, The Guardian reported that the United States Central Command (Centcom) was working with HBGary to develop software that would allow the US government to "secretly manipulate social media sites by using fake online personas to influence internet conversations and spread pro-American propaganda." A Centcom spokesman stated that the "interventions" were not targeting any US-based web sites, in English or any other language, and also said that the propaganda campaigns were not targeting Facebook or Twitter.[57][58]
In October 2018, The Daily Telegraph reported that Facebook "banned hundreds of pages and accounts which it says were fraudulently flooding its site with partisan political content – although they came from the US instead of being associated with Russia."[59]
In 2022, the Stanford Internet Observatory and Graphika studied banned accounts on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and five other social media platforms that used deceptive tactics to promote pro-Western narratives.[60][61][62][63][64][65][66][67] Vice News noted that "U.S. leaning social media influence campaigns are, ultimately, very similar to those run by adversarial countries.",
In October 2022, The Intercept reported that the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) was engaged in "broadening" efforts to counter speech that it considered "dangerous". Geoff Hale, the director of the Election Security Initiative at CISA, recommended the use of third-party information-sharing nonprofits as a “clearing house for information to avoid the appearance of government propaganda.”[69]
The Intercept reported in December 2022 that the United States military ran a "network of social media accounts and online personas", and that Twitter whitelisted a batch of accounts upon the request of the United States government. Whitelisting the propaganda accounts gave them the same privileges of a user with a blue check to increase the reach of their operations.[70][71]
See also
- Black propaganda
- Capitalist propaganda
- CIA influence on public opinion
- Fake news websites in the United States
- Mainstream media
- Media bias in the United States
- Military–entertainment complex
- Military–industrial–media complex
- Operation Earnest Voice
- Operation Mockingbird
- Propaganda of the Spanish–American War
- Propaganda through media
- Shared values initiative
- White propaganda
External links
References
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