ATTENTION CLASS OF 2015!

        As you all know, junior year is coming to an end very quickly and although I am sure you're all ready to relax, we still have some very serious business to take care of. But don't fret, myself and your other English 11 teachers are here to help you get through this! These past weeks we have been talking about your very important final project of the year. Remember, doing  exceptionally well is crucial to ending the year with an excellent grade. This project alone could help your grade greatly. It could even boost your grade a whole letter grade.So, if I was you, I would try my best and put all my effort into this project to end the year strong. It's your final chance to show what you got. So, let's get to it.

Yes, your junior class final project consist of many parts, but today in this post we will be focusing on one of the main topics; propaganda. For this portion of your project you will have to come up with a cause you are for or against.You will then need to  come up with two propaganda pieces that will be used to persuade an appropriate audience as to why they should support or be against your cause. One of your propaganda pieces could be anything you would like. For example, a poster, a billboard, a pamphlet, a radio commercial, or even a blog entry like this one. Your other piece must be a video. Have fun with it. Ask your friends to help you act in your video. You could be the main star or just the director. It's your choice, just make sure both are very persuasive about your cause.

Propaganda, Propaganda, Propaganda... OK, some of you may be asking yourself...

“What is propaganda?”

Well here you have it... Propaganda is
  1. Information, ideas, or rumor deliberately                                                                spread widely to help or harm a person,

                                                          group, movement, institution, nation, etc.

                                                                   (According to dictionary.com)

                                                                2.Propaganda is a form of

                                                        communication aimed towards the attitude of                                                             the community toward some cause or position by presenting only one side of an argument.

                                                      (According to Wikipedia)

 

                      So....

“Why is propaganda important?”

Propaganda can be very important because it can either make or break in this case, for example, your cause. Your audience will either be influenced to agree with you or just simply not really care for your opinion, depending whether you did your propaganda pieces correctly and intelligently, by using the correct techniques .

In the real world, propaganda played a very important role before and during World War II. It helped citizens support the war cause to keep their soldiers supplied and fed. It also encouraged many young men to fight for their country. If it wasn't for propaganda the turnout of the war could have been different. Here are some examples of propaganda during World War II.

Examine these examples closely. Determine what message is trying to be passed on to the audience, who the intended audience is, and what kind of techniques you think are being used in these examples.

                                                            

    Image Analysis

In ex. 1 notice how the woman is dressed in the blue, red, and white stripes and stars of the American flag. Also notice how the words used are very bold to catch the audiences attention. It uses an ethos appeal because it appeals to a person's emotion of wanting to be patriotic. At the bottom is uses the signature which is the U.S Food Administration.

In ex. 2 notice how they use a big image to catch the audiences attention. This ad also uses very big bold letters. He is telling the audience directly “I am telling you..” making the audience feel a personal connection. It ends it with the signature which is W.S.S Enlistment.

In ex 3. It has bold letters and it shows Transfer in that it refers to something bad as “THIS” meaning the image shown in the ad which is a negative picture. It makes an emotional appeal in the audience because no one wants the violence to show in the picture to actually happen in real life.

Now that you have seen some examples of propaganda. We will go into depth and I will further explain some of the main techniques which are used in propaganda.

“ What are Propaganda techniques?”

Methods you will use to spread the ideas that will help you get your audience to agree with your point. “Why do we use these techniques?” We use them to influence your audience's reason and emotions to feel a certain way about your cause.

The Techniques

Name Calling: Uses negative words about a person or thing to try to bring the opposing view or person down.

Glittering Generalities: examples are words like: good, honest, fair, best. This words are irrelevant because they cannot be proved for or against.

Transfer: attempts to make an idea or person look good by making a relation to it with a positive symbol.

False Analogy: 2 things that may be compared that are not similar in reality.

Testimonial: Well known, admired people are used to talk about a product, person, or cause to influence the opinion of the public.

Plain Folk: Uses ordinary people so other people could be convinced to follow the same thing.

Card Stacking: Avoids using negative or unfavorable statistics in the ad or commercial  making it only half true.

Bandwagon: “Monkey see, monkey do!” Because everyone else is doing it you should do it too.

Fallacy: Only two choices are given, eliminating the chance to find an agreement, or common ground.

I encourage you to do additional research on the topic of propaganda to make sure you are well educated to complete and present your projects! These are only just a few of the many advertising techniques that are used in propaganda so go out and find new ones. You will have to use at least 8 propaganda techniques. You will have to use and identify 2 techniques that are listed here! If any of you have any questions don't hesitate to ask me in class or email me! englishIB11jo@gmail.com. Remember you can also ask for feedback while you are completing your assignments!

GOODLUCK TO ALL OF YOU!