Mass propaganda in the war against bigotry.

Abstract

A :TEMPTS at mass persuasion are not new. Mass persuasion has figured in religious, political, and social-economic contexts for centuries, reaching pinnacles of effectiveness in revolutionary and counter-revolutionary movements; and-especially in the United States-even in commercial advertising. It is not strange, then, that those who look upon attitudes and acts of bias against ethnic groups in our population as a grievous social ill should turn to mass propaganda as an antidote. And so millions of leaflets, pamphlets, cartoons, comic . books, articles-and more recently radio and movie scripts -have been produced and disseminated in the propaganda war against bigotry.The aims of such propagandausually implicit-would seem to be: (i) the restructuring of the attitudes of prejudiced individuals, or at least their neutralization; (2) the restructuring of group values toward intolerance; (3) the reinforcement of attitudes of those already committed to a democratic ideology perhaps by creating an illusion of universality or victory; (4) the continued neutralization of those whose attitudes are yet unstructured and who are deemed " safer" if they remain immune to symbols of bias; and (5), while accomplishing all of these aims, also offsetting the counter-symbols of intolerance.' But since so many people of goodwill have chosen mass propaganda as the most economical, efficient, and speedy way of reaching and persuading 140,000,000 Americans, it is at least pertinent to inquire whether this approach is-or can be-effective.

The effect of induced aggressiveness on opinion change.

“…If this did occur, a socially relevant, cathartic use of mass media can be conceived. Another implication is that the effectiveness of communications ordered on a leniency-aggressiveness dimension may be influenced by the immediately prior and consequent communication context (8).…”

RETRACTED ARTICLE: The “Default Hypothesis” Fails to Explain Jewish Influence

“…Flowerman brought together a network of Jewish intellectuals and social scientists, many with prominent positions in universities and the media (at a time when the Hollywood studios, all the American television networks, and influential newspapers [e.g., the New York Times and Washington Post] were owned by Jews). This effort was aimed at dominating American mass communications in order to "actively reshape ingroup standards-thus reforming peer group pressures to become antagonistic to ingroup ethnocentrism"; it was "an extensive Jewish joint enterprise in which the unlocking and alteration of White American public opinion was the goal (Joyce, 2019: 6, 11; see, e.g., Flowerman, 1947).…”

Methodology in Propaganda Research.

“…While the difficulties of obtaining action criteria of propaganda effect are appreciated, it seems that in many experiments the question has not even been raised. Flowerman's (18) article suggests a number of measures in addition to attitude that might serve as useful dependent variables.…”