Deception in Propaganda

Since discussing different forms of deception in Wednesday's class, I wasn't really sure how I could relate it to material outside of class. Looking at my personal experience, like most people, I had been deceived on many accounts before but not so much online. As I've said in pervious posts before, I've never really been exposed to online dating and don't have any interest in ever getting into it. After searching online to find a decent example, I ran into and interesting idea.

I found an article by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. That may sound very strange at first, but it briefly discuses the opening of a new exhibition called State of Deception: The Power of Nazi Propaganda. It discuses the use of deception in Nazi Propaganda to sway the vote in their favor after World War I, and paint the picture of a utopian world. Everyone knows where that propaganda led during the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler. Hitler is quoted in a writing of 1924, "Propaganda is a truly terrible weapon in the hands of an expert." Anyway, this really got me thinking about early forms of deception like propaganda and how effective it was in deceiving those who read it. When we discussed the topic in class, we compared face-to-face deception and online deception. So, what would propaganda be considered? It certainly isn't online, and it really isn't face-to-face either. Also, what form of deception would this Nazi propaganda be considered? There are certainly lies, but there is some concealment as well. The entire truth as to what was really going on is, for the most part, hidden. Something I really want to touch on for my presentation on Friday is a question specifically addressed towards Nazi propaganda. The definition of deception that we talked about on Wednesday, is that the person has to know the information is false. Well, did Adolph Hitler and the Nazis really believe their opinions to be false?

The article also got me thinking about our government today. One of the things mentioned in the article about the new exhibit is that, "This most extreme case study emphasizes why the issue of propaganda matters and challenges citizens to actively question, analyze, and seek the truth." How many of us actually question what our government tells us? Is media a new type of propaganda? Those are difficult questions to answer, but this article does show a bridging of the gap between old and new. Deception on a national scale is very possible, and I hope to bring this interesting thought to class on Friday.