Truth to Tell

Flashmob for Truth

by Master Steve Rapport, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic

It's long past time to shake free from propaganda and disinformation. This requires large-scale, sustained, cooperative efforts.

Some Western democracies are massively expanding education in media literacy, critical analysis, rhetoric, and civics. This is occurring most where people feel the looming threat of invasion, such as among nations in Europe. These civic leaders are seriously boosting education to enhance the ability of adults, youth, and children to discern and assess reality.

Ever-increasing is the need to identify and counter dishonest politicians. Autocrat-propagandists routinely berate us with a fearfully absurd mixture of lies and partial truth. Their systematic, persistent distortions become exhausting and impact both our thinking and priorities–to change personal belief systems and actions.

With voters heading to the polls in the United States, for what's likely the nation's most consequential election, many of us continue to wish for more effective countering of those unprincipled politicians, who continuously exploit the freedoms of democracy.

We surely need more than warnings or naive repetition of the "flood of falsehoods," as one media outlet chose yesterday to headline its own lame critique–which largely amplified a politician's lies and dangerous nonsense.[1] 

Many workable methods for countering propaganda were available much more than a decade ago[2]–when prebunking or other timely actions may have worked. What's realistic now to hope for enough civic leaders, jurists, journalists, editors, educators, or others to advance enough actions for the common good? 

What more can we do to –

* Counter the propaganda processes that spontaneously embed in our daily thinking, actions, and language, to intimately drive our actions?[3]

* Help to develop people's "cognitive skills, technical know-how, emotional self-awareness, and an ability to navigate massive flows of true, false, and irrelevant information via images, texts, videos, and audio clips"?[4]

* Incentivize news, information, other corporate, government, and nonprofit organizations to become better equipped to take a pivotal role in combating propaganda and disinformation?

* "Regulate the social media recommendation algorithms"?[5]

* Criminalize lies "intended to cause serious harm if said harm results"?[6]

It's time to put aside unfounded assumptions that rational explanation will counter the emotions that propagandists exploit in listeners or readers. It's time to more substantially spotlight and more effectively remedy the direct harms that propagandists do to individuals and society.

References

1. CNN (2024), October 4

2. Jacques Ellul (1965), Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes, New York: Knopf, especially pp. 294-296; J. Michael Sproule (1994), Channels of Propaganda, Bloomington, IN: EDINFO Press and ERIC Clearinghouse; J. Michael Sproule (2001), “Authorship and Origins of the Seven Propaganda Devices: A Research Note,” Rhetoric and Public Affairs, 4(1), Spring, pp. 135-143; Marlin, Randal (2013), Propaganda and the Ethics of Persuasion, Peterborough, ON: Broadview; Garth S. Jowett and Victoria O’Donnell (2019), 7th edn, Propaganda and Persuasion, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage [with Nancy Snow as lead author for the recently updated 8th edition]

3. Ellul, p. 64; Rodney G. Miller (2024), Get Ahead of Propagandists: Countering Disinformation, Albany, NY: Parula, pp. 56-61; also, Word to the Wise blog (2024), Going Forward, February 4, https://communicator.rodney-miller.com/2024/02/going-forward.html

4. Jannie Lilja, Niklas Eklund, and Ester Tottie (2024), "Civic Literacy and Disinformation in Democracies," Social Sciences, 13, 405, pp. 12-13, https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci13080405

5. John Grönvall (2023), "Fact-checkers and the News Media: A Nordic Perspective on Propaganda," Nordic Journal of Media Studies, 5(1), pp. 134-153, at p.151, https://doi.org/10.2478/njms-2023-0008

6.  Druzin, Bryan H. and Jessica Li (2010), “The Criminalization of Lying: Under What Circumstances, If Any, Should Lies Be Made Criminal?” The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology (1973-), 101(2), pp. 571-572,

https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?httpsredir=1&article=7396&context=jclc; Miller, p. 52; also, Word to the Wise blog (2024), Deflection and Deterrence, February 26, https://communicator.rodney-miller.com/2024/02/deflection-and-deterrence.html