Propaganda

The term propaganda comes from the Catholic church’s “Congregatio de propaganda fide” or “Congregation for the Propagation of Faith.” The definition of the word is “information that is spread for the purpose of promoting some cause.” (wordnet.princeton.edu)
An example of propaganda that we talked about in class would be “Triumph of the Will” directed by Leni Riefenstahl in 1934 during the Nazi Party Rally in Nuremberg, Germany. The Nazi party funded the film and during the time that they were in power this film was shown in every theatre in Germany. To the rest of the world a different version with carefully chosen subtitles was spread.
Hitler hired Leni Riefenstahl to direct the film. The money that could be used on this film was unlimited and Riefenstahl had to go through hundreds of thousands of feet of tape to carefully construct the video in order to be the most persuasive in promoting the Nazi party. Entire sets were carefully designed and built for the film and Hitler was filmed separately from the crowds and edited together with other film that would make it seem like what they wanted. The reason for this I believe is the whole bandwagon aspect. When people would view this film they would believe that it was what actually happened in real life and when people see a group of people, especially groups the size shown in the film, there is a tendency to follow the masses.
This was a manipulative and historically significant film that was used to gain support for the Nazi party that was committing enormous atrocities at the time and after the war this film was unavailable throughout Germany for many decades.
Leni Riefenstahl was never a member of the Nazi party and was never charged of any war crimes she died in September 2003 at the age of 101.
This film is a good example of how media can be used to promote a cause weather the cause is good or bad. What can we do to protect ourselves from the negative propaganda that we are exposed to? I believe that to protect ourselves is to learn what propaganda is and what techniques are used so we can recognize propaganda when we see it and instead of just believing what we hear we can research it and find out for our selves what we should believe and not be persuaded into things we would not normally agree with.
And what kind of propaganda are we exposed to as Americans? You can see it on the radio, on TV, (especially during election times) in movies… People can spread propaganda through any type of communication.