Propaganda model of mass communication
Propaganda model of mass communication
See consent, manufacture of.
Property: intellectual property See culture:
copyrighting culture.
Propinquity A signifi cant determinant of group
membership, propinquity is liking through prox-
imity; when people are close together physically
there is a strain towards amicability which aids
group formation, more reliably than with physi-
cally distant persons. See groups.
Propp’s people In a study of Russian folk tales,
Vladimir Propp classifi ed a range of stock char-
acters identifi able in most narratives (see his
Morphology of the Folk Tale published in 1968
by the University of Texas Press). These may
be individualized by being given distinguishing
character traits, but they are essentially func-
tionaries enabling the story to unfold. Propp
describes a number of archetypal story features:
the hero/subject whose function is to seek; the
object that is sought; the donor of the object; the
receiver, where it is sent; the helper who aids the
action; and the villain who blocks the action.
Thus in one of the world’s best-known folk
tales, Red Riding Hood (heroine) is sent by
her mother (donor) with a basket of provisions
(object) to her sick granny (receiver) who lives in
the forest. She encounters the wolf (villain) and
is rescued from his clutches – and his teeth – by
the woodman (helper).
Th is formula can be added to and manipulated
in line with the requirements of the genre, but it
does allow us to diff erentiate between story level
and meaning level, between the denotive and
the connotive, between the so-termed mimetic
plane (the plane of representation) and the semi-
osic plane (the plane of meaning production).
See codes of narrative.
Prosodic signals Timing, pitch and stress of
utterances to convey meaning.
Proxemics See spatial behaviour.
PR: Public relations See public relations
(pr).
PSB (Public Service Broadcasting) See
public service broadcasting (psb).
Pseudo-context In his sharply critical assess-
ment of the impact of TV on society, in Amusing
Ourselves to Death (Methuen, 1986), American
author and communications professor Neil
Postman says of a pseudo-context that it is
‘a structure invented to give fragmented and
irrelevant information a seeming use’. However,
the pseudo-context offers us no useful func-
tion for the information in terms of action,
problem-solving or change. TV is the culprit in
this fragmenting process. All that is left for whatworld of sport, aims to create in the public mind
a favourable impression; this might be termed
white propaganda. In contrast, propaganda
that sets out to create in the public mind a bad
impression – of other countries, for example, or
other ethnic groups, foreigners, asylum seekers
and minorities, defi ning them as ‘enemy’ – might
be termed black propaganda.
Garth S. Jowett and Victoria O’Donnell in
Propaganda and Persuasion (Sage, 1999) identify
three forms of propaganda: white, black and
grey. ‘White propaganda comes from a source
that is identifi ed correctly, and the information
in the message tends to be accurate ... Although
what listeners hear is reasonably close to the
truth, it is presented in a manner that attempts
to convince the audience that the sender is the
“good guy”.
‘Black propaganda on the other hand,’ explain
the authors, ‘... is credited to a false source and
spreads lies, fabrications and deceptions. Black
propaganda is the “big lie”, including all types of
creative deceit.’ disinformation would be an
example of black propaganda. Grey propaganda
lies ‘somewhere between white and black. Th e
source may not be correctly identifi ed, and the
accuracy of the information is uncertain’.
Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber in Weap-
ons of Mass Deception: Th e Uses of Propaganda
in Bush’s War on Iraq (Constable & Robinson,
2003) write, ‘Whereas democracy is built upon
the assumption that “the people” are capable of
rational self-governance, propagandists regard
rationality as an obstacle to efficient indoc-
trination. Since propaganda is often aimed at
persuading people to do things that are not in
their own best interests, it frequently seeks to
bypass the rational brain altogether and manipu-
late us on a more primitive level, appealing to
emotional symbolism.’
Th e authors talk of ‘corporate spin doctors,
think tanks and conservative politicians’ who
have ‘taken up the rhetoric of fear for their
own purposes’. See advertising; consent,
manufacture of; demonization; effects
of the mass media; lobbying; news: rage
inducement; psyops; public relations
(pr); rhetoric; radio ‘shock-jocks’. See also
topic guide under language/discourse/
narrative.
▶David Miller, ed., Tell Me Lies: Propaganda and
Media Distortion in the Attack on Iraq (Pluto Press,
2003); Garth S. Jowett and Victoria O’Donnell,
Propaganda and Persuasion: New and Classic Essays
(Sage, 2006); Noam Chomsky & Gilbert Archer,
Perilous Power (Penguin, 2007).