[PUG] How do you fight propaganda?

Satya

Satya

C'est la vie
Retired Staff
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I honestly have no idea. I've watched too many scenes, both here in America and overseas, where propaganda has been effectively used to sway voters to make clearly unreasonable decisions. Education isn't the answer, because education nowadays is propaganda. Clearly truth can't win against propaganda because I've watched honest, fact based campaigns being utterly trashed by appeals to fear and distortion. What can you do?
 
I think what you are doing. Constantly questioning the source of the information. Teaching and inspiring others to as well. Teach people to be critical of the media they consume.

Getting multiple sources of your information. If you get it from one source it may be biased.

Keep asking
 
If you get it from multiple sources that all choose to ignore the same issues it's still biased.
 
This is why a free and open internet is the way forward imho!
 
By questioning the information and reading up on information from different sources that clearly have different motives. Everything is at least somewhat biased of course. That's why its good to look at the different perspectives and then decide for yourself. When it comes to propaganda, looking at the same situation through different eyes can help. And then its up to you to try and figure it out.
 
It's hard to do because we are such an information age and everywhere is news, information and opinions...i,e blogs.

I do have to give it to the few good journalists that risk their lives and reputation to cover the truth. Hence, I tend to watch some american news and mostly euro news...especially the 'no comment' section where there are no narratives...just hard, cold , plain graphic facts on what is going on around the world.
 
Open-mindedness and research.. I agree, the internet.. but I am a bit of an internet junkie... *blushes*

And of course, I agree with Sookie and Fly Away.. question and challenge the sources. :)
 
propaganda by definition is anything meant to sway a view or position. By that definition one must use propaganda to prove another false. Be one side more right than the other or not as long as long as their exists dissent towards one it will exist and can never be eliminated and can return if any new idea abuts an old one. No human is free from bias, ergo propaganda, therefore information given by people is considered propaganda... All one can do is look at more than one source and draw their own conclusions.

In short it's a shit shoot and in this day and society the loudest for the longest seems to win out more often than not and there is very little one can do about it in general but either play into it and ruin it through it's own means or stand firm so long as the stance is applicable and relevant and explain in detail why it was abandoned if it is at a point in the future.

thank you advocacy journalism:m080:
 
krooler said:
This is why a free and open internet is the way forward imho!
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The internet is the greatest distributor of propaganda. So much so that it is difficult to ascertain what is fact and what is falsification.
 
fly away said:
By questioning the information and reading up on information from different sources that clearly have different motives. Everything is at least somewhat biased of course. That's why its good to look at the different perspectives and then decide for yourself. When it comes to propaganda, looking at the same situation through different eyes can help. And then its up to you to try and figure it out.
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I can see through propaganda, my question is how to fight it in the general sense. How do you get the voters to see it is propaganda? For example, in California and Maine, the anti gay marriage groups were able to push through bans on gay marriage by using the fear appeal that homosexuality would be taught in schools. It was a red herring, completely false, and in the case of Maine, the Attorney General provided a statement that allowing same sex marriage in that state would not affect what is taught in schools. However, it was all ineffective against the propaganda. Look at the minaret banning in Switzerland where conservative groups drove up Islamiphobia! The health care propaganda here in the United States portraying things such as "death panels"! It is everywhere! How do you fight it?
 
kavalan said:
In short it's a shit shoot and in this day and society the loudest for the longest seems to win out more often than not and there is very little one can do about it in general but either play into it and ruin it through it's own means or stand firm so long as the stance is applicable and relevant and explain in detail why it was abandoned if it is at a point in the future.

thank you advocacy journalism:m080:
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So you see the problem, how do we fight it?
 
The first thing that springs to mind is getting the gay community our as much as possible to meet people. When people meet people the stigma and miss information tends to fall away.
 
I don't know the complete answer, but I try to maintain a degree of skepticism as a point of principle. Also, developing reasoning skills outside of the context of media information - study of logic, math, contrasting philosophies, etc. builds the tools to scrutinize incoming information. Propaganda tends to rely on certain logical fallacies that evoke fear, and so that skill at least helps one know what to dismiss. This is still no guarantee that one will have access to accurate information.
 
Julia said:
I don't know the complete answer, but I try to maintain a degree of skepticism as a point of principle. Also, developing reasoning skills outside of the context of media information - study of logic, math, contrasting philosophies, etc. builds the tools to scrutinize incoming information. Propaganda tends to rely on certain logical fallacies that evoke fear, and so that skill at least helps one know what to dismiss. This is still no guarantee that one will have access to accurate information.
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Agree. Which means, we still come back to education as the key in this case. If we are not taught the reasoning skills needed to make distinctions when listening to ideas, then it will be easier for us to fall victim to propaganda. Education in itself is not propaganda, it is rather what is taught, and how.
 
I think it is important to rely on science and information for credible sources.
 
Almost everything is propaganda. Even science is not free from false presentation.

The best solution: multiple sources and viewpoints. Read things that you agree with, you don't agree with, you like/don't like, search for the different sides. Understand what drives each story, why each side thinks the way they do, etc.

Really, that's the only way to do it. Nothing can be presented objectively by people -- the only way to achieve some objectivity is to analyze all the different aspects of the subjective.
 
I'll try this one more time.

I don't have a problem noticing propaganda.

What I want to know is how to fight propaganda in the larger sense. How do you fight it within society?
 
Satya said:
I'll try this one more time.

I don't have a problem noticing propaganda.

What I want to know is how to fight propaganda in the larger sense. How do you fight it within society?
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The same way the scientific community is debunking the global warming propaganda, by using facts and the scientific method to disprove the lies.
 
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