Archive for the ‘Propaganda’ Category
Worth Reading: Countering Violent Extremism: Beyond Words, by Amy Zalman, Ph.D.
Countering Violent Extremism: Beyond Words
by Amy Zalman, Ph.D., EastWest Institute.
Words matter.
Words shape world views. Words provoke action and reaction, which in turn provoke more words. Getting the words right is critically important. Getting the action right is also critically important. And aligning the words and actions is even more important.
Much public diplomacy and other national and international discourse of the U.S. government in recent years has gotten it wrong.
A new policy paper by a Dr. Amy Zalman, published by the EastWest Institute, highlights the mis-steps of the recent past and prescribes solutions for future public discourse.
Dr. Zalman is a senior strategist at Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), where she focuses on trans-culturally astute research for U.S. government clients. She also writes the “About Terrorism” reference website for New York Times online division About.com. She has a Ph.D. in Middle Eastern and Islamic studies from NYU and is highly proficient in Arabic. I met her when we were NYU faculty colleagues.
In reading Dr. Zalman’s assessment of and prescriptions for future public diplomacy I was struck by how much her underlying philosophy aligns deeply with Logos Institute’s own philosophy about communication as an instrument of strategy. And also how her assessment provides valuable insights not only on ways to counter extremism, but also on best practices in strategic communication across a range of disciplines. (more…)
Rumor Control: Keeping Momentum in a Presidential Campaign
Senator Barack Obama yesterday announced an effort to deal with rumors in a timely way, to prevent them from taking hold and throwing his campaign off balance.
He’s right to be so concerned. Rumors can throw a presidential campaign off its game, and provide adversaries, critics, and opponents with a first-mover advantage that’s hard to beat. The last 20 years teach a great deal about the importance of effective rumor control.
The Secret of Quick Response
What Happened? Propaganda
What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception, by Scott McClellan
Almost 20 years ago I was head of communication at a major company, and I spent much of every day speaking with reporters. The deal I had with the CEO was straightforward: “I won’t lie to you; I won’t lie for you; you can’t lie to me.”
At one point my boss lied to me, hoping I would pass the lie on to the press. I called him on it, and he promised not to do it again. Then he did it again. I unknowingly passed the lie on to reporters. They found out, and called me on it. So I quit.
Leaving my job wasn’t a hard decision, even though it was a painful one. Among other things, my wife was pregnant with our first child. And I didn’t have another job to go to. But it was one of the best decisions I’ve made.
Then as now I taught communication ethics in a graduate program at NYU. And one of the perennial questions of communication ethics is: When is it necessary to quit? I don’t suggest that there are easy answers. Every circumstance is a bit different. And it’s a highly personal choice. But there are consequences to making the wrong choice. And we all have to own the consequences of our choices.
Comes now Scott McClellan, in a tell-all book about his time as press secretary for President George W. Bush, that will be published next week. (more…)
The Red Herring of Social Media
While many of us feel comfortable with Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising, something like Pay Per Post (PPP) and Pay Per Vote blogging would probably make us feel quite uncomfortable and could disturb our sense of social media authenticity. Most of us have a blogroll we trust and turn to for wisdom on a regular basis. Could we still trust blog posts if Pay Per Post blogging could potentially corrupt social media?
Because blogs and social media web sites generate a lot of traffic, adopting social media tools has become a magic pill for increasing online rankings and amping up revenues.
But is adopting social media tools a magic pill or a red herring? And is a company that seeks lucrative deals in the black market of social media jeopardizing its reputation and creating mistrust among its stakeholders? (more…)
Worth Reading: What Orwell Didn’t Know
What Orwell Didn’t Know: Propaganda and the New Face of American Politics, edited by András Szántó, Public Affairs Press, 2007.
George Orwell’s seminal essay “Politics and the English Language” noted that precision in language is a reflection of clear thinking. Imprecise language not only reflects weak thinking on the part of the writer or speaker, it causes weak thinking among its audience. Says Orwell:
An effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect in an intensified form, and so on indefinitely. A man may take a drink because he feels himself a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.
But Orwell wasn’t interested merely in being society’s copy editor. He noted the nefarious consequences of debasement of language in the political realm:
Political language – and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists – is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.