C445  Media, Culture, and Politics

Topic:  War Propaganda

Spring 2009

 

Professor:        Robert Ivie, rivie@indiana.edu

Office:             Room 247, 800 East Third Street

Office Hours:  MW by appointment

 

This course examines war propaganda in the American past and present.  It considers forms, themes, and strategies of war propaganda, the history of war propaganda (including the war on terror), the role of media, and the impact of war propaganda on democratic culture. 

 

Required Books

 

Nicholas Jackson O’Shaughnessy, Politics and Propaganda:  Weapons of Mass Seduction (Ann Arbor:  University of Michigan Press, 2004).

 

Robin Andersen, A Century of Media, A Century of War (New York:  Peter Lang:  2006).

 

Class Schedule

 

Unit I:  Definition, Structure, Process

 

What is war propaganda, and how does it work in a hyper-symbolic state, as exemplified by the war on terror?

 

“Since propaganda as the rhetoric of enmity aims to persuade people to kill other people, others must be demonised in a denial that we share a common humanity . . . .”       (O’Shaughnessy, Politics and Propaganda, p. 110)

 

Note:  Class meetings in Unit I will be organized around the following schedule of readings from O’Shaughnessy, Politics and Propaganda.  Please complete the designated reading for a given class prior to the beginning of that meeting.

 

M 1/12             Introduction to the Course

W 1/14            Defining Propaganda, pp. 1-36

M 1/19            No Class: Martin Luther King Day

M 1/21             Kinds of Influence, pp. 37-62

W 1/26            Rhetoric, pp. 65-87

W 1/28            Myth and Symbolism, pp. 87-109

M 2/2               Dehumanization, pp. 110-140

W 2/4              Hyper-Symbolic State, pp. 172-189

M 2/9               War Propaganda after 9/11, pp. 193-209

W 2/11            Propaganda, Media, and the Iraq War, pp. 210-237

M 2/16             Summing Up, pp. 238-244

W 2/18            Bluebook Examination #1

 

Unit II:  Chronicle

 

A Century of U.S. War Propaganda

 

“What becomes of public culture and the possibilities for humanism when representations of real war, like the fictions [of entertainment media], distance viewers from experiencing emotional empathy or responsibility for war’s victims?”     (Anderson, A Century of Media, A Century of War, p. xxvi)

 

Note:  Class meetings in Unit II will be organized around the following schedule of readings from Anderson, A Century of Media, A Century of War.  Please complete the designated reading for a given class prior to the beginning of that meeting.

 

M 2/23             World War I, pp. xv-xxxi, 3-17

W 2/25            World War II, pp. 19-33

M 3/2               Korea and Vietnam, pp. 35-65

W 3/4              Latin America, pp. 69-117

M 3/9               Latin America continued, pp. 119-152

W 3/11            Persian Gulf, pp. 155-194

M 3/16            No Class Spring Break

W 3/18            No Class Spring Break

M  3/23            9/11, pp. 197-226

W 3/25            Iraq, pp. 227-257

M 3/30             Iraq continued, pp. 259-300

W 4/1              Summing Up, pp. 301-317

M 4/6              Bluebook Examination #2

 

Unit III:  Critique

 

War Propaganda Analysis

            “. . . propaganda is most effective when it is least noticeable.”  (Snow, Information War, p. 22).

 

W 4/8              Media Management, Information Dominance, and Public Diplomacy

M 4/13             Alternative Narratives, Other Perspectives

W 4/15            Analyzing the Demonizing Mythos of U.S. War Propaganda

M 4/20            Student Propaganda Critiques:  Panel Discussion Group 1

W 4/22            Student Propaganda Critiques:  Panel Discussion Group 2        

M 4/27            Student Propaganda Critiques:  Panel Discussion Group 3

W 4/29            Student Propaganda Critiques:  Panel Discussion Group 4

 

Graded Assignments:

 

  1. Two in-class essay examinations.  Each exam counts 25% of the course grade.  Bluebooks will be provided in class. 

 

  1. Propaganda critique consisting of a panel discussion and paper.  The combined weight of this assignment is 25% of the course grade.  The paper is due in class on the day of the panel discussion.  The paper length should be 1,000 – 1,250 words.  Each student’s panel-discussion participation should consist of a 4-5 minute initial presentation plus one or two follow-up contributions to the discussion.

 

  1. Class attendance counts 25% of the course grade. 

 

This grade is determined by the number of classes attended.  No absence is excused.  Consistent with university policy on holy days and holidays, reasonable accommodation will be made when a student must miss an exam or presentation because of a required religious observance, but only if the student informs me of such conflicts at the beginning of the semester so that appropriate accommodations can be made.

 

Grading scale for attendance:

 

A = attend all or all but one class; A- = all but two; B+ = all but three; B = all but four; B- = all but five; C+ = all but six; C = all but seven; C- = all but eight; D+ = all but nine; D = all but ten; D- equals all but eleven; F = all but 12 or more.

 

Note:  to receive credit for attendance, students must arrive by the time class begins and not leave before it ends.

 

Recommended for Further Reading

 

Jacques Ellul, Propaganda:  The  Formation of Men’s Attitudes (1968; New York:  Vintage Books, 1973).

 

Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent:  The Political Economy of the Mass Media (New York:  Pantheon Books, 1988).

 

Garth S. Jowett and Victoria O’Donnell,  Propaganda and Persuasion,  4th ed.  (Thousand Oaks, CA:  Sage, 2006).

 

Garth S. Jowett and Victoria O’Donnell, ed.,  Readings in Propaganda and Persuasion  (Thousand Oaks, CA:  Sage, 2006).

 

Yahya R. Kamalipour and Nancy Snow, ed., War, Media, and Propaganda:  A Global Perspective  (Lanham, Maryland:  Rowman & Littlefield, 2004).

 

Deepa Kumar.  “Media, war, and propaganda: Strategies of information management during the 2003 Iraq War,” Communication & Critical/Cultural Studies 3.1 2006 48-69.

 

Sam Keen, Faces of the Enemy (San Francisco:  Harper & Row, 1986).

 

Douglas Kellner.  From 9/11 to Terror War:  The Dangers of the Bush Legacy (Lanham, Maryland:  Rowman & Littlefield, 2003).

 

Harold D. Lasswell, Propaganda Technique in World War I (1927; Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1971).

 

Scott McDonald.  Propaganda and Information Warfare in the Twenty-First Century: Altered Images and Deception Operations.  London: Routledge, 2007.

 

Shawn J. Parry-Giles, The Rhetorical Presidency, Propaganda, and the Cold War, 1945-1955 (Westport:  Praeger, 2002).

 

Nancy Snow, Information War (New York:  Seven Stories Press, 2003).

 

Norman Solomon, War Made Easy (Hoboken, NJ:  John Wiley & Sons, 2005).

 

J. Michael Sproule, Propaganda and Democracy:  The American Experience of Media and Mass Persuasion (Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 1997).

 

Philip M. Taylor, Munitions of the Mind: A History of Propaganda from the Ancient World to the Present Day, 3rd ed. (Manchester:  Manchester University Press, 2003).

 

 

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