Propaganda : 'n historiese kommunikasieproses van belang vir bestuurders van die media

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT:Although most journalists and media managers will deny that they are at all biased,few of the communication messages that are daily spread by the masscommunication media, are neutral. Media people transfer their own politicalorientation, also that of the organisation that they work for, to their reports by meansof their decisions of what news they will present and how they will present it.From the recent past it has become clear that there is a link between thegovernment of the day and how the news is presented, as perceptions that havebeen created of certain events, have changed over time. Journalists have certainpolitical convictions, but even if they try to be objective in spite of these, they areoften insensitive to the fact that they are used by propagandists, who themselveshave a thorough knowledge of the media. Sometimes journalists are knowingly andwillingly involved in such attempts, and sometimes against their will. More often theyare completely ignorant of the fact that they form part of a propaganda attempt,because they do not realise that they are being manipulated. In order to distinguishbetween real news and propaganda in the form of news, it is essential to haveinsight into the nature and origin of propaganda, but especially into the techniquesthat are commonly used.Initially, the word propaganda had a positive meaning, but during the First WorldWar the word increasingly obtained a negative connotation. A century later, the worditself had become almost obsolete, except in reference to the information attempts ofthe opposition. Own campaigns are referred to in eufemistic terms such as newsmanagement and public diplomacy.However, phenomena of propaganda did not disappear. In fact, with the progressin technology since the end of the nineteenth century, the number of communicationchannels available for the transfer of messages have multiplied. This created newmeans of spreading propaganda, especially since the invention of the transistor andlater of television. With the changes in and improvements of mass communicationmedia, the nature and extent of propaganda techniques also changed significantly.The techniques became more sophisticated and new methods of manipulation arecontinuously thought up, so much so that there are currently almost no limit to theways in which propaganda messages are conveyed. When the uses of these techniques, as they are commonly found in media reports, are studied, it is possibleto identify six broad catagories of propaganda.The first category is that where the nature of the contents is obvious, in otherwords, where no further information is required about an issue or a person in order torecognise the technique as propaganda. The second category represents pieces ofpropaganda where further information is required in order to recognise the use of thetechnique, like when somebody tells a lie. Thirdly, there are techniques that can onlybe recognised after a variety of propaganda pieces have been studied and therelation between the contents have been studied, such as when politicians play fortime. The fourth technique is repetition. The fifth category of techniques is based onthe nature of the arguments used by the propagandist, whether these are rational ornon-rational. The last category is based on the intention of the propagandist, forexample whether he wants to create fear or drive a wedge between groups.Knowledge of these different techniques provide a basis according to whichjournalists and media managers will be able to judge news events in order todetermine the propagandistic intention thereof.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University