Misinformation & Propaganda: Spreading Fear or Manipulating the Audience? - Essay Sample

Introduction

Misinformation and propaganda, are among the concepts widely used in various areas to help spread fear, to the general public. On the contrary, disinformation and misinformation are common ways that highly spread fear among the audience. According to Stanley, (p.289), misinformation can be used in numerous ways, especially with a motif to manipulate and lure the audience to think the way one wants. In the world of politics, the propaganda machine is the back born of the ruling party, especially, in an autocratic government, obsessed with megalomaniac power. On the contrary, the general public is one of the vulnerable tools that is highly targeted by propaganda. Misinformation and disinformation, which has devastating effects. While the three concepts of information mismanagement can be used to pass the agenda, the big question remains to be, why is the audience or the recipient of the misinformation so intrigued by false information. Therefore, the essay will critically elucidate on how the audience is more affected and has developed a more reliable connection between metaphor and reality, and how the spread of misinformation can make the conveyed message more deadly than it might appear.

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Why Humans Are So Susceptible and Vulnerable to Propaganda, Misinformation, and Disinformation

Humans are the most susceptible and vulnerable to disinformation, mission formation and propaganda, due to the degree of the information being instilled on to them. Perhaps the most suitable way of identifying the vulnerability of these elements is through critically analyzing the difference between the three elements and what proper gates each one to be more powerful than a nuclear arsenal.

Propaganda

According to Stanley, (p.291), propaganda is the spread of information with the primary aim of supporting a cause of action. In this case, propaganda does not take into consideration the essence of the authenticity of the information. Through this, true or false information does not have to be authenticated to help set the ball rolling. In most cases, propaganda information does not consider the truth of the matter, but rather focus on the false side. Therefore, propaganda is regarded as false and negative claims. Propaganda is deemed as a one-sided affair, where the author or the source of information does not require critical scrutiny of his or her ideas to be observed under a vigorous assessment process.

Propaganda is a tool widely used in politics, to spread false information to persuade the crowd or the audience to subscribe to your ideology. Propaganda is one of the tools that was widely used in the second world war by the NAZI party to help keep the Germans more robust in the second world war, despite the atrocities conducted by Adolf Hitler (Lande, p.32). The vulnerability of the German community and loyalty to their leaders became the ultimate gateway for propaganda to be used as a tool of misinformation. The world of metaphor is highly accepted and embraced highly as opposed to the adoption of reality. As the world is profoundly affected by the widespread of the COVID-19 pandemic, the propaganda machine seems to be more effective on the obtained and dissemination of wrong information, regarding the pandemic. The spread of wrong information about COVID-19 has made the virus more resilience and dangerous than it appears. Currently, the entire globe is widely threatened by the rapid spread of the virus, and misinformation regarding containing procedure of the virus to help reduce the spread.

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, the Chinese government has become the largest emergency-aid supplier in the globe. While different sources continue to chide the Chinese government, due to the propaganda campaign, the Chinese are conducting in medical supply to help clean their tarnished name (Liu, et al., 213). Through this, the world is slowly being deceived and blindfolded from the effects of the pandemic using the propaganda campaign as a tool.

Misinformation

Misinformation is defined as misleading information, regarding a topic, which occurs due to lack of sufficient research. According to Jerit, Jennifer, and Yangzi, (p.3), misinformation travels far and solid. Perhaps the most misinformed piece of content that circulated the globe like a world fire was the misleading information regarding the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, where different versions of the assassination overwhelmed every corner of the world. Surprisingly, the wrong information was warmly received dozens of countries and the society in general.

A muddle of misinformation has kept resurfacing regarding the COVID-19 pandemic flexing its muscles more on the male gender as opposed to the female. Misinformation regarding gender, the debate has sparked raised eyebrows, as more women are being affected by the pandemic (Bastani, and Bahrami, p.2). One of the debate is highly cantered on the hormones on the female, being capable of fighting against the virus in the body. Therefore, this concept has widely created information distortion, leading to a higher number of infections on the female.

Disinformation

Disinformation is a deliberate falsehood, that is fed to the audience promulgated by design to help conceal the truth. While misinformation may seem to be inaccurate information that may lead to errors. Disinformation is conducted deliberately to help protect the authorities. Therefore, the trust between the authorities and the civilians keeps the designed promulgation thriving, since the authority is more potent as compared to the civilians or other private bodies.

Disinformation is closely related to the propaganda campaign, where false information is circulated to conceal the truth. In this case, the information being conveyed has to saw the audience irrespective of the magnitude of the impact. As a result, the metaphor of the information is widely accepted blindly by the society, with little consideration on the reality of the matter. Moreover, disinformation is first passed to the audience. This concept profoundly affects the receiver or the intended audience, hence making it cumbersome for the reality to be accepted by all means.

Why Is It Often Very Difficult to Correct a Falsehood Once It’s Taken Root in Our Minds?

The twist of false information seeks to satisfy what the audience wants to hear but not what they want to experience. Therefore, propaganda, disinformation and misinformation, take into more significant consideration these concepts to help formulate means and ways through which wrong information will impact the audience positively. In many cases, the positive information conveyed under propaganda, makes the entire scenario appear to be positive. However, this is done under the nose of the public to help formulate cover-ups, that when exposed to the public may cause gradual unrest in the nation.

A falsehood message is difficult to correct once it is rooted in our minds due to numerous reasons. One of the common causes that lead to clinging on the false massages is the tendency of confirmation bias. According to Feldman, once we believe, we strongly tend to cling to the belief no matter the consequences. Through this, we tend to adopt the confirmation bias, a tendency that aims at gathering support on what we believe. At first, we tend to gather necessary supporting information on our pre-existing condition. Secondly, we tend to ignore any disputing message that contradicts our opinion, or as a result, this paves the way for the rooting of falsehood messages.

In the bottom line, the need to gather the information that only supports our opinion becomes the breeding ground for propaganda, misinformation and disinformation to prevail. Through this, it becomes clear that we should not highly depend on first-hand information, without considering multiple disputing sources to help flip the coin on the other side. Disputing sources tend to offer detailed information, which may be used as a way of evading falsehood information.

Work's Cited

Bastani, P., and M. A. Bahrami. "COVID-19 Related Misinformation on Social Media: A Qualitative Study from Iran." Journal of Medical Internet Research (2020).

Feldman, David. "Why Do People Believe Things That Aren'T True?". Psychology Today, 2017, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/supersurvivors/201705/why-do-people-believe-things-aren-t-true. Accessed 21 Apr 2020.

Jerit, Jennifer, and Yangzi Zhao. "Political misinformation." Annual Review of Political Science (2020).

Lande, Nathaniel. Spinning History: Politics and Propaganda in World War II. Skyhorse Publishing, Inc., 2017.

Liu, Wei, Xiao-Guang Yue, and Paul B. Tchounwou. "Response to the COVID-19 Epidemic: The Chinese Experience and Implications for Other Countries." (2020): 2304.

Stanley, Jason. "Precis of How Propaganda Works." THEORIA. Revista de Teoria, Historia y Fundamentos de la Ciencia 31.3 (2016): 287-294.